Well in one way it is a big iPod touch. But on the other hand it does make browsing the web, and in particular using social networking and watching news a lot easier compared to doing all of the above on my iPhone which I frequently would do. Games such as angry birds and the like also benefit from having the larger screen the iPad provides. I’m certainly finding a lot more use for the device than I felt I would especially when it launched and I called it 4 iPod touches glued together, a comment I’ve since found to be inaccurate – it’s actually more like 6!

The burning question is would I pay for one? Hard to say since my ownership of one is down to being luckily selected to win the competition 3 Mobile were running. I certainly wouldn’t fork out for the top 64 GB model as I’m finding it hard to fill mine but a lower end model may be worth the money. Saying that I won’t be forking out for an iPad 2 which the only differences between that and my model is it’s thinner, faster, has two cameras that are so poor they may as well not bothered, magnetic cases that offer no protection for the back and a gyroscope that I’ve found little use for in my iPhone 4 never mind iPad 2. Oh and it’s actually just 6 iPod touches glued together…….

Before we reveal them lets just take another look at our expected prices. These were calculated using the exchange rate between US$ and GB£ at the time of the 4 iPod Touch’s glued together announcement.

Now in fairness the exchange rate has changed since they were published so lets update them for todays exchange rate

Now let’s put in the figures Apple got from their calculator

Steve, the calculator is in the post!

So what did Apple announce in their software update. Well the following 7 things to be precise

Multitasking

I went into some depth as to just why I feel this unnecessary when I talked about the oversized iPod touch and basically my feelings were (and still are) that there is simply no need to have multiple open tasks on a mobile phone. Mail polls in the background, the iPod continues to play in the background and calls and texts still come through in the background. On a mobile phone that is more than sufficient

Folders

The first of many “new features” where Apple have merely jailbroken their iPhones and then decided what are the best ideas they can use. Useful yes. Revolutionary… hardly

Unified Inbox

All your email now in one place. Useful no as I only have one email account set up on my phone and if I did have more than one email account such as for work and personal I would want to keep them separate

iBooks

The book reader announced for iPad (but only available in one country… the USA) comes to iPhone. With a free Winnie the Pooh book. Unfortunately as I don’t live in that one country, this is as much use as a chocolate fireguard

Enterprise

No not the starship but some business features that are as standard on any other business phone. Some people may care…. I don’t!

Game Centre

Social gaming similar to xbox live, PSN or the open feint system (that many games already use) comes to the iPhone. Meh

iAd

Do not get me started on this “feature” of the new OS as if there was ever a reason not to upgrade this is it. Yes I know this site uses ads but in over two years of having them on I have made the net sum of £52 of which I can’t get at £26 until I reach the withdrawal limits with those affiliate networks. However I do not want ads on my mobile phone and there is a damn good reason why I use adblock plus with firefox on any computer I use. There is also a good reason why nearly 800,000 other users download adblock plus every week. Because we don’t want ads!

Sorry Apple but if this is the best you can come up with I really am glad I jumped ship to Android. I’ll end this post with my tweet which sums up my thoughts on this new OS

“So to summarize a load of features ripped straight from jailbroken iPhones and adverts. GET IN!!”

So onto the product itself, dubbed by Apple as a revolutionary and magical device, named the iPad (and opening up to a large number of iTampon jokes that actually managed to trend on twitter above anything actually to do with the device or Apple). Ok I haven’t had one in my hands yet but to me it seems that what Apple have done isn’t revolutionary or magical. Indeed this device has been around for nearly three years already and is called the iPod Touch. Because what Apple have done is taken their existing iPod Touch, blown it up to 4 times the size, put a faster chip in it and created some word processing, spreadsheet and presentation software for it.

