For Christmas I was given a subscription to T3 magazine – being something of a tech aficionado, I kinda like to keep up on the latest in the world of tech, even if these days that seems to pass for “what’s the latest mobile phone?”
So anyway, this month’s new issue features a battle of smartphones, with Android, Windows Mobile, Blackberry, Samsung’s Wave and of course the iPhone involved. Only thing is, they used the 3GS… a few pages after previewing the new iPhone 4. Maybe you should have waited for that to come out before running this feature, eh?
Still, everyone starting to queue for the new iPhone, yet I’m nowhere near as excited as I was a year ago when I picked up the 3GS. Part of it is because I’m unwilling to pay £120 to O2 for reward money for their recently-crappy-network (and then to get out of my contract and into a ultra limited data plan). The other is not being willing to fork out £280 on top of that for the handset again.
Looking way in advance, Vodafone is charging £270 for the same handset, on a similar contract (300 minutes, unlimited texts and 1Gb of mobile data – which is about fine, given that I’ve used 8Gb in my first year). Only thing is, I still don’t wanna pay to get out of my O2 contract… unless O2 decide to flick the killswitch and force me into the new limited contracts.
So, what about the iPhone 4? Well, apart from the new look (which I’m not too big a fan of – I have visions of the outer aerials getting warm to the touch during extended WiFi and cellular data connections), there’s not really much else new externally. It’s all under the hood – faster processor, bigger battery life, and a gyroscope. Yeah, my PS3′s Six-Axis controller has a gyroscope in, and I can’t figure out an iPhone game that would require you to turn the screen AWAY FROM YOU to register a movement. You can kinda get away with that with, say, the Wii-motes, and the Six-Axis (and the upcoming PS Move), as you won’t be losing the display whilst making said motions!
Speaking of hot outer cases – about two weeks ago, my iPhone almost died a fiery death. Granted, it was a warm day on the London Underground, but it was way below the temperature that is supposed to throw up the “your iPhone is too hot error message”. All mine did was crash (the screen flashed, then it shut off, before restarting with the Apple logo… and hanging for a good 15 minutes). After forcing a shut down, the iPhone then tried to restart again – until I removed it from the Logic 3 battery back-up case.
20 minutes later (after changing our plans so we could head for the Apple Store to make use of my Apple Care), the phone worked fine – but there was no error message, just “my iPhone wanted to quit working.”
That, and all of O2′s network failings in and around London this past week, and June hasn’t been a happy month to own an iPhone. Yet another reason to wait for iPhone 4!
