"I’ve been testing the iPhone 3G for a couple of weeks, and have found that it mostly keeps its promises."
- My take: Well yes, unless you are talking about the price, or the battery life.
"In particular, I found that doing email and surfing the Internet typically was between three and five times as fast using AT&T’s 3G network as it was with the older AT&T network to which the first iPhone was limited."
- My take: OK, we get it, 3G is faster than EDGE.
"There are two big hidden costs to the new iPhone’s faster speed and lower price tag."
- My take: Isn't this always the case ...
"First, in my tests, the iPhone 3G’s battery was drained much more quickly in a typical day of use than the battery on the original iPhone, due to the higher power demands of 3G networks."
- My take: So after a few hours of use your new shiny bauble is a paperweight ...
"Second, Apple’s exclusive carrier in the U.S., AT&T Inc., has effectively negated the iPhone’s up-front price cut by jacking up its monthly fee for unlimited data use by $10."
- My take: So the 'half the price' stuff is a lie.
"Apple has greatly improved the audio on the new iPhone."
- My take: Something which is pretty important to a phone, don't you think.
"The camera, however, is still bare-bones."
- My take: That's because it's identical to the old camera.
"I ran my own battery tests using the phone’s 3G capability. Although I left the Wi-Fi function on, I didn’t connect it to a network, so the phone had to rely on 3G. In my test of voice calling, I got 4 hours and 27 minutes, short of Apple’s maximum claim and nearly three hours less than what I recorded in the same test last year on the original iPhone."
- My take: Another lie.
"In my test of Internet use over 3G, I got 5 hours and 49 minutes, better than Apple’s claim, but far short of the nine hours I got using Wi-Fi in last year’s tests."
- My take: And another ... still think its keeping those promises?
"More important, in daily use, I found the battery indicator on the new 3G model slipping below 20% by early afternoon or midafternoon on some days, and it entirely ran out of juice on one day."
- My take: So it's more of a morning phone, what's wrong with that?
"This time, though, when the iPhone 3G goes on sale in AT&T and Apple stores, iPhone Mania will be considerably more muted. That’s partly because the mystery is gone, partly because the AT&T service costs more and partly because there aren’t many new features in what Apple is calling the iPhone 3G."
- My take: And as you read that, remember folks, Pogue is a pretty hardcore Apple fan.
"As a handy bonus, 3G means that you can talk on the iPhone and surf the Internet simultaneously, which you couldn’t do before ... There is, however, a catch: you don’t get that speed or those features unless you’re in one of AT&T’s 3G network areas — and there aren’t many of them."
- My take: So check your coverage before opening your wallet ...
"But the iPhone 3G is not really, as Apple’s Web site puts it, 'half the price.'"
- My take: Well spotted!
"The third improvement is audio quality, which has taken a gigantic step forward."
- My take: Was the audio quality really that poor on the first-gen iPhone?
"Unfortunately, there’s not much you can do with the G.P.S. According to Apple, the iPhone’s G.P.S. antenna is much too small to emulate the turn-by-turn navigation of a G.P.S. unit for a vehicle, for example."
- My take: Eh? What's the size of the antenna got to do with turn-by-turn navigation?
"Extra, extra: iPhone 3G: The Sequel, is worth the wait."
- My take: Wow! Calm down there Baig. Maybe you need to go away and read Mossberg's and Pogue's reviews now ...
"It's cheaper, faster and a lot friendlier for business."
- My take: You sure about that 'cheaper' bit?
"But not all of iPhone's early drawbacks have disappeared. You still cannot shoot video, take advantage of Bluetooth stereo or dial with a voice command."
- My take: So it can't do things that almost every other cellphone can? That's revolutionary.
"Meanwhile, for all the hoopla involving AT&T's speedier, third-generation network, I couldn't access 3G in parts of my northern New Jersey neighborhood and elsewhere."
- My take: So if the main feature of the iPhone 3G is 3G, and you couldn't make use of that, why exactly was that worth the wait?
"The design changes aren't merely aesthetic. They're a nod to iPhone's 10 internal wireless radios. Plastic, unlike metal, is transparent to radio waves, improving reception, Apple says."
- My take: Is this a cut-n-paste out of a Star Trek script?
"Apple has improved overall audio quality of the device. The speaker phone sounded better, as did music played directly through the phone's speaker."
- My take: The audio on the original iPhone must have been pretty bad ...
"But I couldn't juice up the latest device using my Bose SoundDock or Belkin car kit. Apple says there will be adapters to permit charging with certain older accessories ... Technical explanation: The new iPhone only supports USB circuitry, not another method known as FireWire."
- My take: So beware, you might need to re-buy accessories ...
Closing thoughts
When it comes to hardware, very little has changed since a year ago when Mossberg, Pogue and Baig were talking about the first-gen iPhone. Back then I wrote:
The battery is not user replaceable so once that starts to feel a bit old the whole phone has to go back to the Apple mothership for repair. There’s no memory card slot, no chat app, no voice dialing, no GPS, no third-party apps, no Java or Flash support, no MMS support.
So, apart from third-party app and a GPS (which according to Pogue suffers from a less than adequate antenna ...), little has changed.
You know, with the iPhone Apple promised us that it would shake up the cellphone market and do things differently. A tear on and what we actually have is Apple really doing what all the other players in the cellphone industry are doing - small incremental hardware upgrades and tie-ins to carriers. In fact, Apple has taken the concept of carrier tie-in to a whole new level, but unfortunately not one that is beneficial to the consumer.
But not to worry Apple, you'll still sell millions ...
