iPhone 3GS: still the best?

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

Business IT - Technology

Meanwhile reports that the iPhone Dev Team has already managed to jailbreak the 3GS (but won’t yet publicly release it yet so Apple can’t stop its use on upcoming 3GS shipments) are great to hear and due to the speed with which the jailbreak was announced doesn’t appear to be phasing Apple, unless Apple is laying a trap of sorts as the Dev-Team seems to suspect.

To date, only Palm has managed to partially copy and even improve a bit upon the iPhone interface in any meaningful way, while the “pull down bar” on the Google Android platform shows how Apple could implement multi-tasking when it is ready to do so.

All up, the iPhone 3GS is still the best and most advanced smartphone and handheld computer on the planet.

While the Nokia N97 and plenty of other phones match or better the iPhone 3GS on features, and also offer a wide range of apps (if not anywhere near as many as the iPhone’s 50,000+ app catalog), the iPhone OS provides an unparalleled level of “smooth” interface ease-of-use that no-one has truly yet copied, despite Palm’s otherwise amazing little Pre.

LG gets closer with its Arena, but still can’t quite match the iPhone either.

Some have warned Apple to ensure its iPod and iPhones don’t suffer the same fate as the Macintosh, being technically superior while massively outsold by DOS and Windows 1.0 based PCs.

Thus far, Apple has remained the major player in the mp3 space, while rising to great prominence in smartphones over a remarkably short period of time.

It’s safe to say it looks destined to grow much more in smartphones, and when the oleophobic multi-touch Macbook netbook inevitably arrives, hopefully at the right price, Apple’s ownership of this space and further into desktop PCs and notebooks could truly explode, mostly at Microsoft’s expense.

As Steve Jobs said on Apple’s 30th anniversary… it’s just the beginning. Apple’s success and the ever improving competitive efforts to at least copy if not try to better Apple are driving innovation in smartphones as never before.

I’ll have to give my review model back soon, and while the iPhone 3G did not tempt me to upgrade, the 3GS definitely does even though a netbook Macbook is presumably on the way, as is an iPhone 4G in about 12 months from now.

The future is bright, but until then, there’s the iPhone 3GS. If you weren’t convinced by previous iPhones, take another look, and if you’re already an existing iPhone 2G or 3G owner, try to resist!