Motorola SLVR, iPhone 3G and iPhone 4

These are the last three mobile phones I’ve owned. I’ve actually have owned five phones all together but I no longer have all of them with me.

2006
In 2006 I switched from Sprint to Cingular and bought the Motorola SLVR. I liked the candy bar layout and Motorola was pretty popular at the time. Maybe you can recall the days of RAZR fever, I feel like everyone had one. At the time the SLVR was probably close to $200 but with a new 2-year contract I got it for around $50. Overall the phone was solid. I never had any real problems with it and the reception was strong. I got really good at T9 text messaging during my time with the SLVR.

2008
In 2008 Apple announced their second generation iPhone. The iPhone 3G brought higher speed data services and GPS to the iPhone. They also announced for the first time the iPhone could be acquired for a mere $199 if you signed a 2-year contract. When the first iPhone was released I didn’t even consider purchasing it because of the inflated price tag. Fortunately, this time around I was due for an upgrade, it was like the stars aligned.

Me and a couple of friends waited outside an AT&T store from 2am until opening on the iPhone 3G launch day. There were problems on launch day with activation but when the servers finally cleared up I could access the non-WAP internet from my phone for the first time. Having Google Maps at my fingertips changed my life. I could drive anywhere and I could decide where I wanted to go next on the fly. No need to call that 411 number ever again.

The iPhone apps brought flexibility to a device that would otherwise just be a phone. Steve Jobs was right. The touchscreen gave the phone the ability to be anything. It started with a keyboard with unlimited characters then a piano then a game controller and beyond.

On the downside the iPhone 3G suffered from pretty spotty reception and crashing. The hardware was just not up to par. For some reason it was incapable of making long calls in 3G mode from my bedroom.

2010
In 2010 Apple announced their fourth generation iPhone. The iPhone 4 brought a whole new look to the iPhone and sported a higher resolution screen, front-facing camera, and more powerful hardware. I was unable to upgrade my iPhone when the iPhone 3GS was released but the iPhone 4 was released as my 2-year contract was expiring. It was like the stars aligned again… but actually Apple just releases a new phone every year.

This time around Apple decided to go with a pre-order system. On June 15th hundreds of thousands of people rushed to make their pre-orders online. Obviously the web servers were crippled by the weight within seconds. That morning I headed to an AT&T store and found out they weren’t allowing any in-store pickup pre-orders. Lucky for me there was a Best Buy nearby that were giving out in-store pickup pre-orders. When June 24th came around I didn’t even have to wait in line. Best Buy’s appointment system made it really easy to just walk in the store pick up your iPhone 4. Unfortunately they only had about 20 iPhone 4’s on launch day.

The first time I saw the screen of the iPhone 4 I thought my vision improved. The iPhone 4 has twice the resolution of the iPhone 3G and it really makes a difference. The more powerful hardware was immediately noticeable. Finally, the front-facing camera allows the iPhone 4 to use FaceTime (wifi video chat).

Unfortunately, many people have complained about the iPhone 4 reception issues. I haven’t witnessed any dropped calls under regular use so far but I have been able to reproduce the depleted reception bars when holding the phone in the described way. I’m still claiming these people are just exaggerating.

The iPhone 4 hasn’t changed my life the way the iPhone 3G has but the hardware changes has made those life changing features faster and more stable.

Blizzard released the StarCraft 2 Beta for Mac yesterday however they probably should have taken their time with this release because the game runs really inefficiently. From personal experience I was able to run low to medium settings on my 2009 MacBook Pro 13″. Playing online versus human opponents you could really notice the slow down and other players complained about me lagging.

However when I booted my Mac in Windows XP using Bootcamp I could run the Beta at high settings with no performance issues. So it seems like Blizzard hasn’t fully tweaked the game for running on Mac OS yet.

List from GosuGamers:

• Almost unplayable at Medium settings on Macbook Pros before 2009/2010. (and definitely not enjoyable)
• The later 2009 Macbook Pros seem to run the client decently well
• The recently released i5 Macbook Pros runs the beta with not much problems
• Unplayable on Mac Minis
• Unplayable on Macbooks (no reports, but if it’s unplayable on some Macbook Pros, a regular Macbook probably can’t run it)
• I assume that the client would run OK on a more recent Mac desktop, although there have been no reports for or against this.

One feature that I do like on the Nano is the radio receiver. Unfortunately it lacks AM radio which I’ve been listening to more and more during football and basketball seasons. Most people think AM radio is unnecessary but I could see myself listening to AM channels during a run or even while waiting around. I guess this will need to wait for the next generation Nano as well.

In closing I’m not going to try and return my iPod Nano, I’d rather wait for the 6th generation Nano.

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The big bug that I hoped they would fix is the keyboard lag during SMS typing. So far it seems like they squashed it. Their definition is “Improved performance in text messaging”.

As usual plug in your iPhone and open iTunes. You will need iTunes 8 for this update. When you open iTunes you should get a pop-up asking you to update your iPhone. If you don’t get the pop-up, click the iPhone icon on the left side bar. Then click the “Check for Update” button in the center.

The download will take a while since its 236mb. To view the progress of your download click the “downloads” icon in the left side bar. Once it’s done downloading it’ll take another 10 – 15mins to prepare your iPhone for updating and finally update the firmware. After the update is complete your iPhone will restart itself.

Full list of improvements here.

The update is supposed to fix bugs, extend battery life, speed up syncing and have less crashes. Quite the laundry list that we’ve been forced to sit through.

We all wanted to hear something about the Push Service for Notifications but I guess that is still too far into the future for Apple. Copy and paste functionality would have also been great to hear. Other rumors including flash integration and picture messaging weren’t mentioned either.

In summary this keynote didn’t address the iPhone users and problems very much. We’ll have to wait and see if there is new functionality in the 2.1 update this Friday.

Unlike my Contour Hardskin, the silent switch is still easily accessible when in the silent position. This is a big deal to me because that was my only real complaint about the Contour Hardskin. Also when you compare them side by side the poor quality plastic of the Contour Hardskin becomes very obvious.

Pictures Later.

As always, open up iTunes and plugin your iPhone via USB and a pop-up should ask you to download and install the new 2.0.2 update.

So far I can’t tell the difference between 2.0.2 and 2.0.1.

Finally! It took them long enough to finally release their most popular case. This is probably the best case you can have for the iPhone 3G right now. The best part is that is looks sleek as hell. Everything looks like trash in comparison. You’ll have to pay top dollar for it though… $35 + shipping.

Incase announced they were making the Slider case for the iPhone 3G even before they became available. It took them a month and a half to perfect it, and now it finally hits the market.

Get it now in glossy white and matte black. The Incase news site also mentions they are planning to release more Slider colors so pay close attention to updates in coming weeks.

Order before they sell out!