iPhone 3GS: still the best?

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Monday, 29 June 2009 15:34

Business IT - Technology

The third coming of the Jesus phone has come at last, with the masses in their millions saying hallelujah for the much faster and smoother iPhone experience, but while trouble in paradise has ensued with reports of overheating and bugs in iPhone OS 3.0, no-one has yet properly copied the iPhone, let alone surpassed it.

Reports of the iPhone 3GS overheating (and turning pink around the battery on white 3GS models) when plugged into mains power and connected via Wi-Fi, or when using GPS and 3G at the same time, have appeared online. 

Any time a handheld device overheats to the point of being too hot to touch is a bad thing, but most people commenting to the online reports aren’t confirming the problem, merely stating their iPhones get warm after extended use, but definitely not too hot to touch, so while the initial reports are widely reported, follow up mass confirmation of the same issues hasn’t yet been confirmed.

It’s not uncommon for Apple launches to be rapidly accompanied by claims of hardware or software issues. “Whistling” batteries in a previous MacBook and last year’s “cracks” in the iPhone 3G casing are two I remember, and the iPhone 3GS launch is proving no different.

Apple has said nothing as yet, but probably will at some stage if Melissa J. Perenson’s PC World report (linked above) that her iPhone 3GS became “very, very hot” and that “it was too hot to even put the phone against my face” can be replicated on a widespread basis, and not just an iPhone 3GS from a bad batch that fluked passing Q&A.

Either way, Apple is obliged to replace faulty 3GS models, so 3GS owners are covered, and if it’s a real issue, it’s hopefully something that only requires a software update, as is often the case these days.

I’ve also had the opportunity of reviewing a black 32GB iPhone 3GS, courtesy of Apple, and so far I haven’t experienced any of the issues reported above, but have experienced a bug in uploading video captured by the new video recording mode to YouTube.

In short, it just hasn’t worked for me as it has for millions of others as evidenced by reports of huge numbers of new YouTube uploads from iPhone 3GS users, but more on that later.

Last week on the day before the iPhone’s Australian launch, I had the pleasure of a receiving a personal iPhone 3GS demo from Frank Casanova, the Senior Director of iPhone Product Marketing at Apple HQ in Cupertino.

Presumably also here to see the Australian iPhone 3GS launch firsthand, and to see our somewhat competitive telco market in action (as compared with the US where only AT&T offers the iPhone, to the chagrin of many people in the US), Frank showed me the iPhone’s newest features and answered some questions.

We went through the faster speed of the GPS, the new compass, the 3 megapixel camera, touch zoom points, video recording and new capabilities like trimming video, upload to YouTube, MMS and email video, Voice Command, Internet tethering, the new oleophobic screen, among others, and we briefly touched on some of iPhone OS 3.0’s new features like cut and paste.

So, what questions did I ask? Please read on to page 2!