iPhone 3G - love it or not, now its everywhere…

Yes, I bought a new iPhone 3G. And, really (for me at least) it rocks! Sorry if you’re tired of hearing that, but its just a fact. And now thanks to Vodafone, it is actually officially sold where I live! No more unlocking required!

So, what’s so good about it?

Well, 3G makes quite a difference over the earlier version (iPhone v1.0) - significantly faster download speeds. GPS hasn’t really made a difference for me yet. Perhaps the most important change in my mind is the fact that I no longer have to hack the damn thing to get it to work!

This has already proved useful - after initially working, my 3G connection stopped working after iTunes applied a “carrier update”. So, I just called Vodafone, and after significant wait on hold, the rather helpful technical support person quickly fixed the problem at their end. Fantastic!

The only other problem I had was when I first got the phone I “restored” from the previous backup of my hacked iPhone 1.0 in iTunes. This led to everything working except email. In the end I had to fully restore the phone and then select “new iPhone” in iTunes, and everything was smooth from there.

But the biggest improvement?

The App Store. Amazing amount of cool apps you can download including games, utilities, and productivity apps. This is a huge improvement and I imagine the number apps available will only increase.

Overall, a pretty solid upgrade. Worth the purchase cost, and for me the monthly plan is actually less than I was paying before for more data/mintues!

For lots of people this may not be the case, but so far, I am definitely not complaining…