For those who haven’t known me for a while, you may not know that before going nomadic I used to be the Director of Competitive Analysis for Palm (the maker of the Pilot, Tungsten, and Treo) and PalmSource (the Palm OS operating system spinoff).
It used to be my job to literally dissect every worthwhile mobile gadget in existence, and I typically carried multiple smartphones in my pockets with cell phone plans from every major carriers.
Imagine the looks I used to get going through airport X-Rays… (vintage 2004 tech)
I sometimes miss getting paid to play with so many cool toys, but I don’t miss the endless juggling and constant shifting from one device to the next.
Now I get to pick just one.
For the past two years, my choice has been the original iPhone.
The great leap forward in user interface that the iPhone represented left every other mobile device looking like a dinosaur, even my beloved Treo. Once the iPhone was opened up to third party developers, there was no looking back.
The iPhone 3G last year wasn’t enough to lure me into upgrading, though Cherie did happily leave behind Windows Mobile (another dinosaur platform) for one. Most of the new features in the iPhone 3G were added to the original iPhone via a free software upgrade, and the 3G speeds would have only been a compelling enough reason to upgrade if Apple and AT&T had allowed tethering.
Ever since the iPhone launched, everyone else in the mobile industry has been playing catch up – typically with extremely disappointing results. RIM continues to do one thing extremely well (mobile email), but Nokia, Samsung, and Motorola have all been left struggling desperately for a hit.
The only non-Apple phone that is in the same next-generation league as the iPhone is the newly released Palm Pre – a stunning achievement by the Palm team.
The Pre has real multitasking (sorely lacking from the iPhone), “Synergy” data syncing with multiple online services such as FaceBook and Google, and a fabulous UI that in some ways raises the bar even on the iPhone. With a bit more refinement and some third party developer momentum, the Pre will soon be even more compelling.
But not (yet) compelling enough.
Though I was sorely tempted by the Pre’s amazing multitasking abilities and super sweet Synergy, the brand new iPhone 3G S has won me over. We stopped at the downtown Chicago Apple store yesterday to get one:
I was surprised that there were still lines out into the street three days after the iPhone 3G S started shipping. Fortunately we only had to wait 30 minutes before I got mine.
So why did I choose the iPhone 3G S?
- Applications – There are over 50k iPhone applications out now, while the Pre is just getting started and the SDK isn’t even widely available yet. I am an application junky, and I have many daily-use iPhone apps that I can’t imagine being without.
- Compass + Accelerometer + GPS = Augmented Reality – Over the course of the coming year, I expect to see some amazing innovation in this area.
- Tethering – Though AT&T won’t say when they will support it, it is built into OS 3.0, and at least AT&T promises that it is coming. As technomads, the ability to use our phones to get our laptops online is crucial.
- 32 Gigabytes – I used to have a 60GB iPod, and I have felt hampered the past two years trying to cram my media collection into the 8GB capacity of my original iPhone. I am thrilled to once again be able to carry around a decent quantity of music and videos in my pocket. The Pre on the other hand can only hold 8GB.
- Pocket Video Capture – The iPhone 3G S has a very usable 3 megapixel camera, and it at last supports video! I am very much looking forward to having a reasonably decent still / video capture device that I can trust to be always with me.
- 3D Graphics – Before Palm, I used to work in the 3D graphics industry, and I have a fine appreciation for accelerated 3D graphics. Early benchmarks show that the iPhone 3G S is 4x faster than the iPhone 3G when it comes to 3D rendering. Assuming the next iPod Touch (due in Sept) has the same 3D hardware, it will be a killer gaming device indeed. Sony and Nintendo better watch out!
- Future Upgradability – Apple has provided the iPhone 3.0 OS as a free upgrade to iPhone 3G and even original iPhone owners, bringing even the oldest iPhones many of the new non-hardware-dependent features. I expect Apple will continue this trend, and even two years from now the iPhone 3G S will be getting major functionality upgrades. No other phone manufacturers has ever done such a good job continuing to support old hardware. Kudos to Apple!
Canon G9 (left) vs iPhone 3G S (right). Though the Canon is a much more powerful camera, for typical web snapshots the iPhone is at last reasonably good enough to allow leaving larger cameras behind…
In all of these areas, the iPhone 3G S is way ahead of the Pre, and light years ahead of anything else out there.
So far, I am loving the 3G S. It is a beautifully refined and polished product, with all sorts of little details and delights that show the intense attention to quality and detail that Apple is known for.
I have found my new ultimate mobile phone.
What is yours?
Thank you Cherie! That looks perfect for what I need. Far less expensive than the Solio too.
.-= Lillea ´s last blog ..Clicky WordPress Plugin: Better for Web Analytics? =-.
Hi Chris,
I greatly appreciate your reviews and this site!
What do you use to charge your iPhone?
I have the new iPod Touch 32GB and I’m looking to find something that will charge it when I don’t have access to a wall socket, computer or car. ‘Solio’ is often mentioned as an option but I’ve read complaints about it so I’m not sure how good it really is. Also, I live in Canada so I face crazy fees if I order Solio from the US. Canadian suppliers offer Solio, but don’t seem to have the doodads that I might like to buy to go with it. Seems like a costly and potentially risky way to go.
