The Age - ReviewStephen HutcheonJuly 10, 2008
The mobile device dubbed the Jesus Phone is about to have its second coming.
The iPhone 3G, the new incarnation of Apple's first foray into the mobile handset business, will go on sale in 22 countries on Friday.
And Australians will be among the first in the world to witness the buzz surrounding this much-hyped touch-screen device that is part phone, part iPod and part pocket computer.
Even before it goes on sale, there's every indication that the new model is going pick up where its predecessor left off.
In the US, queues of eager consumers have already started forming outside Apple stores and in Britain, a surge of pre-orders on the website of one carrier caused the site to buckle and crash under the strain.
Apple's share price, meanwhile, is flying high, having almost doubled in value since the phone's first public airing 18 months ago.
For the past couple of weeks, I've had an opportunity to poke and prod the iPhone 3G, putting it through its paces to see if this phone really does perform the kind of miracles that earned it the Jesus Phone moniker.
I have used it at home and at work; in a bus and train and car; by the sea and in the highlands; in both Sydney and Melbourne and in many points between those two cities.
And I have tested it on the networks of Optus and Vodafone - two of the three carriers (Telstra being the third) which will be selling the iPhone come Friday.
The phone is not without its flaws. It is not - repeat, not - perfect. And Apple has chosen to omit features which are standard in many other less high falutin' phones.
Moreover, in the year since the first version of the iPhone went on sale, many other phone manufacturers have launched or are about to launch similarly featured so-called smart phones - narrowing the technological lead that Apple enjoyed a year ago.
But to give credit where it's due: this sudden spurt of innovation only came about because of Apple's dive into the mobile business. Without the iPhone, other phone companies might not have picked up their game so quickly.
Apple's engineers and designers are no doubt already working on the next version of the iPhone to restore that advantage.
In the meantime - and possibly for the next 12 to 18 months - what you see with the iPhone 3G is what you get: a powerful, multi-featured, music and video-playing, internet- and email-capable mobile phone with a crappy camera.
The good news for Australian consumers lusting after iPhone is that there is a choice. The fact that the phone is being offered through three carriers means that there are a dizzying array of plans and deals available with the competition keeping everyone honest.
All iPhones, however, will be locked to the carrier from which the phone is purchased. In the case of phones purchased on 12 or 24 month plans, you won't be able to leave the shop with the device without signing a contact and handing over your credit card details.
The iPhone 3G comes in 8GB and 16GB models and with a choice of a scratch-resistant white or black plastic backing.
In addition to the phone and the iPod, the device comes pre-installed with several applications including those that will allow you to: surf the web, collect your emails, take and store photos, check the weather and share prices, watch YouTube videos and plot your position on the GPS-enabled Google Maps feature.
The iPhone 3G is so called because it runs on the faster third generation (3G) mobile network. Think of it as broadband for phones as compared with the dial-up performance of the older 2G networks.
Just as broadband opened the way for a surge in internet use on PCs, so too, 3G was supposed to attract more mobile users to internet-based services.
To date, that hasn't been how it has panned out. The Australian Communications and Media Authority recently published a report showing that although a third of Australian consumers owned a 3G-capable phone, only a third of them used the available 3G services.
The report cited a lack of awareness of these services and the high cost of data plans as being key factors in this poor take-up.
Interface
In my view, the biggest drawback in smart phones to date has been the mobile phone interface: the way you steer your way around the phone. Many of these devices have required users to perform logic-defying sequences of clicks to access those web services.
The iPhone - which uses a version of Apple's easy-to-understand OS X operating system - has demystified that process, giving users quick click access to features such as email and web browsing.
The result has been manna from heaven for both users and carriers. Mobile industry analysts cite the experience of the German phone company T-Mobile, which found customers using the first version of the iPhone churned through 30 times more data than other non-iPhone using customers.
That was also the case with this user. The ability to download emails, surf the web and access other internet-based services from almost anywhere can become habit forming - especially when you don't have to foot the bill for the data costs.
