The new iPhone 3G launches next week. July 11 to be exact. You’ve seen the ads. You’ve read the hype. Now let’s be honest. You’ve already made the decision to buy an iPhone 3G. You fell in love the first time you saw it. Now, you just need to justify the decision and enroll your brain in the process.
Here are my top ten reasons to buy (or upgrade to) the iPhone 3G. These might also come in handy in trying to convince your spouse!
- Fast 3G cellular network. 3G technology gives iPhone fast access to email and the Internet on cellular networks around the world. iPhone 3G also makes it possible to multitask. You can surf the web, download email, get directions, and watch video—even while you’re on a call. Apple claims the iPhone 3G is 2.4 times faster downloading pages, email, or attachments.
- Enhanced contact functions. Yon can now find a contact by typing a name into the new contacts search field. iPhone then shows you the matching names. (If you have a lot of names, as I do, this is a God-send.) If you use iPhone with Microsoft Exchange, you can even look up contacts in your company’s Global Address List (GAL).
- Push email, calendar, and contacts. Up until now, the iPhone used “pull technology” to retrieve my email from my company’s Exchange Server. To sync the calendar or contacts, I had to physically connect to my computer via a USB wire. With iPhone 3G, those days are over. Now iPhone has the same capabilities as the Blackberry. New emails, calendar appointments, and address contacts are synced wirelessly as they happen. If my assistant changes an appointment on my calendar, I will have those changes in a matter of seconds on my iPhone. I can even wirelessly accept or decline meeting invitations.
- Better Email management. iPhone users have long complained that they are forced to work on one email message at a time. This doesn’t sound like such a big deal, but when you are dealing with more than 100 messages a day, it becomes an issue. Now the iPhone supports mass email move and delete. So you can delete many messages at once and organize groups of messages by moving them into different mail folders.
- Email attachment support. The iPhone already reads more than a dozen file formats, including PDF, Microsoft Word, and Microsoft Excel. However, the iPhone 3G will now display iWork and Microsoft PowerPoint files. You can open them in email and view them right on your iPhone—even in landscape mode. (I predict that showing iWork or PowerPoint presentations on the iPhone will create a whole new category of one-one-one presentations.)
- Maps with built-in GPS. By utilizing the Global Positioning Satellite system, iPhone 3G always knows your current location. It can also show you what is close to your current location. So, for example, if you are taking a stroll in downtown Chicago, you can instantly find all the bookstores near your current location. Via Google Maps, it can also give you directions, using your current location as the starting point. It can even indicate the current traffic conditions—green streets where the traffic is flowing smoothly and yellow and red streets where the traffic is congested or at a complete stop.
- Third-party applications. Until now, iPhone has been a closed ecosystem unless you were willing to “jailbreak” your phone and install third-party apps. Even I haven’t been geek enough to do that. But with iPhone 3G, Apple as unleashed an army of third-party developers. And if the applications that Steve Jobs demoed in his keynote at the recent World Wide developers Conference are any indication, we are in for some treats. These apps are unlike anything we’ve ever seen on a mobile phone. That’s because they leverage all the groundbreaking technologies of the iPhone, including the accelerometer, Multi-Touch, 3D positional sound, and GPS.
- MobileMe Support. Apple is finally re-branding and upgrading it’s .Mac service. The new name is MobileMe. It boasts several new features, including “Exchange for the rest of us.” It provides a simple way to keep everything up todate. If you make a change on your iPhone calendar, for example, it pushes the change into the Internet “cloud” and then automatically updates any other devices you have connected to MobileMe. This creates true device independence. It doesn’t matter if you work on your iPhone or your laptop. Changes will automatically be synced to the other.
- Additional Languages. iPhone now offers complete language and dictionary support for English (U.S.), English (UK), French (France), French (Canada), German, Japanese, Dutch, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese (Portugal), Portuguese (Brazil), Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish, Korean (no dictionary), Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Russian, and Polish. You can even draw Chinese or Japanese characters, and the iPhone will recognize them.
- Scientific Calculator. iPhone already provides a simple business calculator. I use it all the time. But now, in iPhone 3G, if you rotate the iPhone to landscape mode, the business calculator is transformed into a sophisticated scientific calculator with dozens of functions for solving complex scientific and advanced math problems. I’ll probably stick with Excel for this, but the investment bankers and scientists amongst us will find this useful.
