I had a pair of Blueant phones that were pants. But I bought a Sony set about a year ago and they just work. I use them with my MacBook Pro at work and I can hear it perfectly fine about 15’ away from the office.
Sometimes there is an annoying stutter/slowdown but this is usually rectified by toggling the Bluetooth on the Mac. But I’m very pleased with the Sony set that I have.
Just announced that the release will be June 17th.
MMS won’t be available on AT&T until later in the summer. Tethering will be available but not on AT&T for now. Not pleased about that. No other surprises.
I always thought the first iPhone a couple of years ago had a huge number of limitations and was ridiculously overhyped and overpriced. After two years Apple has finally produced a device worthy of the initial hype at a reasonably price point especially with the big improvements in the camera. It’s still not the phone I would buy and probably the Nokia N97 which will be released this month is a better phone. Still this seems like a good device too.
June 17th for the new OS and June 19th for the new hardware.
I love the new features the 3g[s] has, but I am not so blown away that I regret buying my 3g in March. I don’t understand how the new phone can support voice controls, but the old one can’t Video I get, but voice controls seems more software based. Oh well. I have yet to have a complaint about my phone. And, I am really looking forward to the new OS.
That has to be about the stupidist thing I have heard , its not like AT&T has not been expecting since it was announced a few months ago.
Really not happy I have to wait until the 17th to get the OS, but at least its a firm date.
Was there anyting noteworthy in the WWDC conference, did not seem like it from the twitter posts that I seen.
Declan
The new hardware, the iPhone 3GS will be available on June 19th. It was a good plan to let it lag the s/w release by a couple of days so those with the older phones can download without all of the new phones clogging up the network.
16GB for $199, 32GB for $299. (Old school 8GB 3G’s immediately available for $99)
2-3 times faster
3.0 MPixel camera with video
built in electronic compass
Better battery
http://apple20.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2009/06/08/live-from-apples-wwdc-2009/?cnn=yes
Here is the blog that some dude kept for CNN (read from the bottom up.) No huge surprises that I can tell. Jobs didn’t show up.
I got my 3G in July on the third day after they came out. It was my first iPhone. I sure as hell don’t need the new one but I really, really want one anyway. It’s not clear if they have two tier pricing and I have to wait for a new contract to get the announced rate. Maybe I can justify it by letting my girlfriend have my iPhone and I’ll get one of the new ones. But, yeah, can’t wait for the new O/S.
Got to hand it to AT&T: it’s like they want everyone to jump ship as soon as their exclusive deal is over.
My guess is that they’re going to try to charge for tethering service.
Oh. I always assumed that.
But, now I get the feeling they are going to charge for MMS messages above and beyond text message fees. Which kind of sucks. And, they are coming up with a billing system, which is why they have to wait til the end of the summer.
There’s gotta be a name for this. Every technology thread with even an iota of fanbo-itis has someone come in saying “This is what they shoulda had 10 years, 18 goats, and a waterbuffalo ago. I’d buy one, but my <made up excuse> isn’t satisfied. I’ll just stick with a [turbo borax metro].”
While not wanting to draw the mod’s attention with a personal attack, if you’d USED an iphone for any period of time, after spending any time with the crop at the time of the iphone’s release, it’d be apparent how much further ahead they were than everybody else.
Yeah, we can fanwank about megapixels and mufflerbearings, but it’s pretty obvious why apple is where they’re at and everyone else is playing catch-up. In every metric that matters.
The G1 is cool, and has a great hacker community, but it’s been out a year and it’s still lacking in fit-finish-and polish.
The Pre’s been released and looks like a good product, but they don’t have an ecosystem around them, and in the meantime, Apple just keeps improving.
Deep breath. Yeah, different strokes for different folks.
I think what they wanted to do was nudge existing customers both first generation and 3g over to the newer 3GS with the delay, after everyone who is going to get a new iphone has one , then release the new features.
Hopefully palm brings out their GSM version of the pre soon, I like the iphone but I am getting tired of someone telling me when I can get new features and having to go through this monkey dance of expectation.
Apple has finally jumped the shark
Declan
Your post doesn’t parse at all.
“they wanted to do was nudge existing customers both first generation and 3g over to the newer 3GS with the delay”
Delay of what - MMS and/or tethering? How does that “nudge” people to the 3GS? None of the editions have those features for ATT until this summer. As for the features the 3GS has that the 3G or 1.0 has - video, voice command, compass - what does a delay (all of 48 hours) have to do with those?