A lot of people are slating the device because it cant multitask, much like the iPhone and the iPod Touch. Personally, I cant see the appeal of multitasking on a device like this. On my PC currently which can support multitasking, I have the following open

1. Thunderbird – as the mail app on iPad can be set to poll automatically or even push if supported, there is no need to keep mail open on the iPad
2. iTunes – the iPhone will continue playing music even if you exit the iPod app. As the iPad is based on the same OS as the iPhone/Ipod Touch there is no reason this wont still be the case. And I have iTunes open but aren’t even listening to music so no idea why its open
3. Firefox with 12 tabs open – Safari supports multiple tabs on the iPhone so presumably will on the iPad. Of the 12 tabs open half of them don’t need to be, I just haven’t bothered closing them yet
4. Sticky Notes – Fair enough the iPad wont support notes on the desktop BUT of the sticky notes I have the majority of them serve no purpose anyway and there’s no reason they cant be hidden away in an app

The price of the device whilst looking reasonable is unlikely to translate well to the UK as is the normal case with Apple devices. For example based on the US price, the iPod Touch 64GB retails for $399. This should translate to a UK price of £246 but it actually costs £60 more than that.

Based on the US prices, the UK prices of the iPad should be

We’ll see how well that translates over into UK apple money. As for if I’ll be buying one, I can see this device replacing my netbook which as Steve Jobs pointed out is slow and not better than anything BUT that will depend on if

1. The price translates over to the UK well
2. If the Wifi only model will support tethering to the iPhone, something which strangely never got mentioned at the keynote last night

The iPad, whilst being a large iPod touch, probably isn’t too bad a device. I’m just disappointed there was nothing else announced like a new iPhone (though this could be because I was hoping for new iPhone as I have an upgrade due next month)

Oh and anyone buying this as an ebook reader who doesn’t live in the US may want to check the small print at the bottom of THIS PAGE

Appearence

The 3GS appears more or less identical to the 3G. Well in my case that isn’t entirely true as my 3GS has double the capacity of my 3G so has a different number on the back and is a different colour as I opted for the white version this time.

I did expect the white version to be white all over and not just on the back cover. The area surrounding the screen is still black so unless you look at it from behind there is no noticeable difference.

People seem to be raving about the new charger and rightly so as the charger changes from a bulky affair to one that is smaller than a standard electrical plug.

Interface

As is commonly known the new phone is little different in terms of usability from the old 3G with the new 3.0OS. However there is a noticeable speed difference when using the phone and navigating menus and the like.

New features

The much talked about compass seems to do exactly what it says on the tin and integrates with maps nicely. I am slightly concerned however that maps seems to try and determine my location from my home wifi network when at home and wifi is turned on (presumably as GPS always did suffer indoors). This has the nice side effect of banging me two miles to the west and near to PNE football ground rather then where I actually live.

The voice control feature sounds nice but can’t say I’ve tried it yet.

*goes to try it*

Well it seems to do alright. Probably about a 90% hit ratio with what I asked it to do. Would be nice to have the option to play a specific song rather than a playlist, album or artist though. Perhaps in OS 3.1

The camera autofocus seems to work well. I can’t say I’ve noticed much difference in picture quality though. I have not as yet tried the video camera.

I am yet to use MMS on the 3GS as I never was a big picture message user unless they were free and I used them instead of texts (last time that happened was with imode handsets). However as the 3GS’s MMS support is the same as the 3G’s but with video added I’m guessing it will be fine

I have not even attempted to use tethering. People seem to be very put off at O2′s pricing even though and O2 wont even permit its use without buying a bolt on though there is a hack to get round this. O2′s pricing on tethering seems to be on a par with their mobile broadband pricing though and as I already have mobile broadband I cant see me using this much.

So is it worth it?

The extra speed alone probably does make this a worthy upgrade. Voice control is useful though I would like to see the accuracy pick up slightly and additional control options.

However, my original opinion stands, it is not worth people paying silly money to buy the handset on PAYG or even worse buy out their contracts. Thankfully I managed to work round both those problems and went for neither option. The 3G does much that the 3GS does equally well or not much worse. Unless you must have the latest phone or really need the speed boost, voice control, video and a compass you should probably hang fire. The 3GS is an excellent device though, however many people feel that this is what the 3G should have been first time around.