In addition to all of this, the iPhone itself is cheaper: $US199 for the 8GB model and $US299 for the 16GB model. However, AT&T is charging $US10 more per month for access to its 3G network. (The rationale is that you will be using more of their available bandwidth.) Prices will range from a US$69.99 monthly plan with 450 anytime minutes and 5,000 night and weekend minutes, to a US$129 plan with unlimited minutes. Each of the plans will include unlimited data transfers.
SMS will be separate, with prices ranging from US$5 per month for 200 messages to US$20 per month for unlimited messages.
Finally, you may want to watch the iPhone 3G Guided Video Tour. The Apple spokesperson will take you through all the major iPhone features.
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All but two or three of these features will be available on the old iPhone as well. So really it comes down to whether or not it’s worth $15 extra a month for 3G and GPS. Keep in mind that if you’re not in a major city, you probably won’t have 3G coverage.
@Josh: Excellent point.
thanks for helping me build my case to the spouse.
your commission check is in the mail. :)
Love the site by the way. I have you linked now.
@Chad: Thanks for the link, by the way. You are in my RSS feeds.
Great! I’ve got all these functions (and many more) in my Nokia phone. From the European perspective US mobile phone market is strange. In Poland I can legally buy any phone and use it in any network without restrictions.
as mentioned by josh, only #1 & #6 are specific to the new iPhone. all the rest are part of the next release of the iphone software (version 2.0). so even the older (if you consider 1 year as “older”) iphones will have many of those features.
and as he mentioned, i don’t live any where near a 3G network, so even #1 won’t do me any good. the nearest 3G network is 3hrs away in any direction and i don’t travel as much as you do.
so for me i’m thinking of getting one of the older iphones off of ebay when it’s flooded with people wanting to upgrade and starting my service at the old “lower” monthly rate. at least until i do eventually move to a place where i’m around a 3G network. and who knows? by then there may be a “newer” model iphone out.
I guess I have to buy one now. My only remaining excuse is that battery life has not improved. But I don’t think you’ll let me off the hook, are you?
@Maurilio: Ahh, no. You are not let off the hook!
Thank you for the great summary and a forum for excellent comments. I’ll be sticking with my old-school iPhone. I have been reading that the market for the old iPhone will be hot so don’t expect a big price drop on eBay or elsewhere.
…but how does somebody using a phone provided by their employer on Sprint make the entire company change to ATT for wireless service? I still can’t believe that Apple locked this phone in with ATT.
As was pointed out earlier, the availability of 3G is a big deal. Dalton, Georgia is probably way down on the list…so my old-school iPhone will do just fine.
Although I WOULD like GPS….hmmm…..
Mike, how does the Kool-aid taste? The real question is ROI. How many of these features are going to have a real tangible benefit that justifies the additional cost? As much as I love Apple’s products the iPhone (any generation) is just too expensive for what it provides. I have my laptop for most applications, my Palm Treo for phone and web and that’s all I need. The iPhone is a very cool device….and a Jaguar is a very cool car, but all I need is my little Toyota for the jobs I need to get done.
(visiting from ht on Randy Elrod’s blog) …
10 Reasons NOT to Get an iPhone (from an Apple-Addict, no doubt!) …
10. AT&T
9. AT&T
8. AT&T
7. AT&T
6. AT&T
5. AT&T
4. AT&T
3. AT&T
2. AT&T
1. AT&T
(at least in our area, they are pretty awful)
Hey Mike,
Now that all of these “network” issues are fixed and you’re moving to the new iPhone, I guess all of your staff will need to move to the iPhone, too. Since you won’t be needing all of those phones maybe you can send me your old iPhone or a couple of those old berrys!
Nice post!
Like we need 10 reasons to buy, we only need the one reason, cause we want one!!
Dr. Wright
The Wright Place TV Show
http://www.wrightplacetv.com
http://www.twitter.com/drwright1
An Open Letter to Randall Stephenson (CEO of at
Here’s the text of an email I just sent to att CEO Randall Stephenson…I’ll be fascinated to see if I get a response. Mr. Stephenson, My name is Jon Dale and I recently (about 30 days ago) became an att
@Fred: I was skeptical of AT&T at first, too. I had one place on my commute to work where I consistently dropped calls. However, AT&T customer support was very responsive and got the problem fixed in short order. I travel a lot and am pleased with the coverage and the support. Thanks.