Emailing
The iPhone 3G provides email support for a number of free web services such as Google's Gmail and Yahoo Mail. An important enhancement is the ability to synch the iPhone with corporate email system using Microsoft Exchange - a feature that will ensure the iPhone gains a bigger presence among data hungry corporate users.
Hooking the iPhone up to my Gmail account was a painless exercise. And from there, it gave me the option of using a wireless internet connection or the carrier's network to download emails - including many of the more frequently used attachments.
The email even worked well in places like the small towns of Dunning in NSW and Euroa in Victoria where there was no 3G service and the phone dropped back on to the 2G network.
My biggest complaint about the iPhone's email interface is that I could find no way of searching. Monitoring emails day-by-day is fine, but locating older emails involves way too much effort.
With the iPhone, thumb typing gives way to index finger tapping and this can be a hit and miss affair - especially if you are travelling in a bus, train or if you are a passenger in a car.
Pinpoint accuracy is hard to achieve when you're ducking and weaving through city traffic or rattling around on a train. And the lack of a cut and paste function makes for a lot more typing.
Accessing the internet
Browsing the web can also be frustratingly fickle. Some websites are optimised and load faster than others. But speed is also affected by the signal you receive.
So be prepared for a broadband-like service that can sometimes only deliver a dial-up performance.
Being a touch-screen device, most of the functions are operated using finger gestures on the large screen. But unlike push buttons, these gestures - pinching, splaying, dragging and flicking - also don't always deliver a uniform outcome.
But, if you master the foibles and accept the limitations, what you get is the internet as you see it on your computer. Full web pages which can be drilled down into, bookmarked and forwarded in an email as a link.
GPS Mapping
The GPS-enabled mapping feature is like having a road atlas combined with the Yellow Pages in your phone.
This tells you where you are, plots suggested routes, gives you distances and estimates travel times between points and can also pinpoint the location of nearby petrol stations, coffee shops, restaurants, plumbers etc.
On a drive down from Sydney to Melbourne this week, I was able to use it to successfully navigate my way from the outskirts of Melbourne to my destination.
You do however need to be in the passenger seat when you do this. The iPhone cannot be used by the driver. It has no voice commands and the screen and the sometimes slow speed with which the map renders makes it unsuitable as a replacement for an in-car SatNav system.
More minuses
While Apple has added a feature which allows you to attach geo-locational data to photos taken on the phone, the camera is otherwise unchanged from the first version.
Two megapixels is pretty measly these days - even by phone standards where five is becoming the norm.
In addition, there's no flash, no optical zoom and no video - all of these are standard features on most other phones such as my four-year-old Nokia.
It's a bit like putting manual winding windows on a high performance sports car.
With all the iPhone's tricks, battery life was always going to be an issue. While I never ran out of juice over the course of a day, I could see how quickly certain functions very rapidly drained the battery levels.
And as the phone's battery is fixed, there's no opportunity to bring along a spare and swap it across when the meter hits the red zone.
Coming soon
Despite these shortcomings, the iPhone still has a couple of aces up its sleeve.
Watch out for a service called App Store which comes online on Friday when the phone goes on sale.
Indications are that App Store will feed the iPhone the way the iTunes Store feeds the iPod - providing Apple and its third party developer partners with a nice little earner.
For an average price of around $10, iPhone 3G owners will be able to tap into a potentially bottomless pit of content that can transform their phone into a game console or a musical instrument or a medical encyclopedia.
Another feature we didn't get to examine was the MobileMe "cloud" storage service. For $119 a year, you get an allowance of storage space where you can keep photos, calendars, documents etc - all in a space accessible via your iPhone.
It's like the iPhone's external hard drive and you can also synch that up with your desktop or laptop computer.
Bottom line
Despite conceding its technical advantage and failing to address some avoidable deficiencies, the iPhone 3G looks set to advance Apple's penetration of the mobile phone market.
The support for corporate email systems and the App Store will extend the phone's appeal to new markets and while it still has many elements of a versatile consumer gadget, it looks to also have a greater practical utility that will make it more of a work horse and less of a show pony.
