iPhone 3G

I guess it was inevitable that I would write a post relat­ing to Apple’s new iPhone and MobileMe ser­vice. I’d held off a lit­tle so that I could see some of the fall out and what the deals are like over here in the UK.
The price is clear­ly the biggest thing about the iPhone 3G and it seems that, for once, we are receiv­ing a bet­ter deal than the US. It’s pos­si­ble for us to get a free iPhone, depend­ing on the price plan, and even on oth­er price plans its a very rea­son­able price (£99) for such a device.
I’m per­son­al­ly most stoked about the GPS capa­bil­i­ties. As some­one who is look­ing to buy a Sat Nav this sum­mer, I’m look­ing for­ward to see­ing how well the iPhone can han­dle being used on a long dri­ve. I’m a lit­tle scep­ti­cal about how the Google Maps imple­men­ta­tion (no view as if you are dri­ving) can work for this. Maybe with the 3rd par­ty appli­ca­tions avail­able once the App Store launch­es the Sat Nav spe­cial­ists like Tom Tom will be able to imple­ment their soft­ware. Either way, it looks like even more poten­tial has been added to the iPhone.
MobileMe looks like an extreme­ly good imple­men­ta­tion and con­sumer prod­uct, I unlike many oth­ers don’t have an issue with the brand­ing either. The inline ver­sion is my pre­ferred ver­sion, but the cloud icon com­mu­ni­cates per­fect­ly to peo­ple just what the ser­vice does. I’m look­ing for­ward to try­ing the ser­vice and, if it stands up well, los­ing the hor­ri­ble GMail IMAP imple­men­ta­tion.
Since it’s been a few days since the keynote, I’ve had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to see how every­body is moan­ing about the new iPhone. It seems to have done well, apart from the issues with price plans in the states, the only moan I have seen is regard­ing the cam­era. More specif­i­cal­ly the lack of a front fac­ing one and con­se­quent­ly the lack of video chat. Every­one harps on about it, and in all hon­esty I think the peo­ple who are both­ered about it are those who have nev­er had a phone capa­ble of it.
My last three mobile phones have been capa­ble of it. They have all had a front fac­ing cam­era and the oppor­tu­ni­ty to video call. Many of my friends have also had such capa­bil­i­ties on their phones. I’d say in the last 3 years it’s been quite a wide­spread option. But that’s what it has always been, an option. In those 3 years, I’ve nev­er used or even want­ed to use the func­tion, nor do I know any­one who has. It’s a fea­ture that every­one seems to want, but it also seems to be a fea­ture that no body uses.
All in all I’m pleased with the update, the price point and 3G addi­tion make it a very appeal­ing phone (not that it was­n’t any­way) here in the UK. The GPS, at least in my eyes, has made the iPhone a real deal break­er. There is now the scope to not just replace my iPod and mobile with one device, but also the Sat Nav I’ve been plan­ning on buy­ing this sum­mer.