“Apple has finally jumped the shark”
With what? More features at the same price point that millions have jumped on to? Or the same features millions have jumped on to at half the price point?
I dont disagree with what you said , Apple is now the bar that others are judged against. But quite frankly , this now has a shelf life. 3.0 was supposed to be the upgrade that would finally bring the iphone up to a standard that nearly every other phone has supported from the past five years, in terms of user features. Where apple differed from previous phones , is that the iPhone is a lifestyle device rather than a straight forward business phone.
My 3G is good for at least another two years in staying current with technology and I really did not adn still dont expect any new phone out of Apple to take it to the next level, faster , more memory, better camera , yeah. But compared against what Apple was up against when the iphone launched , thats just a tiny step.
Apple has run out of gas and now all they can do is to incrementally improve the phone, now its up to the competition to come out with the next phone, they are now at the point that motorola was , with the razor , three years ago.
Declan
OK - that makes sense. But other than a fundamental shift that the iPhone was, where else do they have to go? Isn’t it reliant upon the app developers at this point? The only thing I can think of that would be a huge leap would be document production (knowing that there are a few apps out there that touch on this).
Only having used a Razor, and three versions of Windows Moble, and a handful of Nokia Phones, I’d take a reduced feature set with a stellar working environment over a flash. That’s what Apple does.
Know what we had to do to get it to work with our exchange server? Nothing. Now, lets talk about that blackberry server we have to maintain, and if BB’s side of things go down, hey, no email.
Windows mobile had voice recognition two or three years ago. It was worthless. I hope Apple’s foray is better.
There’s a similar problem in OS X. I have a Core Duo MacBookPro. I’ll be getting a 17" unibody sometime this week. I don’t expect to see a big improvement, even though it’s a better machine all the way around. Mostly because the old stuff doesn’t age out.
Apple’s value proposition is different from everybody else’s. My first gen iPhone does a LOT more than it did when I got it, and it’ll do more in a few weeks. Who else takes a product they’re no longer making any money off of, and makes it better? That makes me thing that I don’t know WHEN I’ll get another phone, but when I do, it’ll have an Apple on it.
Usually when there is a delay , its because of one of three reasons, billing , marketing, or technical.With the summer pretty much upon us, those two year contracts that people signed when the original iphone launched are pretty much going to be up, so either people stick with the originals, or hup to a newer device, either the 3G or the 3GS depending on their financial circumstances, or go with a competitor device.
Now they have said that both options will be available sometime later in the summer, however that I have read, did not say if both were going to be coming at the same time when they do. They might have gotten better sympathy, if after a couple of months ago, when OS 3 was paraded to the public, had AT&T said there were going to be issues. Big A , has problems well documented with their 3G network, but that should not affect the MMS since that works just as well on edge as it does on 3G.
Biling is a possible with tethering because AT&T might want to make it part of their premier services , but they have had over a couple of months to figure that one out, same with MMS. They have a shitty 3g network, but tethering wont screw that up even more than it already is , and the network is not going to be upgraded by the time the new features go online.
So I am left thinking its marketing, the folks who are going to be getting the 3GS are going to be pre-ordering for a hup , or are going to be waiting on getting the device in, as they never seem to have enough devices in stock unless you actually go to an AT&T store.
There may well be an actual reason that we will find out about , but I am guessing its a marketing one , and not technical or billing.
Compared to what apple brought to the table originally with the first iphone, the new version is just an incremental improvement. The software just brings the device up to a standard that the phone could have supported back two years ago.
When your phone starts selling for 99 bucks, its jumped the shark phone wise.
Declan
I realize this new phone isn’t the huge upgrade that 3g was over the original, or what the iPhone itself was when it first came out. But, I disagree with the statement is in any way close to Motorala and the razor.
Here are the upgrades for the 3g[s]
And these are in addition to the features added by 3.0.
Now, these features do not call for a new cell phone paradigm. But, they are significant upgrades. The Razor never in it’s lifecycle had anything close to this as far as upgrades go.
I don’t think them lowering the price on an old model of phone can be seen as jumping the shark, either. I see it as them expanding their possible customer base with offering a relatively inexpensive phone alongside their regular models. The 3G is still a good phone, and there is no reason they should stop selling it if they can make money off of the sales.
I don’t understand why MMS was not included from the start- that is one feature that should have always been there. But, aside from that, I don’t agree with your statement that all of these upgrades bring them up to a phone it should have been 2 years ago. I mean it would have been great if they could have been there from the start, but for the most part I don’t see any of these features being something that they should have had from the start.