iPhone 3G S

After hearing the news from the keynote at Apple's WWDC earlier this month. I promptly pre-ordered an iPhone 3G S from Apple and had them ship it to my apartment.

It arrived on Friday as promised, but due to security crap I ended up having to pick it up from the UPS distribution center. I was spending the evening with Christine, and since I wasn't going to be near my computer to sync it with iTunes and get it properly activated I decided to try to get around the system.

------------------Beginning of Boring Activation Story------------------

I swapped SIM cards. This didn't really work as planned and since I suppose the new SIM card had never been activated it caused my old phone to need to be synced to iTunes before it would be usable again.

Then when I had a chance at home I synced up the old one to make sure I had the latest backup to be able to send to the new one. That caused it to get reactivated. Then I activated the new phone.

I think this may have confused AT&T, but there were many reports of long activation times. I ended up getting a $30 iTunes credit out of it which was cool. I'm not gonna spend it on music, but I will buy $30 worth of iPhone Apps, which I have been very stingy about getting non-free apps since I feel it might be a slippery slope that turns into spending $20+ per month on apps.

It still wasn't activated on Tuesday evening even though on Monday evening Apple sent me an email saying I was activated. So I called AT&T, and basically it turned out I needed to swap the SIM cards. I don't know if they reactivated the old card, or if I mixed them up in my swapping process, but now I've got my new iPhone 3G S activated.

------------------End of Boring Activation Story------------------

If you have an original iPhone, the 3G S is a beautiful upgrade in my opinion. If you have the 3G version from last year, then I wouldn't be so eager. First of all if you have a 3G then you got your phone subsidized and will have to pay out the ass for the 3G S, but since my original was not subsidized I could get the 32GB model for $300.

The video quality is nice, the camera in general is nice with the auto-focus lens and everything. I'm stoked to have GPS and 3G (which last years model had, but I didn't) and that the 3G is even faster than before. They aren't kidding when the say the screen wipes clean really easy, and if you've ever seen me and my phone you know I'm a wipe-aholic. I like messing around with the compass for no reason.

Best thing coming out for the iPhone: TomTom is making a turn-by-turn app that will turn the iPhone into a TomTom. They are also making an accessory to dock the iPhone into that will not only serve as a suction cup windshield mounting device, but will also act as a hands-free kit, charger, and speaker to give the voice extra boom.

I'm gonna go upload the video I took when Robin and I went to some waterfall nearby directly to youtube using my iPhone now.

http://www.youtube.com/whizkid72