The iSlate Will Be Announced In

July 8, 2008

iPhone 3G Cometh

Only a couple of days left until everyone trashes their perfectly good original iPhone and buys a slightly better one. The only thing left to decide is which color. (Oddly enough, most of our 23 staff members are leaning toward white, if only so we don't accidentally pick up our old black one when we're rushing out the door in the morning.)

Regarding the process of buying a new iPhone, expect the whole shabang to be a lot slower than last time. Current iPhone buyers will zip through the line fast enough, but you can count on oodles of late-adopters slowing down the process with mandatory credit checks and in-store activation. Oh yeah, if you're planning to buy an iPhone that will be billed to a corporate account, you can ONLY do that at an ATT store.

Here's the word straight from Apple's mouth:

If you buy at an Apple Store, look for a "Conciege" who will be wearing an Orange shirt, (we suspect 80% of the Apple Store employees will be wearing orange....) and be ready to share your:

• Credit card
• Social security number
• Valid, government-issued photo ID
• Your current wireless account number and password or PIN (If you're the kind of loser who isn't already with ATT)

Oh yeah, we'd also recommend staying away form the NYC Apple store. There is already a line there, which we think is really dumb, because there is no shortage of 3G iPhones, but based on the early cue, we'd think it's a good bet that place will be bogged down with all kinds of crazy people.

ATT has published their price plans and it looks like 3G is gonna cost about ten dollars more per month. Not that big a deal, but if they do that every year (which is a reasonable expectation for iPhone releases) our monthly iPhone bills are gonna be bigger than our social security checks (if and when we ever collect.)

The first reviews are out and everyone is saying it's good. Not great. But good. The biggest improvement appears to be the audio quality--specifically the speakerphone and the microphone. While we're sure that's true, no matter how you slice it, cellphones (especially static-prone GSM phones) are never gonna sound as good a landline. One reviewer received his iPhone with Steve Jobs direct line programmed into his favorites. He called the big-guy and asked him "why no turn-by-turn GPS?" Steve said the iPhone 3G's antennae is too weak to provide accurate turn-by-turn guidance. We think that's just like the the 3G battery lie that was spoon-fed to the public when the first iPhone was released. Along those lines, we'd be willing to bet the next iPhone will have the same 3G chip but will suddenly be able to perform turn-by-turn guidance.

Apple and ATT have both posted videos showing all the new iPhone 3G goodness. (Only one of the videos will play on an iPhone... can you guess which company posted that video?) If you're reading this page, you've already read about 99.99% of this goodness, but there's definitely something about hearing it again from the creepy big-headed guy who dresses just like Steve Jobs and won our hearts in this early demo of a potential cut-and-paste feature which has yet to come to fruition.

See you in line.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

A very important question - Are they going to freakin' clap as we're walking out the door? Can I pay extra to have them not?