Out of the Newsroom

Today was update day for owners of Apple’s groundbreaking iPhone.

(That’s right, I called it groundbreaking–and for any of you Apple haters out there–please just resist the temptation to argue with me. The thing is two years old and for anyone to even suggest that it hasn’t changed the face of the cell phone business, just reveals an ability to ignore the obvious at a level I cannot rationally deal with.)

iPhone owners were able to update their phone today to the latest version of operating software, the third major release, which is named simply 3.0 (You could if you could connect to the servers that were pretty slammed through the afternoon and evening by users trying to get the latest and greatest on their iPhones.) The update brings along a slew of features, some of which users have been asking for since the device debuted in the summer of 2007, other things a bit more recent on the development curve.

Of course, this update doesn’t add every feature that the newest model of iPhone, the 3G S, will have when it arrives on Apple and AT&T store shelves on Friday of this week. That’s because the hardware in the new model has some upgrades too, which make the new model a bit faster and capable of shooting videos, being a digital compass, and responding to commands from its’ owner’s voice. (Here’s a review from the Gizmodo website.)

But as an iPhone owner since the day it went on sale–you might ask if I don’t feel cheated that the new model will have more cool features than the unit I have been using for the past year? No, not really, because I haven’t ever owned a phone that even came close to the user experience of the iPhone–and furthermore, I’ve never owned a cell phone that was updated with new features not once, but actually three times in almost the year that I’ve owned it. (To be clear, I owned the first model of the iPhone for one year, then replaced it with the updated iPhone 3G model in July of last year because of the jump to the faster data connections that debuted in the 3G model.)

Think about that for just one second. I bought a 16gigabyte model iPhone 3G last July, for a bit under three hundred bucks. Yes, that’s pretty pricey for any phone, even a so-called “smartphone” and even if it does all kind of cool things (and yes, it does all of them). But the bigger deal is that on three occasions, Apple has pushed out a
“software update” which both fixed minor problems on the phone and added new features each time. How much did I pay for these additions? Nothing.

When was the last time any company (other than a computer one maybe) said, “Hey, we want to add some cool features to that thing you bought from us–so let us give you that added capability for not one extra cent out of your pocket?” I can’t think of one.

Which is why that Apple will continue to sell the plain old iPhone 3G (without the S in the name) the same one I have had in my pocket for nearly a year.

At a newly reduced price of just 99 bucks, particularly now running the new 3.0 software, even “last year’s model” of the iPhone is still so far ahead of any other cell phone out there this year (and believe me, I look at all of them) that it just isn’t even funny. Even close competitor the Palm Pre, which has some features that aren’t on the iPhone, still comes up short when you look at everything both phones have to offer.

Of course, I’d be even happier if the iPhone was on every cell phone company’s network instead of just an AT&T exclusive, so that everyone could choose which company has the best coverage for where they live. That and maybe wake up AT&T a bit to realize what a great phone this is and why they should step up their act so their service matches the phone.