News & Views

I bought a first generation iPhone on the first day of release. Yes, I was one of the poor saps who waited in line for it. Although I like the user interface a lot, many of my old blog readers have seen my reviews listing all of its many shortcomings. Well, Apple has released the new iPhone 3G so it's time to take a look at whether they corrected the biggest problems I found with their first generation. Here is a quick rundown of some of the features I found missing on the original iPhone:

1. No cut/copy/paste. No change on the 3G. It's still missing.

2. No MMS support. No change. Nothing in App Store, either.

3. No JAVA support. Again, no change on either phone.

4. No FLASH support. No change, but there are rumors of it coming out later for both phones.

5. No audio record. Nothing built-in. A third party application is now available for both phones.

6. No video record. Nothing built-in. Third party app coming?

7. Still 16 GB maximum. The 3G has the same capacity as Gen 1. Can you say, "yawn?"

8. No user-replaceable battery. Still must buy an emergency external dongle battery or find another way to recharge it.

9. No memory card slot for expansion. Yet another no-show feature.

10. No stereo Bluetooth. That's right! Bluetooth is still mono on the 3G! It still won't use stereo Bluetooth headsets or even external Bluetooth keyboards.

11. No tethering to laptops. You still can't use the iPhone 3G as a high-speed wireless modem for your laptop. They charge more for the new 3G data connection, but they still limit how you can use it.

12. No To-Do lists. This, and many other handy applications, are now available for both phones in the App Store.

13. No email forwarded as attachments. I haven't tested this one yet, but on the old phone, if somebody forwarded an email from a service like AOL, it was sent as an attachment. The iPhone could not display that attached email. Has anyone tested this yet?

14. No moving you snapped photos into albums/folders. When you take a photo, it goes into "Camera Roll" and there it stays. When you receive a photo in an email, it's the same. You can't move photos you want to keep into a different folder unless you put them on a computer first. It is awkward at best and annoying for certain.

15. Exchange Server access. This was finally added for both phones and I'm pretty happy about it. Unfortunately, they overwrite your personal data with Exchange data when you sync (except for email). The one exception is information you store on a Mobile Me account (for $99 more per year - OUCH!).

16. Contacts search. This was added to both.

17. Desktop icon for Contacts. This was added to both.

18. No voice dialing. Still missing in both phones.

19. No native chat client. Both have this covered now via third party applications.

As you can see, a large number of missing features were still not resolved on the 3G. The few that were resolved, were resolved on both the new phone and the old, and many of those were actually resolved by third parties, not Apple. There are far too many basic cell phone features that are still missing which really should have been included in the original iPhone a year ago. Plus, the 3G service and using Exchange side-by-side with your personal data will cost you lots of extra money every year.

In a nutshell, you get a real GPS and a 3G radio in the new iPhone 3G versus just updating to 2.0 firmware in the the old iPhone. Those are virtually the only differences between a 3G and a Gen 1 iPhone. Tons of basic cell phone features are still missing from both, despite the update. Even worse, if you use the 3G radio, the battery life is significantly shorter than a Gen 1, and that 3G radio is really the main reason you would want to upgrade.

Further, you still can't swap batteries to overcome the new shorter battery life. I don't know about most of you, but the first thing I always did with my previous cell phones was buy a bigger extended-life battery. Even with the new iPhone 3G, this still isn't possible.

Granted, the battery life on the iPhone 3G is better than most 3G phones, but when considering whether to upgrade from a Gen 1 iPhone to a 3G iPhone, you don't really care about other phones. You look at how it compares to what you've been using. The reality is, if you use 3G, your battery life goes down.

It also costs you $10 more per month for the 3G data plan, ($15 if you send and receive under 200 text messages, which most of us do) and you still can't use the 3G iPhone as a modem. Add that $180 per year to the extra $99 per year for Mobile Me if you want separate Exchange Server information and personal information on your device. That extra $279 per year is why many folks say the iPhone is now far more expensive than ever before and far too expensive to be justified. Even if we stay with our Gen 1 iPhones, we have to pay $99 more per year to get the Exchange Server working without overwriting our separate personal data.

To be completely honest, the biggest news for both iPhones is the App Store. Third party software is now easily added to either phone. This fast growing library of software promises to be the real reason for new iPhone owners to pick up an iPhone 3G. On the other hand, the addition of the App Store offers no real incentive for Gen 1 users to upgrade to the new phones. This is because our Gen 1 iPhones can use the same software. There are literally hundreds of applications already available and many more are in the works.

The App Store is, by far, the most exciting thing about owning or purchasing any iPhone right now.

So, getting back to the original question. To upgrade or not? For people like me, who already have a first generation iPhone, I don't see enough justification for the total price of the upgrade. Paying significantly more per month simply to get a faster connection speed and more precise positioning seems just silly to me. Some folks will always buy the latest and greatest, regardless of cost or lack of features. But for me, until I see a lot more storage space added and/or the elimination of the insanely-high monthly price premium, I'll be staying with my trusty old Gen 1 iPhone.

To upgrade or not? For me, the answer is currently "not."

For a bit of fun, check out these C|Net TV video links for the top 5 reasons to love or hate the iPhone 3G.

Labels: Apple, iPhone