Don't forget the Ess

Launched as the iPhone 3G S and now commonly called 3GS (with no space), the new, faster iPhone has been on sale for a few days in the US. It's slightly heavier than the 3G and has glossy text on the back, but otherwise people say you can't tell the difference. I'm all for calling it the Ess, myself. 'S'easier.

And niggle away, all you other-cellphone aficionados and/or Apple haters, but it's just marching out the doors over there. I reckon a million Americans in five days can't be all that wrong, and if you think of it as a triumph of marketing - what marketing, exactly? All Apple did was launch it at WWDC, as expected.

Approximately 12% of consumers who visited a retail store this past weekend in the US to buy iPhone 3G Esses said they were replacing a BlackBerry, as Apple continues to make headway against rival Research in Motion in the high-stakes smartphone market, claims research company Piper Jaffray.

When the iPhone 2 (the 3G) came out last year, about 6 per cent of purchasers claimed to be switching from BlackBerries.

Of the Piper Jaffray-surveyed buyers this past weekend, 43% of iPhone 3G S buyers purchased the higher-capacity 32GB model while 57% were content with the 16GB model. Last year 66% of buyers selected the higher capacity (of the only 8 or 16GB models then on offer) iPhone 3G last year.

Apple has even posted a handy chart showing the differences between the three iPhones so far released - it's on Apple's support site.




So how's it being received? Very finely, fanks. Wired magazine says 'Speed, Smarts Keep iPhone 3GS at the Front of the Mobile Race', giving the device 8 out of 10, lauding its speed, storage, better camera with video recording, plus search encompassing more data (and not just one app at a time).

The Wired reviewer Steven Levy also liked the voice navigation but pointed out that the multitasking is still limited, and that tethering needs some implementation (good implementation would mean you could, for example, use it as a modem for your laptop so you can get online wirelessly, something the cell phone providers seems a bit wary of).

AnandTech compares the 3GS directly to the latest Palm device, the rather cool looking Palm Pre, finding the iPhone better on six counts but bettered on three, but also, note, 11% faster than the Pre overall (and a lot faster than the iPhone 3G).

Gizmodo compares the Ess directly to the 3G, so if you're thinking of moving up to an Ess, read this one.

iLounge, the iPod-dedicated site, links many more reviews.

iLounge has also run an interesting article on the Ess' push notifications, by the way.

And in case you think I'm one-eyed (I can't see it, myself) you can read a few complaints about it too, on my own mac.nz site.

Corporate Ess

Meanwhile, Apple has stepped up its efforts to crack the corporate smartphone market, releasing a lengthy PDF guide aimed at helping system administrators deploy iPhones throughout big businesses while simultaneously taking advantage of over a dozen new enterprise features delivered last week.

The 83-page document, called iPhone OS Enterprise Deployment Guide: First Edition, for Version 3.0 or later highlights 18 new corporate-friendly features in iPhone Software 3.0.

Macworld chimed in on deploying the Apple iPhone 3GS in the corporate world. John C Welch wrote that, apart from copy-and-paste, there's plenty more for IT pros to love.

Did you know that many other smart phones also had copy and paste? Actually, they had it long before (aeons before, apparently) the iPhone and OS 3.

Wow. Somehow this 'terrible lack' of such a 'basic capability' didn't stop Apple's iPhone selling in droves, and it didn't stop those 'much better' sincerely-flatterering smartphone makers from copying the iPhone, did it? But I digress.

Anyway, Welch writes that "Apple has delivered a solid set of new features that will help the iPhone on corporate networks too", and goes on to talk specifically about LDAP, (Microsoft) Exchange Active Sync and the iPhone's management utilities, albeit pointing out that this end of the iPhone OS still needs some work.

Before the iPhone 3GS went on sale, Apple released iPhone OS3. This, oh critics of Apple's 'lax' security precautions despite no threat being actually perceivable yet, contained 45 software patches to address security vulnerabilities in the iPhone and iPod touch.

Six-million people have downloaded OS 3 already, according to an Apple announcement. You pretty much just plug your iPhone or touch into your computer, boot iTunes and press the update button. Easy. (It will dock you about NZ$14 for the touch, free for iPhones.)

Anyway, one thing I like about OS 3 is a new feature called Find My iPhone, which really works, according to the blog of 'The Intermittent Kevin' who actually already lost his new Ess in a Los Angeles bar and retrieved it from someone 'planning on returning it' elsewhere in LA, by using the new MobileMe feature and a laptop. He homed right in on it.

Just like I'm going to home right in on the Ess, as soon as it's launched here 'sometime in July'.

Here's lookin' at ya.

- Mark Webster
mac.nz

Top: Call it the Ess. Photo / AP