Although a camera with auto focus and video would be nice, and I can imagine myself playing with the compass, the iPhone 3G S doesn’t seem particularly compelling — likely why the only name change is the addition of an S. The S is supposedly for speed, and although I do like things faster, better, stronger, I haven’t found the iPhone 3G that slow.
Much of the rest of bang of the 3G S will be available to current iPhone customers as part of the OS 3 upgrade.
Oh, the promise of better battery life is really tempting, but the original promise of the iPhone 3G’s battery life was completely bogus, so why would I believe the 3G S’s numbers. I’m still considering buying a battery sled or external battery.
Besides, because iPhone owners were required to sign a 3 year contract when it came to Canada, it will be another year before existing Canadian customers can get reasonable “subsidized” pricing. “Rogers/Fido Social Media Guy” Keith McArthur1 confirms here.
The good news is Kieth says “tethering included free in data plans of 1GB or more until at least the end of the year.”
Kieth does through down the gauntlet “@dasnutz Canada is a very different market than US.” in response to Jason Wilkes “@keithmcarthur why is it that Rogers wants us to sign up for a 3 year contract, yet in the US it is 2 years? Greed…”.
The problem I have with Keith’s claim is Canada stands part from many countries in allowing three year phone contracts. Challenge accepted fellow Canadians? Time to take it to our legislators?
I know Micheal Geist continues to rise to the challenge by appearing two weeks ago before the Standing Committee on Transport and Communications to discuss the state of telecommunications in Canada:
“Remove consumer barriers – Restrictive long-term contracts and the possibility of copyright legislation that could prohibit consumers from unlocking their cell phones make it harder for consumers to move between providers. Other countries place caps on long-term contracts, caps on overpriced roaming charges, and reject legislation that stops consumers from unlocking their phones.”2
- I guess “Rogers/Fido Social Media Guy” means you are the guy that throws yourself into the mob when your employer does not have it’s act together yet to provide the information on it’s site about what will be a hot product. [↩]
- Today, Monday June 08, 2009, “Canada’s Telecom Crisis: My Appearance Before the Senate Transport and Communications Committee“, [↩]
You’ve summed up my thoughts pretty well Lloyd! And as for a battery back for your iPhone 3G – I just picked up a mophie juice pack air last week (pretty pricey) and it extends the battery in the iPhone enough to make it usable.
Because Canada’s population density is 1/10 that of the United States, and there’s no real competition. You effectively have an oligopoly. Instead of strong-arming the big 3, the Canadian government should lower regulatory barriers to entry. Allow regional carriers to spring up and put pressure on the big companies. The same greed that has them keeping prices high now will lead them to lower them when they start bleeding customers.
Also, note that AT&T won’t offer the regular subsidized price to American iPhone 3G owners until December at the earliest. So the fully-subsidized upgrade window is 18 months in the US vs 24 months in Canada. And take cheer… there will likely be a new iPhone model out by then. You can just skip the iPhone 3G S.
Never say never, but I don’t think I will be going for this iPhone upgrade. 3.0 software will be good enough for myself. I also agree that this one isn’t that tempting other than the video camera.
I would imagine that I will be waiting for my current iPhone to die or 4G, whatever comes first.