A funny thing happened on the way to the iPhone 3g line on Sunday. I changed my mind.
Flashback to a few weeks ago, when the debate was lively about whether or not the upgrade was worth it – especially for me, a first-generation iPhone owner. And, for those of you at home, the debate went something like this:
– 3G network – nice, of course. EDGE can certainly be pokey. But, if there a killer app that requires all of this mobile speed (say mobile SlingPlayer?) – no, not yet. Besides, if I didn’t know the difference, would I really miss it ((and is it worth $120 a year more?). Verdict: Nice to have. Maybe worth upgrading.
– Third Party Apps – well, of course this was an advantage. It made the iPhone something on par with the rest of the smartphone world. A REAL phone. But, I could get this for free. Verdict: vote for keeping first-gen.
– Exchange support – see previous paragraph. Mine for free. Verdict: keep it.
– GPS – sure, another nice to have. But without a killer app here, negliable gain. The cellphone triangulation on the first-generation is good enough for occassional use. Verdict: keep it.
– Storage – max 16gb? WTF? Honestly I’d love to have 32gb or more. The fact that there wasn’t even an option? Epic fail.
If you’re keeping track, that’s 3 votes for keeping it and 1 maybe.
Now for the environmental factors. Many many reports of 3g network issues. Hardware or software aside? That made the last maybe a no. And a responding one at that. Software stability? Not great. Wait in a 3-4 hour line for this? No thanks.
Let me know when they get all of these things figured out, and I’ll hop on. Until then, me and little miss first-gen will be happy together.
And, oh yeah, this whole post was written on my first-gen iPhone using the WordPress app and listening to music the whole time. Didn’t crash once.
But what about peeps like me who have been deprived of the iphone experience all together? It’s worth it to get the new one right? or would you say it’s even better if we try to find someone with a 1st gen iphone who wants to get rid of theirs?
diggin’ the new CSS and themin’ goin’ on over here, btw.
@Alexa – thanks for comments about the theme upgrade. I’ve gotten it to version 0.5 – now the fun begins with tweaking it 😉
Honestly, if you don’t have one, I can pretty equivocally recommend the new iPhone for all of the advantages it provides. The real discussion about the upgrade comes for people who already have the first one. For those of us who do, it’s harder to justify an incremental upgrade, at least to me.
I think Apple’s got some bugs to work out with the 2.0 firmware on both platforms, and when that happens, system stability will be restored. And, if the time is right, and the opportunity presents itself, I still may score a new one. I’m waiting on the 2.1 upgrade to see if network issues are fixed.