iPhone blog: The Summary Edition

I decided to do a Reader’s condensed version of my iPhone entries.

First, I covered the iPhone 3G and price changes announcement. Thought it was a mistake at the time, but as time told, not so much. Existing phone owners were able to resell their old ones to cover the cost of the new one (though they still paid twice what a qualifying newcomer did). And I wondered why anyone would still want a iPod touch, other than love of their Crackberry or hate for AT&T. Everything worked out okay, and I ate some crow.

Then, I covered the actual phone, the poor management of going live. Most of the kinks have been worked out, though MobileMe is still having issues.
• The 3G is faster, but depending on where you live, not necessarily “twice as fast” and not super reliable. It is called fine print, and that has as much to do with the AT&T network as Apple.
• It also eats battery life, a known issue; still no MMS, the only basic thing the cool phone really should be able to do; still no built-in Nikon camera, blah blah.
• App Store rocks it cash cow style, which I called along with everyone else. Already 3,000 apps and counting. Seriously it is addictive and distracting, all the games and cool features.

I also picked a few nits with AT&T: the raise in the price while dropping a common feature, Texting. Being in business is about making money, the nerve.
• Better speed, faster network will cost more money, much the same way an Audi costs more than a Kia.
• People will pay for text messages, therefore AT&T will charge for them.

Basically the 3G iPhone is a success, but not without its problems. Whenever 3rd party players get their sticky little hands on something, wackiness is sure to ensue. Apple just needs to realize they created a beast, and it is going to be a lot harder to make the iPhone “just work” for everyone.

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