iPhone 3G
Well it isn’t launch day but I have done it. I have two black iPhone 3G 16GB phones in hand.
Unlike last year, the lines were shorter, with good reason, the wait was much longer. I would say there were about 100 people in front of me and it took an estimated 4 hours to finally walk out of the store with the phone in hand. Last year I think there was at least 200-300 people in front of me and the wait was an hour less. But with that aside, once I got to the store the process was pretty straight forward. I was able to walk out of the store with a newly activated iPhone, and two unactivated iPhone 1.0s, unlike the ordeal I went through last year. ;)
One thing I though was pretty interesting was the psychology of people, me included, while waiting in line for something you really don’t know if you are going to get. First we started in the line and an Apple employee came out and said, no more Black 16GB phones. Then everyone around me in the line started rationalizing the White 16GB phone or got off. Then an hour later the same Apple employee came out and said no more 16GB phones period, now people had to make hard decisions, get off and throw away time spent or wait it out and get one 8GB version and come back another day for the 16GB…Well you know what I finally walked away with, but this was due to a UPS delivery and a subsequent FEDEX delivery between 11am and 12pm. After we were alerted to the restock of iPhones, everyone around me decided since they have been waiting four hours and that getting the top of the line iPhone 3G in Black with 16GB was in order. So my question Apple is, why no 32GB iPhones, I am sure you will have sold them all even at higher prices. ;)
My 3G impressions:
- Much better phone audio quality! The speaker and ear piece sounds much better and is louder.
- The same AT&T reception and audio issues
- 3G is much better than EDGE albeit shorter battery life (Although at home 3G reception isn’t there, no big deal as most people will use WIFI at home. The main problem with WIFI is that Exchange PUSH email doesn’t work over WIFI as there is no sleep option in the protocol and enabling it will dramatically reduce your battery life. I guess there is mobileme.)
- The curved shape is much more comfortable to hold.
- Not scientific but it seems overall battery life seems shorter that with iPhone 1.0
- Screen has yellowish tint in many circumstances (Not very good for showing off your photos)
- Phone seem lighter in the hand (Maybe this is due to shape since it is only .1 oz less, 4.7oz compared to the original 4.8 oz)
- Seems a bit faster overall, maybe due to the new 620MHz ARM processor