An early adopter of the first generation iPhone, I eagerly anticipated Apple's announcement earlier this summer of their latest and greatest entry into the smart phone market. I passed on the 3G from last year, for a variety of monetary and practical reasons, figuring I might grab the next iteration. In spite of the Reality Distortion Field, I found Apple's announcement of the iPhone 3GS features and capabilities compelling. A couple of people have asked me how I liked the new version, so I thought I'd jot some of my thoughts down here.
Since I'm upgrading from the 1st gen to the 3GS, it should be pointed out that some of these are improvements that came with the second generation (or are available on the first generation with the latest firmware).
FORM FACTORApple has a reputation for designing sleek devices, though I've always thought their obsession with white made their products look practically antiseptic. The 3GS is identical to the 3G in form factor (as far as I know) and really does feel good in my hand. The curve of the back and the plastic make it very "holdable". But, that same curve makes the phone wobble a bit if you try to interact with it while it's resting on a flat surface like a table top or desk (though probably not obnoxiously so). The curved plastic also makes it a bit more slippery; pro-tip: don't rest it in your lap unless you want it crashing to the floor seconds later.
SPEAKERSThe speaker volume is much improved from the first gen, making it more practical to use speaker phone, show a video or song to a friend, enjoy gaming, or any other time when you don't want to wear headphones or have the thing pressed to your ear. The speaker(s) are now covered with a fine wire mesh instead of simply holes in the case, which should help keep dirt and pocket lint out (as well as probably aiding in volume). The one oddity is that covering the speaker in any way (say with your hand while gaming) seriously reduces the ability for it to generate sound (practically muting it). This is difficult to avoid when holding in landscape mode, carrying it in your pocket or purse, etc., and is confounded by the fact that sound only comes from one speaker.
OLEOPHOBIC COATINGA feature that seemingly snuck into the latest hardware without much fanfare is the new oleophobic ["fingerprint resistant"] coating. It actually works better than I would have expected. Although the screen still picks up smudges and fingerprints, it's not nearly as bad as the previous generations which seemingly required a wipe down after every use. For awhile there I thought I really was a greasy stereotype. I find myself having to polish the screen much less frequently, no longer having to stare through old button presses and finger swipes. For an interesting explanation of the technology, see
Bill Nye's explanation at Gizmodo.
GPSThe first generation, which didn't have any GPS hardware, faked it by using information from nearby cell towers and a wireless network if connected. A clever scheme, it worked well enough to be useful if you only needed to know your approximate location. Having real GPS hardware, introduced in the 3G, is really where it's at. Being able to almost instantly have your location pinpointed is undeniably cool (at least for someone like me who doesn't own an in-car nav system or the like). Watching the pulsing blue dot is almost hypnotizing. Plus, since the hardware is available for all applications to use, it can be leverage to do some fun/interesting stuff. As an example: I recently used it to track a nature hike I went on.
COPY PASTEOne of the most requested features finally makes it to the iPhone as of the 3.0 firmware update. It works pretty well, though the copy pop-up can be somewhat intrusive when all you're trying to do is edit text you've entered. It has some oddities though. For instance, you can't select just part of a text message, you only have the option of copying it all. Strange design decision.
UNDO WEIRDNESS
There is an undo function, apparently. I know this because practically every time I pull the phone out of my pocket, it has a message on the screen that says "Nothing to undo". I guess I must be "Butt Undoing".
FORWARD TEXT MESSAGESNot sure when this was added (3.0?) but it's a nice feature to have (finally). Though it's under the "edit" button which seems non-obvious.
GLOBAL SEARCHIt's about time! Introduced with the 3.0 update, you can now swipe right from the first desktop or click the "home" button to access Spotlight for searching the whole phone. It works pretty fast, and searches while you type, bringing up music, applications, safari bookmarks, email addresses, etc., that match your terms. You can also access the search functionality within the e-mail client, but annoyingly, it
only searches e-mail addresses and subject lines. To me, this is practically useless, as the information I need 99% of the time is in the body of an e-mail, not the subject line.
VOICE RECOGNITIONA cool feature that is a long time coming, I think only available on the 3GS. Holding the home button for a few second brings up the voice menu from which you can make a limited number of requests, focused mainly on controlling the phone or the iPod. It's a mixed bag of impressive and fail, varying greatly with what you are requesting and the noise of your environment. For instance, the first time trying it, I asked it to dial a friend of mine, and it got the name right on the first try. It even prompts you to say what phone number (i.e. "mobile", "home", "work") you want to dial if they have multiple entries. Using the iPod is a bit trickier. Often times it would misinterpret what I was asking, and this is due in part to the small vocabulary of the commands. If you don't know the exact command to do something, it will give you strange results. For instance, if you want to hear some Pearl Jam, you have to say "Play Artist Pearl Jam" and not "Play Pearl Jam". There does not seem to be a way to play a specific song, which if an unfortunate omission. In noisy environments, it has worked very poorly for me. Walking outside wearing the supplied headphones on a somewhat windy day, it interpreted mic noise as various different commands, none of which where what I was attempting. Apparently it doesn't work over Bluetooth currently (another odd omission) but will supposedly after the next minor software update. Also, the voice menu closes after every command, which can be annoying if you want to do multiple things (such as ask the artist of the current song, then ask to play something else).