Apparently you don’t travel often to New England — we are ALL Verizon up here in Vermont, no AT&T at all. So alas, no iPhone. I would love to have one, being a great fan of all things Apple — except that Apple locked in with AT&T…
Very informative! I was going to make the switch, but I REALLY am now! Great blog!
Hmmm. FWIW, I just now heard Leo Laporte, the “Tech Guy” of radio and TV, caution listeners to not be fooled by the lower price of the new iPhone; that it will actually be more expensive to use than the old (last year’s) one. He bought an iPhone when they first came out last year, will doubtless get one of the new ones (if for no other reason than to be able to report on it), seems to have (or have access to) every new gadget that comes along and yet seems to prefer the Blackberry. He’s especially enthusiastic about the not-yet-released Blackberry Bold.
@Karen: You’re right. I don’t travel to New England much. Thankfully, we do have 3G service in Nashville, but anyone thinking about buying the new phone should check.
@Doug: The increased service cost is about $10.00 per month, supposedly to offset the increased bandwidth.
I’m tempted. So far I haven’t justified an iPhone for myself, though I jailbroke two for my brother-in-law in Brazil. Does the new iPhone include the option to delete multiple contacts at one time?
@Matthew: I am not sure about deleting multiple contacts. Sorry.
@All: You can use the iPhone with other carriers if you are willing to pay the unsubsidized price of the phone.
Why we love Zappos and hate AT
If you are the CEO of a Company should you make it easy for your customers to reach you or should you make it as difficult as possible? The answer…it depends. If you and your company specialize in happy customers
I’m finding opposing views on whether we can even get an unlocked iPhone, Mike. Even at the site you posted on Twitter, some of the comments said the guy was wrong. Then I read this:
http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/business/appleaday/blog/2008/06/unlocking_the_new_iphone_wont.html
Off topic for this post… how do you get the “My Playlist” on the right with Amazon.com links? Automatically somehow, or did you create manually?
@Joe: Automatically in TypePad’s Typelists.
I wonder how iPhones compete in Washington DC, where Verizon is king due to other cell plans not having access on the Metro, the subway system that connects DC/MD/VA
@ Fred McKinnon
The best reason to get AT & T is it’s not Verizon.
Cell phone companies are the killing/cure for modern communication and connectedness–mouseprint, dubious tactics, and all.
If interested in third party applications, you might want to check: http://www.iphoneapplicationlist.com
All apps are made fot the iphone!
I am a generation 1 iPhone user. I love my iPhone and I wanted to upgrade, but I’m going to hold on a while longer. Some people use the excuse that the extra expense is not worth it because you have to pay $120 more a year for data plus $60 more for 200 text messages (to equal my current iPhone plan). But in reality, I’m sure we spend that money on Starbucks or something else. Of course, we all have the right to choose what we spend our hard earned mula on, and for the benefit of being connected with high-speed internet, email, and GPS, it may be worth it. To some, not all.
On that note, I went to Lancaster Pennsylvania last weekend and I used the maps application frequently to get around town and it was flawless. Without it, I would have been completely lost in the streets of Amishville. Now, if I had GPS it would have been even better (I had to pull over and type an address and destination every time I wanted to find a restaurant or a place of interest).
Thanks for this great list. I’m planning to spend my day at AT&T this Friday! :)
Hello Mike,
I bought the new iPhone 3G and it works great now that MobileMe is up and running. The only downside to it is that if I’m on the road using the Internet and checking email the battery often needs to be recharged before the end of the work day. Other than that, I believe it’s an excelent work tool.
Have a blessed day!
nice post i have RSS’d you, please update more often… thanks
Hey Michael,
I just linked your post to my latest post. I created four more points on top of your post. Very well written might I add. Here is the link for you to check it out.
http://ageeksopinion.com/2009/07/four-more-reason...
Thanks,
James Hill.
thank you for apps
I hate to say it, but I love my iPhone. I have to be careful not to make it an idol, though and find it useful to think of what it can’t do, but only God can. Make me a better person, help me to sleep, develop character. Read about it here: http://speckleofdirt.blogspot.com/2010/02/iphone-mania-there-are-some-things-it.html