To start with I’m not what’s being called a Mac “Fanboy”. Any device I’ve decided to purchase, the decision has been based on the actual device and not on who manufactures it or the hype surrounding it and that’s why I’ve avoided the previous 2 iPhones. The new iPhone 3Gs sees some improvements to the hardware to bring it in to line withother popular smart phones on the market but combining it with the new iPhone OS 3.0 upgrade puts it right up there as one of the better phones on the market and now deserves my attention.
The 3Gs was announced by Philip Schiller during the keynote address at this year’s Apple WWDC on June 8th. It becomes available in the US, UK and 6 other countries on Friday June 19th and in Ireland plus 5 more countries a week later on Friday June 26th.
The big things in the hardware end are an increase in speed (that’s what the S stands for) and the addition of a better camera which is now 3mp and is capable of video capture. The 3.0 software upgrade adds things like copy and paste, SMS forwarding and MMS all things that any basic smart phone can do already.
With the changes made, it brings me to my point, the 3Gs is really the first proper iPhone. It’s the one that should have been launched 2 years ago and there’s no reason it couldn’t have been as there’s nothing added to it now that wasn’t available then. I do think this iPhone will be the one to bring in customers (including me) that were not sure before. I’ll be watching the launch in the US and UK on Friday very closely to see how things go before I make my final decision whether or not to get one next week but currently I think I’m going to be making the change.
For more information on the iPhone 3Gs see here and for information and pricing on it’s launch with o2 in Ireland see here.
