MattSnodBlog

It seems only fitting that I had to buy the iPhone 3G S on its first day of availability after buying the original iPhone on its release day. This time, I made my way to the Apple Store on West 14th St. in Manhattan instead of the one in the Menlo Park Mall in NJ.

As I arrived, I could see quite a line (perhaps 300 - 400), blocked off by barricades and stanchions. There were two lines, actually. One was for people who reserved an appointment with that store online, days earlier. The second, slower-moving line, was for us nincompoops who thought that we could get there at that day's special opening time of 7:00 a.m. and get our new iPhones minutes later. It was not to be. I was interviewed by WABC for a news story on the iPhone release. I'm about 40 seconds in.

I waiting in line for over two and a half hours until I was 14 people away from the front of the store. At almost 10:00 a.m., I had no choice but to leave the line to get to work. Hey, the phone would still be there. My fellow comrades-in-line were incredulous when I left the line. I could only smile and say to the impatient woman behind me, "Well, you're one person closer now."

After work, I trekked back over to that store, only to see a familiar line of people,

knowing that I could expect at least another hour's wait. Since it was a Friday, I decided to head home, grab up my son, and head to the ol' faithful Menlo Park Mall Apple Store. We raced down the Garden State Parkway, sauntered into the mall only to find this ... the store was closed for renovations for a week. On the day of a major product release!

Of course that mall's AT&T store was out of iPhone 3G S's, so we raced back up the Garden State Parkway to the Short Hills Mall, where I waited a pleasant ten minutes to finally get my iPhone 3G S ... phew!

All in all, I'm thrilled with the new phone. If I could sum it up in one word, that would be "faster." Everything about this phone is appreciably faster than my previous iPhone -- the data speed (3G), the start-up, switching among applications, opening new browser windows, etc. I'm loving it. I'm only dreading the inevitable day that I get that first scratch. As far as the features go, I pretty much covered that here.

If you're looking for the all-encompassing review of Apple's new 3.0 software for the iPhone, this ain't it. But hopefully, like me, you have a very short attention span and want just the cool stuff. Here it goes. (Click on any of the thumbnails to see the full size.)

What I like:

• I had serious doubts about Apple's proposed implementation of cut and paste on the iPhone 3.0, but they have once again knocked it out of the park. It uses a simple interface that lets you select the word you tap or drag out handles (with zoom-in feature for fat fingers) to define the beginning and end of the selection.
• I'm really liking the universal search. And putting it one button push away was a great move, too. All you have to do is hit the home button, as long as you're on page one of your apps. If you're on a subsequent page, you need to hit it twice (once to get to page one and once to get to the search view).
• Contact view offers two new more buttons along with Text Message: Share Contact (e-mail only) and Add to Favorites.
• With the new voice recorder, if you "tap" the microphone image in the voice memo app, the VU meter moves.
• Voice mail now shows you more information about the caller from the list screen, like which contact's number a voicemail message came from (mobile, work, home, etc.). If it's an unknown number, it shows the area code's city.
•  Find My iPhone rocks. This is the utility, available to MobileMe members, that helps you find your iPhone if you've lost it. It also allows you to remotely wipe it if it's been stolen. I tried this feature, and even with a first-gen iPhone without GPS, it narrowed my search down to a block. This could certainly help you determine that you left it at your mom's house or at work or in a cab. It also lets you have the phone play a tone (even when silenced) for 2 minutes and push a text message to the phone as a call-to-action for someone who may find it. Very cool. Even if you had not planned on ever signing up for MobileMe, $99/year is almost worth it alone to have that insurance plan.

