My wife wanted my iPhone 3G so I couldn’t hold off on upgrading until next year so I trotted down to the Apple store at 5:30 AM to wait in line this past Friday. Lots of people have called the 3G S a marginal upgrade since there was no aesthetic change but it’s actually a significant upgrade. Although I wanted a new design, it makes sense to redesign every could of years instead of every year and I was glad to continue using my existing accessories.
iPhone 3G S got a storage bump. Thirty-two gigs of flash memory makes for a handy iPod with plenty of storage for my music (those with large music collections might find this cramped, but it’s double that of the old high end iPhone). Apple also added a significant processor upgrade (Anandtech has already gone in depth so I will not) and iPhone 3G S has 256MB of memory, up from 128MB in the original and iPhone 3G. These upgrades make for a “snappy” UI experience. It’s noticeable. The GPU was also upgraded, which will make for better looking games as soon as developers take advantage of it (that will not take long) and smoother frame rates with existing games. The phone comes preloaded with the iPhone 3.0 software (thoughts here) — it’s good. Although the phone supports 7.2 mbps HSPA, AT&T’s network doesn’t. They’re rolling it out, though, so hopefully it’ll help despite reports that show otherwise.
Apple threw in a 3.2 MP camera and added support for video recording. I was a bit miffed at video recording being a 3G S only feature as it could have been added to existing iPhones as well (via software, don’t give me that processor too slow crap..older candy bar phones record video fine). Apple also added speech reco via a voice command interpreter (dial, play music, etc.). This should also have been possible via software (again, candy bar phones). At the end of the day they needs to sell hardware so I understand the business reasons but I’m not a fan. Basically, Apple changed everything on the inside of the phone, added a bunch of software features, and called it the 3G S. If you have a first generation iPhone, this is a must-have upgrade. If you are on an iPhone 3G, it’s a toss-up but I’d spring for it.