Finally got an iPhone

“Dear Mr Jobs, your work here is now done, it’s taking 2 years for me to fully make the transition to Apple, however my quest is now complete, and apologies for taking so long…”

If I was writing a letter to Steve Jobs, it would go something like that

Well, my journey started a couple of years ago, with a iPod Shuffle, then iPod Touch, then MacBook Pro, then iMac and finally I’ve got a iPhone.

Every device I’ve bought from Apple has wow’d me in 1 way or another, and they “just work”

I’ve been fighting getting an iPhone but I just couldn’t wait any longer. The last year has been a bit of a roller coaster to be honest. I remember reading tech blogs saying that o2 were due to loose their exclusivity. Then there were reports that Orange would be selling the iPhone, and even Tesco, but no sign from Vodafone. Then finally Vodafone jumped on the bandwagon, and finally started to sell the iPhone.

As I’ve been with Vodafone for as long as I can remember, I wanted to stick with them. My plan was to wait for them to release the phone, then buy a pay as you go version, stick my sim card in this, and wait for you contract to run out, however…..Vodafone for some reason don’t want to do a Pay as you go version ?

Anyway, my contract ran out in January, and though “Well, the next gereneration iPhone will be out in a couple of months, so I can wait. After reading some recent tech blogs, it seems that the new iPhone HD won’t be officially announced until the next WWDC (World Wide Developers Conference) (Monday, June 28, 2010 to Friday July 2, 2010), and each time a new phone is announced, there is normally another month delay….Grrr !

So I made the decision and bought an iPhone 3GS from fleabay, use this until the new phone is out, then extend my contract, and stick it back on fleabay

I think I got myself a bargain, Brand New Sealed, Black, 3GS, 16Gb for £420 delivered, and on Thursday it turned up !.

Now I’ve been a iPod Touch owner for a couple of years now, but the iPhone takes it that one step further, granted my iThingy now makes calls, is able to send texts, and works without being on wi-fi, but it’s the other little thing that really do it for me. The location service is something that only kinda worked on the iPod touch, it’s nice to “select my location” and have everything map to me, and not the local exchange.

Another thing I’ve noticed is the speed difference !….Geez this thing is quick in comparison to my iPod Touch 2G, browsing, gaming, and well everything is just a lot quicker.

I so wish I’d taken the plunge a couple of years ago when they first came out, Love it !

Unboxing photos below, and again hats off to a designers for making the box look so cool !

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iPod Touch OS3.0 First Impressions

Ok, I’m a little sad, ever since the WWDC I’ve been counting down the days until the version 3.0 software for my iPod Touch. Today as most of you are aware is d-day. I’ve spent the day checking the net to see if it’s out, but to no avail.

5.30pm came, I got myself home in record time, sync my iPod, hit Refresh of the update page….and got the, the latest firmware is 2.2.1…Booo !

Had a quick look on twitter, and and there was a tweet from TrekkyGeek to suggest the firmware wouldn’t be out till around 9pm. Great I though, I’ve got things to do, and this gave me a little time to do them, then I could spend from 9pm onwards messing with the new software.

Just after 6, there was another post from TrekkyGeek saying, ooops, 9pm may have been wrong, so I hit refresh and there it was FINALLY !

I hit the magical download button, did as most people do and just hit the “I accept your T’s and C”s”, paid my £5.99 and hit download.

Initially it download a “iPod Software Update” of 277Mb, went through the motions of updating my iPod, rebooted, once rebooted I unplugged it, went straight to Config >> About and it still said 2.2.1 ? Thought WTF !, So I plugged it back in, iTunes detected it, and said…”Hey, there’s a new firmware available ?!?”, so I downloaded the firmware again, this time a 257Mb file, it ran through the motions, and voila Version 3.0 !

So, I’ve had a couple of hours to have a play with it, so what do I think ?

Well, it’s quicker, and I’d say noticeably quicker, it seems to feel a lot smoother.

Bluetooth, now enabled !, for those of you that didn’t know, the iPod Touch 2G has bluetooth, however this was never made public knowledge, ad this is what was used for the iPod + Nike, and was how you communicate with the sensor you put in your trainer. This now seems to be unlocked so you can use it with Stereo headphones, and speakers. From what I’ve read, this will also be used for peer to peer gaming also.

One of the major additions for me is the Landscape keyboard, currently it only seems to work with Safari (which it did anyway), notes and mail, which is cool, however I hope they bring this to the other applications.

Spotlight Search…anybody who owns a Mac will know just how good the spotlight search is. This will check meta data and id tags for the “searched word(s)”, emailed, notes and it an incredible local search engine, to see this work on the iPod Touch was lightening fast, and a welcome change.

Now this is the major seller for me, and worth the £5.99 alone, Cut, Copy & Paste..I tend to use my Touch a lot for browsing the web, and sending and receiving email, and to be honest it’s been frustrating not to have these when you become so used to them, on the PC and Mac. This does work a treat, you hold down your finger or thumb on the screen for a few seconds, and you get the Cut, Copy, Paste option, select the text, or images you want, with 2 movable start and end blocks, and your done, works very well.

Voice recorder, not a major feature for me, as it means I’ve got to plug in my ear bud/mic combo headset in, but works pretty well.

Something I noticed when I was listening to a podcast shortly after was a number of new icons on the play bar. You now have the option to jump back 30 seconds, which for me is a godsend, I’m forever getting interrupted and struggle to find where I was, with this, 1 click and your 30 seconds in the past !. Another of the icons lets you speed up / slow down the play speed, this way you can power listen to the podcasts you are behind on, which seem a really good feature to me !

The main update I’m looking forward to (which won’t be available till September) is the Push Notification, which allows information about your apps to be notified to you (kinda how the blackberry’s work) for example if you use a Twitter application, this could potentially be coded to let you know when you have a reply, without actually running the application. This if done right with be brilliant, and really give blackberry a run for their money I think.

Finally, a feature that’s been missing since day, something very simple and something you could do by using Yahoo, it’s the ability to sign in to your YouTube account and see and play your subscriptions  ! GENIUS !

Anyway, the firmware is still new, I need to have a good play with it, and will get chance over the next couple of days.

There are many more features, but the above are the only ones I’ve played with so far.

Tags: 2g, avail, bluetooth, counting down the days, couple, d day, day, Download, feature, firmware, ipod, ipod software, ipod touch, little time, lot, mac, motions, new software, nike, play, public knowledge, record time, Refresh, search, software, software update, something, stereo headphones, time, time sync, touch, TrekkyGeek, tweet, twitter, update, version, work, wwdc