Hey everyone it's Colin, the freshest face on the Makeaquick.com blogging team. I've been testing the iPhone 3G S for a couple weeks to provide marketing research and feedback for various advertisers, firms, and friends. It has been quite a treat because I was holding out with my 1st generation 2G 8GB iPhone from the summer of 2007! Now that the rest of the world, seriously just about the whole world, has access to iPhone 3G S's new functionalities and Apple's OS 3.0, I thought I'd recap my experience with the "fastest, most powerful iPhone yet."
Let's get the basics out of the way. If you have an iPhone or iPod Touch you should update to OS 3.0 immediately, although iPod Touch users will be tagged with a $9.95 upgrade charge. The 3G S has four key components that separate it from its lesser 3G: a 3 megapixel, auto-focus camera with video capabilities, voice command for your most common functions, Spotlight search, and a compass. iPhone OS 3.0 offers other significant updates from OS version 2.2.1 you can find here, but that is a whole other story.
So how good are these new features? I'll speak to a few but let one testimonial do its own talking. The camera is a nice upgrade but not dramatic enough to corner the mobile phone, picture taking market. The video camera is decent, with minimal on board editing features, but good enough for a local Miami CBS news reporter to shoot an entire story using only the video camera and voice recorder application on his iPhone 3G S. Just watch this news story, shot with iPhone's video camera and be your own judge. Impressive nonetheless.
The voice command features are convenient when you need to be hands free and offer abilities to control your entire iPod, including playing specific artists, albums, songs and playlists, while also dialing specific phones of any contact in your address book. The voice control becomes interactive as well, allowing iPodders to ask for song information and requesting more music with similar rhythms. Pretty clever stuff, though I am waiting for complete voice control features like requesting certain songs be added to playlists or to never be played again.
The Spotlight search was a natural progression for the search features on recent Apple operating system upgrades. It allows users to search their growing iPhone storage collection. The 3G S comes in 16GB and 32GB varieties so search is more desirable than on the 3G 8GB and 16GB models. I've found it most useful for searching multiple e-mail accounts synced on my phone. But as you Spotlight users know, it does keyword search for everything you might have on your hard drive.
As for the compass, I have minimal use for such a feature. I'm sure there are some wild outdoorsmen that have been navigating trails, hiking mountains, skiing slopes, and wandering the Earth with one thought in mind; Why can't Apple just make a compass for my iPhone?! Well guys, and some girls out there somewhere, here you go! Your own compass app to replace the traditional magnetic compass control by the poles, moon, and other orbiting bodies in our solar system. There truly is an app for basically anything.
Having been given an "S" for speed, the iPhone 3G S really has outperformed smartphone competitors in overall data transfer rates. Our friends over at The Unofficial Apple Weblog recently posted speed test results comparing the iPhone 3G, one running OS 2.2.1 and another OS 3.0, the 3G S on OS 3.0, Google's G1 running Android OS 1.5, and the Palm Pre running Web version 1.0.2. Transfer rates were compared against a baseline 2GHz Core 2 Duo Macbook operating on OSX 10.5.7. Of course each smartphone has its own service provider (iPhone with AT&T, G1 on T-Mobile, Palm Pre paired with Sprint.) The results speak for themselves and I am here to attest to the speediness of my 3G S over the past few weeks. Check out the charted results for yourself! I think the "S" stands for sweet!
My conclusion is this: I will be keeping my iPhone 3G S as a full time companion. No matter what criticisms I might have of the newest member in the Apple family, the iPhone still sets the precedent for the mobile phone slash smartphone market. I look forward to making speedier posts, faster tweets, and more immediate status updates for the Makeaquick.com fan base. All courtesy of our sponsors and my newest bff, iPhone 3G S.
So how good are these new features? I'll speak to a few but let one testimonial do its own talking. The camera is a nice upgrade but not dramatic enough to corner the mobile phone, picture taking market. The video camera is decent, with minimal on board editing features, but good enough for a local Miami CBS news reporter to shoot an entire story using only the video camera and voice recorder application on his iPhone 3G S. Just watch this news story, shot with iPhone's video camera and be your own judge. Impressive nonetheless.
The voice command features are convenient when you need to be hands free and offer abilities to control your entire iPod, including playing specific artists, albums, songs and playlists, while also dialing specific phones of any contact in your address book. The voice control becomes interactive as well, allowing iPodders to ask for song information and requesting more music with similar rhythms. Pretty clever stuff, though I am waiting for complete voice control features like requesting certain songs be added to playlists or to never be played again.
The Spotlight search was a natural progression for the search features on recent Apple operating system upgrades. It allows users to search their growing iPhone storage collection. The 3G S comes in 16GB and 32GB varieties so search is more desirable than on the 3G 8GB and 16GB models. I've found it most useful for searching multiple e-mail accounts synced on my phone. But as you Spotlight users know, it does keyword search for everything you might have on your hard drive.
As for the compass, I have minimal use for such a feature. I'm sure there are some wild outdoorsmen that have been navigating trails, hiking mountains, skiing slopes, and wandering the Earth with one thought in mind; Why can't Apple just make a compass for my iPhone?! Well guys, and some girls out there somewhere, here you go! Your own compass app to replace the traditional magnetic compass control by the poles, moon, and other orbiting bodies in our solar system. There truly is an app for basically anything.
Having been given an "S" for speed, the iPhone 3G S really has outperformed smartphone competitors in overall data transfer rates. Our friends over at The Unofficial Apple Weblog recently posted speed test results comparing the iPhone 3G, one running OS 2.2.1 and another OS 3.0, the 3G S on OS 3.0, Google's G1 running Android OS 1.5, and the Palm Pre running Web version 1.0.2. Transfer rates were compared against a baseline 2GHz Core 2 Duo Macbook operating on OSX 10.5.7. Of course each smartphone has its own service provider (iPhone with AT&T, G1 on T-Mobile, Palm Pre paired with Sprint.) The results speak for themselves and I am here to attest to the speediness of my 3G S over the past few weeks. Check out the charted results for yourself! I think the "S" stands for sweet!
My conclusion is this: I will be keeping my iPhone 3G S as a full time companion. No matter what criticisms I might have of the newest member in the Apple family, the iPhone still sets the precedent for the mobile phone slash smartphone market. I look forward to making speedier posts, faster tweets, and more immediate status updates for the Makeaquick.com fan base. All courtesy of our sponsors and my newest bff, iPhone 3G S.
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