iPhone 3G

So I managed to get an iPhone 3G today.  In case you wanted to know yes I stood in line.  How long you say?  Only 6 and a half hours so no big deal.  

One important thing you should know, if you have any discounts on your service plan you need to call ATT and have them removed if you are going to buy an iPhone at an Apple Store, if not they will block you from purchasing an iPhone this happened to me after standing in line for 5 hours so I called ATT had them remove it and I was able to buy it.  If you plan on buying an iPhone 3G from an ATT store you don't have to worry about it.  

But back to the important stuff well how is it?  Well So far in the 4 hours I've had it, it's been great.  I was able to test out the two newest features that the 3G iPhone has over the old iPhone which was the 3G speed and GPS.  

The 3G speed is extremely fast, I mean at least 2x as fast and probably in a lot of cases about 5x as fast so I've been impressed with the speed so far.  I used to have a Samsung Blackjack which was a 3G phone and the iPhone pretty much kills the Blackjack.  So the extra $10 dollars in my opinion is worth it, the speeds are great.  PLUS you can now talk and browse at the same time.  On the old iPhone if you were talking it wouldn't let you access data because the EDGE network doesn't' support two way communications.  Only down side so far is that you need to live in a city with good 3G coverage.  Fortunately I live in Los Angeles and they have a pretty robust 3G network here.  

Next up is the GPS feature.  The GPS feature is great as well.  Found my position very quickly and placed a blue beacon on my position, from here I can search any near by points of interest.  Combined with the 3G network the searches are vastly faster than the first gen iPhone.  So this GPS feature will be very handy.  

The look and feel of the iPhone is good too.  It actually feels thinner than the first gen iPhone although technically it's thicker.  So far the plastic back gives the phone a stronger signal reception for both voice, data and WiFi.  

The next big change are the Apps.  Although you don't need a new iPhone to take advantage of the apps, (you can just install the software update 2.0 on your current iPhone to get apps) I have been really looking forward to this and seeing how they installed and ran.  Installing apps is easy as two taps and it automatically places a new icon in the home screen of the iPhone and a little download indicator.  I installed the following free apps and played with them:

Facebook

MySpace

AOL AIM

Remote

Both the Facebook and MySpace apps work wonderfully, in fact I think the MySpace iPhone app is better than the MySpace website, it's very clean looking and Facebook esq.  The Facebook app is great too but one thing its missing from the Web app is the ability to browse your friends photo albums which I thought was a bit weird.  But all in all these apps are a must have if you are into social networking.   

AIM is awesome finally a native IM client all you do is log in with your account and all your buddies appear just like your PC and navigating is as easy as using your iPhone.  

By far the coolest app so far is Remote.  I blogged about this earlier and it is so cool.  In just a couple of minutes I was able to remotely control my Powerbook, iMac and Apple TV music libraries from any room in my house as long as I had a signal to my wireless network.  I could browse all my music, play lists everything!!  Then I just tapped on a song and my music started playing.  On your PC/Mac you can even control volume but not on the Apple TV.  It even streams the Album art to your iPhone once you start playing a song.  You can flip the album art over and pick more songs from that artist and it will instantly start playing that song.  It's amazing and the speed is really impressive.  The next time I have a house party this will be something incredible to show off.  

So there you have it my first impressions of the iPhone.  So far so good.  was it worth the wait?  Yeah for me it was, but I don't think too many people will agree with me.  If you don't have an iPhone and are mulling it over, just get it you won't be disappointed, besides there is a 30 day return policy so try it and if you really think it sucks just take it back.  

Got other questions?  email me: richmlee@gmail.com