COMPASSIt's a compass. By itself that's nothing to write home about, but it will be very useful in mapping applications and could prove interesting for other applications. I'm waiting for the star gazing apps to use it to really nail down the ability to hold your phone between you and a constellation and identify it.
LANDSCAPE MODE FOR MORE APPSLandscape keyboard works in email and text messages as of the 3.0 update, which has it advantages, and should have been in place from the beginning. Still, I don't know why they don't have a landscape mode for the desktop. It wouldn't have to be complicated, even just rotating the icons in place would be sufficient.
3G AND NETWORK SPEEDIt's hard to say if the 3G antenna, which debuted in the second gen iPhone, is offering much of an improvement. It should be faster than the Edge network, but coverage is spotty. Browsing
feels faster, but I think a lot of that has to do with updates to Safari and the faster processor. I also think that this phone seems a little less tolerant to poor signals. On my first gen iPhone, it seemed like I could get away with sending a text message more often when I barely had a signal. Now, I'm constantly attempting to resend when I'm in a dead zone (which seems to be most of the buildings I'm inside). It feels very "all or nothing" as far as connectivity goes.
TEXT MESSAGINGThe text messaging interface is a little different now when a text can't send. Now it simply marks the text with an exclamation point when it fails. However, it would be nice if this was visible from the home screen (an exclamation point on the Messages icon, for instance, to let you know one or more failed to send).
CLOCKI noticed a slight change to the Stopwatch which now has a lap timer. Don't know when that was included, but it's nice, if you like that sort of thing.
VOICE MEMOSA cool app added in the 3.0 update, it allows you to record and send voice memos. Minimal interface, but it does what it advertises, without a lot of bells and whistles.
CAMERAThe new camera is a nice improvement over the first generation. 3 megapixel autofocus, with a nifty "touch to focus" interface (touch the object on the screen you want to focus on and it does--makes sense). Welcomed, also, is the ability to do macro photography as it was difficult before to take photos of anything relatively close to the camera. This comes in very handy on the iPhone, as I find I'm often photographic product labels or other objects with text, which before came out as a blurry mess.
Video recording is a new feature, one that I can't believe Apple, of all companies, left out in the first two generations. The picture looks good, the frame rate is nice, and the UI is simple and useable. You can do simple cropping of the beginning and ending with a simple scrubber, and you can even upload to YouTube.
STORAGE SPACEI don't have a huge music collection, but even I was constrained by the 8GB of my original phone. The 32GB of the 3GS feels vast... at least until I start filling it with videos of my cat.
BATTERY LIFEAlthough they always tout improved battery life, I'm not seeing one. In fact, my battery seems to run down
faster than my first gen. But I can't make any specific claims as I have done any empirical testing. I have found that gaming eats up the battery quite quickly. Peggle is forcing me to charge my phone more than once a day. I'm not the first to complain, however, and some think that perhaps the 3.0 software has some poor battery management.
HEATThe phone also experiences some heat issues from time to time, mainly when gaming for long stretches, getting noticeably hot to the touch. Again, I do not appear to be alone in noting this.
HEADPHONE JACKAs of the 3G, this is no longer recessed, so any standard headphone will work. It was one of the more ridiculous issues with the first generation.
SPEEDThis is the overall best feature of the new iPhone. My first generation always felt a little sluggish, and I'm happy that this doesn't seem to be the case with the 3GS. Everything is improved by the faster chipset and it's surprising how smoothly the device runs now. Text entry is improved: no more lag. Web surfing is better: pages don't seem to stutter on scrolls (though this may be also improvements to Safari). Apps load and play noticeably faster (particularly games). This is the chipset that should have been including in the first generation, the one that delivers the smooth and quick interface people expect from all the Apple hype.
Overall, I'm extremely happy with the iPhone 3GS, coming from the first generation. It has its quirks, and some odd design decisions in places, but every software revision seems to improve it just a little more. If you have a 3G already it may not be enough of an improvement to warrant the price, but first gen owners who are available for the subsidized price should seriously consider the upgrade for the speed and other niceties included in the 3G and 3GS.
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