RSSWhat Apple will not be delivering on Friday with its iPhone 3G S
By Tim Conneally | Published June 18, 2009, 1:17 PM
If you're an Apple fan, you could also be a ritualistic line-waiter. Cupertino metes out the information, and the rumor mills churn like crazy, causing people to queue up, sometimes completely spontaneously, in hopes of receiving something new and brilliant from the Infinite Loop.
Tomorrow morning, all 211 US Apple Stores and more than 2,200 AT&T corporate stores will begin slinging the new iPhone 3G S to customers eagerly waiting to sink their teeth into a juicy new Apple phone. But if you aren't one of the thousands of pre-order customers, you might want heed the pundits' chants of "evolutionary, not revolutionary," and sleep in your own bed tonight instead of on the sidewalk. Here's why:
The iPhone 3G S will deliver none of its most compelling features tomorrow.
It is promised to be "The Fastest iPhone Ever." Yes, this is true, it has the most powerful processor yet on any of Apple's devices (600 MHz processor and 256 MB of RAM versus 412 MHz and 128 MB RAM), but Apple's claims of sprightliness take into account the 7.2 Mbps HSPA upgrade, which relies on the readiness of AT&T's network to deliver increased speed.
AT&T only announced the HSPA network upgrade last month, which involved adding more than 2,100 new cell sites. It did not specify where these speed boosts would take place, but the company has two known test deployments so far, and said it would be expanding into 20 markets this year. Faster network coverage will only affect a small number of users right away.
And AT&T's impact on the device does not stop there, as two more banner features will not be available tomorrow: MMS and tethering. Even though AT&T bumped up many of its customers' eligibility for a reduced-price upgrade, it has crippled one fifth of the device's new features. Furthermore, they're not even exclusive features to the 3G S. Like many of the remaining features which Apple advertises for the 3G S, they were made available to 3G owners with yesterday's iPhone 3.0 update.
Voice Control, Cut/Copy/Paste, Landscape Keyboard, Spotlight Search, Voice Memo, YouTube, and Stocks: all of these are available for free right now. Only the one megapixel camera upgrade, addition of a magnetic compass, the ability to shoot 30 fps VGA video, and Nike iPod integration have been added.
Thus far, reviewers have found no perceptible difference in call quality or signal reception. The ability to use the iPhone as a USB storage device is still not present, nor is multitasking. If the remaining features -- plus a promised extension to battery life -- are worth between $199-$499 (smallest subsidized price to largest unsubsidized price) to you, then we'll see you in line tomorrow morning.
$199-$499 which is a complete ripoff when the device is manufactured in communist china for probably under $50 worth of parts. F**k Apple... selling another overpriced toy to keep the dumb stupid sheeple pacified, while the economy collapses...
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|Gee, here is another negative headline about Apple. Why not just have every story cut to the chase and say..."We take Microsoft money to make a positive spin on everything Microsoft does and paint Apple, Google, Palm, and others with a negative tone"?
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|Yeah...because we've *never* had stories on this site about Vista's Black Screen of Death, or IE8's slowness in comparison to just about *any* other browser on the market, or security updates...
Levy didn't post an entire tirade on why Windows sucks....
...and of course, they *never* talk about Safari's speed boosts....or how Google provided better results in their recent tests...
Nice selective reality, genius.
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|Whether with the 3G S, or the 3G, iPhone users have access to a wealth of very useful applications in the app store. Take Shoofa DC for example - it provides access to food and drink promotions in the Washington DC metro area, effectively saving residents and visitors tons of money.
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|More than the cost of the phone and data plan?
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|In the past few weeks, a couple of people I know have delighted in showing off their new iPhone apps to me.
One guy had an app which mimicked the sound effect of the "Light Saber" weapon from the Star Wars movies when he waved the phone around in the air. And another guy had one which mimicked the sounds of wild bird calls. Both these people were grown men who were really pleased with their apps and had actually paid for them.
I think Apple is doing a fabulous job of being able to identify and target its market, don't you ?
And, for the record, I'm still using my indestructible LG VX8300 from three years ago and have been out of contract with Verizon since February.
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|He who dies with the most apps wins. ;)
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|I believe you mean MMS. SMS has been available on the iphone since the beginning.
Also, Voice Control works exclusively with the iPhone 3G S, and therefor is not "available for free right now."
Nice work, Tim. This truly is beta news.
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|Voice Control is available on the 3GS only if I'm not mistaken, it was not rolled out yesterday. Also, its not quite fair to say Apple won't be delivering tomorrow. Its more like AT&T won't be delivering.
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|Not that I'd ever recommend this device to anyone, you *can* enable MMS and tethering while you wait for AT&T to allow these basic features already in use by 90% of the cell-phone market:
http://lifehacker.com/52...d-mms-on-your-iphone-30
As the article states, be warned. You are likely playing with fire.
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|voice control is only on 3G-S, voice memo's is a new app that is 3.0 for all iPhones.
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|Did you mean to reply to me?
Hope not...
I really couldn't care less. No...really.
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