.-= Lillea´s last blog ..Clicky WordPress Plugin: Better for Web Analytics? =-.
Lillea..
Thanks for reading along!
We’re rarely away from a power source – either our own trailer’s solar power or the vehicle – long enough to have come up with much of a solution. However, on the rare occasions we are, we carry aRichardSolo 1200 for iPhone / iPod – External battery pack. It’s enough to top off our batteries when they’re running low and we can get back to a charging source.
– Cherie
Thanks for that review.. iPhone is tempting, but alas no signal at my house near Potosi.. I was on AT&T until a couple months ago with a series of Treo devices (which I loved)…
I’m now on a Sprint (which I have excellent signal at home) Blackberry 8830.. and loving it. But I however certainly miss the touch screen.. I keep on doing all the old habits of touching the screen, and trying to do Alt-commands which translates to Shift key-CAPS on the blackberry… Dangit!!
I really like how you enumerate all the reasons why you chose to upgrade to the new iPhone. Not all of us out there are as knowledgeable or tech-savy to understand the differences. But I wonder, how does the 3G iPhone perform in other countries? Do you have any insight on that subject?
.-= Graham´s last blog ..Biking the City Wall =-.
The iPhone 3G is a world phone, and it will work on the GSM network that you will find just about everywhere. In most countries, you will even get 3G speeds.
The catch though is that the iPhone is locked to AT&T, so you will be paying AT&T’s international roaming rates. There are ways to unlock an iPhone so that it is no longer tied to AT&T (I used my original iPhone on T-Mobile), and then you will be able to use local SIM cards to get cheaper rates while traveling.
– Chris
So that’s where the 3Gs’ were yesterday! None were to be found out here in suburban Chicago, so I placed my order for the white 32GB & hope to see it in a couple weeks.
I’m a semi-technomad and had been pleased with my Verizon coverage and service for years. When the BB Storm came out last year, I wanted so much to move to a full touchscreen smartphone– really liked their HW, but the OS and SW sucked! Endless keypresses and menus to do basic stuff that my aging, limping MotoQ could do faster. I figured I’d wait til the next iPhone release and see if VZN would come out with anything better in the meantime. They didn’t, so Apple/ATT, here I am!
One thing I will be doing though– staying with Verizon for their data plan. I had great coverage last year as I worked/camped from coast to coast via my tethered Q phone. This year, I had planned to get a Cradlepoint router, but now am leaning towards their nifty little MiFi device instead.
I think your and Cherie’s approach of leveraging two cell carriers rather than just one is absolutely the way to go when working on the road (not only for greater coverage options but the extra GBs of bandwidth too).
Happy trails!
p.s. If you and Cherie are still in the Midwest in mid-July, drop in at the International T@B Rally in the Quad Cities July 13-17. About 50 T@Bs will attend and Diane & Jill will be leading the entertainment, so it should be quite a time!
Indead
Howdy all, I’ve been reading your sight for a while now, having come from a posting at TinyHouseBlog.com (I think, it’s been a while) and I’ve really been enjoying your writings.
My first interactions with a smart phone was a Windows Mobile 5 device (HTC Apache, Verizon Branded) and I came to the follow conclusions after reading it: A smart phone is worthless as a phone due to bulky and ackward size, and incredible poor battery life, the applications developed for them are still tring to stick with a keyboard and multibutton mouse interaction philosphy making touch screen interaction completely klunky, and the existing application base is sorely lacking, leaving me with nothing but “outlook in my pocket”, and finally, wireless teleco providers and their plans are nothing but evil and horidly costly. Ever since, I’ve used a very basic phone for the basic function talking. For everything else I use a netbook (used to be an used, ultraportable about 5 years out of date for cost effectiveness).
I can honestly say, that the iPhone is truely a game changer that has completely blown away all of the above expectations. I don’t think I’ll ever get one as my current setup serves my personal need better, and I don’t care for some of Apples + AT&Ts business practices. Still, that G1 is pretty tempting.
“A smart phone is worthless as a phone due to … the applications developed for them are still tring to stick with a keyboard and multibutton mouse interaction philosophy making touch screen interaction completely klunky … leaving me with nothing but ”outlook in my pocket”…”
This is in part how I used to contrast the Palm OS with Windows Mobile. Pointing out just how badly suited Windows Mobile was for “mobile” use used to be one of the easiest parts of my job. 🙂
Personally, I’d be happy with a phone plan that included hardly any voice minutes. To me, my mobile exists to bring the internet to my pocket. I love love love having a great web browser and email always with me.
The iPhone has been a great game changer for the entire mobile industry, and I expect great things in the future as other device and platform makers start to rise to the challenge. Palm has managed to do so with the Pre, and Google’s Android is on the right track and is looking very promising for 2010.
Most of the other phone makers and platforms have been very slow to catch up though. Nokia for example has surprised me with how poorly they have evolved. The iPhone has been shipping for over two years, and yet Nokia’s newest flagship N97 disappoints in comparison.
– Chris