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

So with no sign of victory on either side I’ve been thinking about the whole having to buy your contract out to upgrade early thing and wondering, did it always used to be this way. And the answer is no.

Many moons ago some of the networks, most notably orange, used to charge a fee to upgrade rather than simply charging for the remainder of the contract. The fee would vary depending on monthly spend and how long of the contract was left but was generally less than the remainder of the contract and meant that if you had the money you could upgrade as often as you liked.

Now surely a system like this would be better for not just iPhone users but any contract customers as it would mean they could upgrade as often as they choose with the networks not losing out as they recovered the subsidy and other losses from the upgrade fee. Win win situation as far as I can see.

One has to wonder why the networks abandoned this system of upgrading!

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

The banks of course have been charging people for breaching the terms and conditions of their accounts by going over limits, allowing transactions to bounce etc etc and a few years ago the consumer struck back and challenged the banks on if the charges were fair. This is still being argued in the courts but the general result is no they are not because the banks cannot justify them as being proportionate to their loss.

So lets examine the O2 case, if someone breaches their contract O2 then lose the remaining line rental. So to balance that out they charge someone the remaining line rental as a cancellation charge. Sounds fair doesn’t it? Lets examine the line rental though

From what I can gather there are three major elements to the line rental on a contract phone these are

• Subsidy – The discount O2 gave you off the price of the handset in order to entice you to buy it
• Profit – All companies make profit (well these days we might question that with companies going bust left right and centre). Profit is good
• Costs – Providing the service to you costs money in the way of maintaining the network, providing minutes/texts, customer service, billing etc etc

Now we can reasonably expect O2 to recover the costs from the subsidy and the profit as these are losses O2 will make from the breach but what about those costs? O2 are not providing a service to you at least for the remainder of that contract (they will be if you take a new iPhone 3GS contract but the costs will be factored into that contract and not the one thats been cancelled) so their costs will be zero. So attempting to recover those costs is not proportionate to their loss, hence a penalty and hence unlawful.

So the big question is how much of the line rental is broken down into which element. Well thats a tricky one and one O2 didn’t want to answer when I put it to them on twitter. The only bit that can be reasonably calculated is the subsidy as well which for a customer on iPhone 35 is £7.34 a month and for a customer on iPhone 45 is £7.33. This is calculated by deducting the cost of the equivalent simplicity plan which is unsubsidised away from the cost of the iPhone plan.

Whilst I am no legal expert, I do frequent forums which deal with legal issues and the bank charges issue and I am pretty confident O2 expecting people to pay the costs element of the line rental for a service they will no longer be providing in a cancellation charge is unfair, a penalty and consequently unlawful for the same reasons as the bank charges. However I take no responsibility if anyone wishes to pursue that in court and loses. However if I am right it doesn’t just affect anyone who has cancelled to upgrade to the iPhone 3GS with O2 but anyone who has ever cancelled their contract and not just with O2 but with any other network and that could open flood gates just like it did with the banks

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