Apple have apparently reported that sales of the 3GS over the first weekend were in the region of 1 million units worldwide. Not sure how that compared with the 3G though an accurate comparison is impossible as many 3G owners were unable to upgrade this time, and stock levels for the 3GS seemed to be higher than they were for the 3G. Not to mention all the technical issues that plagued launch day on the 3G were avoided this time round

Full story and original image HERE

The reason being that the phone has been available for pre-orders on at Carphone Warehouse for 3 days now. When the iPhone 3G went on sale for pre order on both CPW and O2′s websites it sold out in a matter of hours. However 3 days on CPW are showing no signs of running out of stock.

Now of course that could simply down to Apple making much more stock available to cover the demand. However I think it’s more likely that the device simply isn’t selling. O2 have over priced it to new customers and alienated their existing customer base by failing to provide a reasonably priced upgrade path. The only people likely to be pre ordering a device which is basically the same as the 3G but a tad faster and with an extremely useful built in compass are the most die hard of Apple fanatics who must have the latest hardware as soon as its released.

Most normal people will simply have realised that it isn’t worth the price tag O2 have placed on it and it certainly isn’t worth locking yourself into a 2 year contract which in all likliness will result in you missing the next iPhone release from Apple which in all likliness will be a much bigger step up in spec than the 3GS is

LINKY

Update 12/06/09 11:29 – CPW are still taking pre-orders and just e-mailed me to inform me they were (I already knew of course). Oddly pre-ordering has been open for a day now. The iPhone 3G sold out on pre-orders on CPW and O2 online in hours. Can’t imagine why this new model isn’t having the same impact

What bothers me more is that O2 seem to be doing everything they can to quell sales. Ok fair enough there is a very valid argument for not allowing existing customers but O2s pricing for new customers is frankly stupid compared to the 3Gs original pricing and isn't going to attract huge sales (who wants a phone on a £75 tariff or on a 24 month contract... a few people will but not many)

This morning I get a PM from O2′s moderators saying they have removed that passage. The reasons quoted are

This is because the comment you have made contained general criticism of O2’s products or services. You are more than welcome to share your experiences with O2, whether they’re positive or negative. Doing so may allow other users to provide support as well as providing us with insight to areas that are going wrong.

What we cannot accept are widespread, malicious or gratuitous criticisms of O2 as a company or a brand.

Now I can’t see anything malicious or gratuitous in that section rather than a widely accepted fact that O2s sales are going to suffer not just because of the upgrade policy for existing iPhone owners but also because the pricing for new customers is ludicrous compared with the pricing last year. Not only that but who will want to lock themselves into a 18 month or 24 month contract knowing full well that they wont be able to upgrade onto the next model which will be out in 2010. No one that’s who.

Still if O2 can’t handle the truth then perhaps they need to review their pricing and upgrade policy before their sales take too much of a hit and Apple consider offering the phone to other networks. I’m sure Apple are watching all the negative press on twitter and in the UKs media with interest!

The new model boasts the following improved features

• A compass so maps knows which way you are facing
• An improved 3MP camera with auto focus and video capabilities
• A faster processor so some tasks and launching apps should be faster
• More storage
• HSDPA
• Voice dialling and commands

All in all it’s not a great improvement over what the iPhone 3G can do once OS 3.0 comes out on June 17th and one of the features is available on a jailbroken iPhone 3G so clearly Apple are blocking current iPhone 3Gs from using it. Much more offputing is O2′s new crazy pricing which means the device will only be free if you agree to a 24 month contract or a £75 a month contract or the device will be approx £450 on PAYG for the 16Gb version and £550 on PAYG for the 32Gb version. Not exactly the cheaper prices making the device available to more mentioned at the keynote.

Even worse is the fact that last time a new model came out customers could upgrade for free. This time customers either have to wait for their upgrade date (for most early adopters this is January 2010) or pay to end their contracts early (again for early adopters that will be approx 7 months at your monthly rate so in my case approx £245), and then agree to a new 18 or more likely 24 month contract.

Madness in my view as given Apple’s habbit of releasing a new model every year who on earth is going to want to agree to a new contract which will likely make the customer miss the model that will be inevitably released in 2010. Not me thats for sure and frankly unless O2 change their upgrade policy and prices fast, I may be looking elsewhere come my contract expiry

EDIT Full details of the ludicrous pricing HERE