Once in a while a real trophy gadget comes along. The Apple iPhone was one such, but how we quaked at Apple’s attempt to hide a lack of 3G beneath the gossamer thin facade of a sexy touchscreen and brain-dullingly simple user interface. It was a bit like putting lipstick and a nice hat on the Elephant Man. Apple, however, has kindly rectified that problem with the aptly named Apple iPhone 3G – the mobile the original iPhone should have been.
Much about the iPhone 3G feels almost illegally satisfying, from the desktop-class browser and HTML-rich email, to the revolutionary high-tech phone, and built-in iPod. With its innovative tap-swipe-pinch-and-stretch interface and crisp 3.5-inch touchscreen, it’s always been the best phone for user-friendliness. Skipping through albums and photos makes you feel like you’re using something from Minority Report. And now, thanks to the after-thought addition of HSDPA, it also gives you super-fast, super-easy 3G downloading on the fly.
To look at the iPhone 3G is to want one. Its design, as with most Apple products, is unbelievably sexy. Holding one in your hand you instantly feel more confident. It’s GPS-enabled too, so getting lost in Cheam is (thankfully) out of the question. And lest we forget it’s a highly capable handheld games machine now, too, putting up a stern fight to the DSis and PSPs of this world. And withthe iPhone App Store now truly ensconced in the Apple community – it’s already surpassed one billion downloads – it just adds further bullets to the 3Gesus phone’s considerable armoury.
The iPhone 3G’s not perfect, though. The battery seems to run down quicker than you’d like, resulting in frequent charging. Plus, the Hallelujah Handset still has a piddly standard two-megapixel camera, which means shots of your mates pulling moons can be grainy and blurry (although that may be a blessing). The iPhone OS 3.0 update, however, should improve picture quality, adding innumerable other tweaks to make the iPhone 3G even more of a Messiah Mobile than it already is.
