iPhone Only
I put a lot of thought into it. Spent countless hours reading articles on the interweb about it and spent hours trying to justify it. Then I just went for it. Yesterday I got a new iPhone 3G. Yes I was in the line at the mall, not first thing in the morning, I had school to attend, but at 12pm as soon as I was able to leave said school. The line wasn't bad in York. I spent about 15 minuets or so in the line and then another 10 or 15 talking to an AT&T salesperson about things then back out the door.
Originally AT&T was going to be activating the phones in the stores to try and prevent jailbreaking and reselling of the phones this time around, but that didn't work out as planned. They started having problems first thing in the morning in the U.S. There were so many stores trying to activate so many phones that they basically crashed the system. So they resotred to the same thing they did last year and sent people on their way to activate at home. Well this got me in and out of the store quickly enough, but when I got home it took OVER AN HOUR to activate. Which means I sat around plugged in the phone, waited for iTunes to time out unplugged the phone and repeated.
At least I was able to get one. Over in the UK Apple's flagship Regent Street store Apple staff couldn't access the O2 phone network's activation system(from crave). People could not get an iPhone because O2's system runs on Windows and requires Microsoft's Internet Explorer and the store was only running macs.
Originally AT&T was going to be activating the phones in the stores to try and prevent jailbreaking and reselling of the phones this time around, but that didn't work out as planned. They started having problems first thing in the morning in the U.S. There were so many stores trying to activate so many phones that they basically crashed the system. So they resotred to the same thing they did last year and sent people on their way to activate at home. Well this got me in and out of the store quickly enough, but when I got home it took OVER AN HOUR to activate. Which means I sat around plugged in the phone, waited for iTunes to time out unplugged the phone and repeated.
At least I was able to get one. Over in the UK Apple's flagship Regent Street store Apple staff couldn't access the O2 phone network's activation system(from crave). People could not get an iPhone because O2's system runs on Windows and requires Microsoft's Internet Explorer and the store was only running macs.
Anyway, I got it activated and synced up. iTunes lets you make a backup of your iPhone and when I plugged in the new one it asked if I want to start new or restore from backup. I choose restore and a few minuets later I had my new phone ready to go with all the settings, contacts, calenders, alrams etc... exactly the way I had them on the old one. It even restored my text messages.
Once I got that all taken care of and some new music on it, it was time to play. With the new phone came new firmware. Which for the most part allowed you to add third party apps to your phone finally. There are a lot to choose from ranging from stupid to awesome, boring to fun and expensive to FREE. I got a bunch of them, only paying for two (monkey ball and band). So far they seem to work well. I got standard things like AIM, twitterific and a flickr thing. They also had some very nice and free translators. Basiclly they consist of common phrases that you made need to ask while traveling. You choose what you would liek to say and then it is spoken through the phone. The apps are made by anyone really so I'm assuming that they'll be coming out in steady intervals.
I haven't been able to try out the 3G part of the phone yet, seeing as York is not 3G yet, but I have seen the "GPS" and I think it'll be alright for the most part. It's not a true GPS really, but it's a hell of a lot better then what was on the first gens.
All in all I'd say i'm very happy with my decision. It's a sleak looking, comfortable phone that does more then most, yet still lacks in common areas. I can let those slide though since it's things I wouldn't really use much. I'll keep you posted on things as I find them out.
UPDATE: I forgot about the Remote app. It lets you control your Apple TV or iTunes over a wireless signal. Pretty sweet if you ask me.
Once I got that all taken care of and some new music on it, it was time to play. With the new phone came new firmware. Which for the most part allowed you to add third party apps to your phone finally. There are a lot to choose from ranging from stupid to awesome, boring to fun and expensive to FREE. I got a bunch of them, only paying for two (monkey ball and band). So far they seem to work well. I got standard things like AIM, twitterific and a flickr thing. They also had some very nice and free translators. Basiclly they consist of common phrases that you made need to ask while traveling. You choose what you would liek to say and then it is spoken through the phone. The apps are made by anyone really so I'm assuming that they'll be coming out in steady intervals.
I haven't been able to try out the 3G part of the phone yet, seeing as York is not 3G yet, but I have seen the "GPS" and I think it'll be alright for the most part. It's not a true GPS really, but it's a hell of a lot better then what was on the first gens.
All in all I'd say i'm very happy with my decision. It's a sleak looking, comfortable phone that does more then most, yet still lacks in common areas. I can let those slide though since it's things I wouldn't really use much. I'll keep you posted on things as I find them out.
UPDATE: I forgot about the Remote app. It lets you control your Apple TV or iTunes over a wireless signal. Pretty sweet if you ask me.