What I don't like:

• Running the 3.0 software on my first-gen iPhone makes it even slower -- at some points, quite unresponsive for a few seconds, which is annoying. Transitions among apps is slower, typing responsiveness is slower, everything's just a bit slower. Since I plan on getting the iPhone 3G S tomorrow, I won't complain about this too much.
• It could just be me, but the keyboard keys seem just a little bit thinner. Anyone else think that?
• The voice memo app allow you to "share" voice memos but via e-mail only. I would expect an MMS, wireless, or BlueTooth option to be available on other carriers or on AT&T later this summer.
• As someone who has dealt with digital media production for years, the voice memo visual VU meter is a joke. It's not representative of real levels. In fact, when I spoke very loudly just to reach the 0db level, the actual playback was completely distorted. It's more of a fun addition than something useful.

What I wish they had added:

• Native syncing of iPhone Notes with a desktop Mac app.
• A To-Do list on the iPhone calendar that would sync with iCal.
• Multiple-select deletion of anything that the iPhone "lists," such as text messages, voice mails, etc. You can do this with e-mail. It should have been an easy addition.

I'd like to hear what you like or don't like, too. Please send in your comments.

I must admit, I was waiting on bated breath for the announcement of a new iPhone. I had been checking the rumor sites for weeks, I kept refreshing Apple's home page, and I was diligently following engadget's live blogging from the WWDC.After a slew ofannouncementsand rehashes about iPhone OS 3.0, I started to get a bit nervous. As a first-generation iPhone owner (yes, I was one of the idiots who overpaid on the first day), I and millions of others were ready for an upgrade now that our 2-year service contract was nearing its end.

I was delighted when they finallyunveiledthis new version of the iPhone, the iPhone 3G S, with its many features. I can now pass along my iPhone and its diminishing battery life to another so that I may one-up the 3G owners who shoved things like GPS in my face for nearly a year. Many other sites cover these features and specs more thoroughly than I will, but I will give you my opinion on a few of them.

• What I was most excited about was the new storage capacity of 32 GB. With my current iPhone able to store only 8 GB, I found that quite limiting, especially since I had always liked to keep my entire music library -- at almost 28 GB -- on my iPod. With the 8 GB iPhone, I resorted to creating a Smart Playlist containing only music that I had rated with 4 or 5 stars. While this created a good "best-of" playlist, it had the unfortunate effect of said playlist becoming repetitive and stale. And I must admit, I kind of liked Richard Marx popping into my earbuds every now and then (perhaps more "then" than "now"). With the new storage capacity, I now have the opportunity to have my entire music library available to me again, although I'll probably opt to not have all of it, in lieu of having a bunch of apps, photos, videos, and podcasts.
• The next feature I was thrilled to see was universal search, aka Spotlight. There are endless times when I can only remember one small word or detail about a calendar event, contact, song, etc. that having Spotlight searching everything will fix.
• Copy and paste seems to be the one everyone is ga-ga to have, but I fear that the actual implementation will be a bitunwieldy. iPhone users can sympathize with the frustration of trying to maneuver the magnified cursor between the letters "i" and "l." Now imagine trying that AND dragging to highlight another set of text. I'll believe it when I see it.
• The TomTom app they demonstrated seems like a huge leap beyond those countless throw-away (yet useful) apps that go for 99 cents or less. With the optional windshield holder and charger, it seems like an actual, powerful, upgradeable replacement for on-dash GPS devices. I can only guess that being as such -- and possibly eating into TomTom's product sales -- this app will come with a hefty price tag. TomTom won't want to price it too low as to cannibalize their other products. This begs the question, will iPhone app users pay more than $50 for an app?
• The feature that seemed to draw some excitement but for which I have serious doubts was the voice control. This new feature lets you hold down the home button until a voice prompt activates. You can than ask things like, "What song is playing," and the device's text-to-speech will tell you the song and artist. They seem to present this as a means of convenience. However, if you were holding the device anyway, you could simply double-click the home button to reveal the name of the song. I don't see the benefit.

So the iPhone 3G S doesn't seem like a huge improvement over the current iPhone 3G, but it is a huge improvement over the first-gen iPhone, so I'll be there on June 19 at the Menlo Park Mall to pick mine up.