We’ll have to wait and see….
Today I wanted to go get an iPhone 3G and do a first day impression report if the speed was the upgrade and being shackled to AT&T for another 2 years. Sadly, that won’t be happening today due to long lines and activation problems.
I personally underestimated the demand and I didn’t think the line would be all that big. I made my way over to the store at about 9:40 this morning and the line was a block and a half long. A friend of mine that works on the other side of Chicago’s Loop reported that the AT&T store on Monroe had a similar line. To give you an idea of the length of the line, I’ve drawn on a Google map. One difference in reality from that map is that people weren’t standing in the cross street, but you know…
However, I do have some good things to say about the new iPhone OS that also was unleashed today. If you’re not in a 3G covered area, this is the big news.
The upgrade process I did last night went smoothly and downloading and installing apps from the iTunes story did as well. I haven’t had a chance to play with many of the apps yet, but I’m really excited by mobile NetNewsWire and Twitterific. I love both of the desktop versions of those apps and I am very happy to have pocket versions. The AIM client is nice to have as well, but I’ve read reports that its buggy. I haven’t used it enough yet to run into that.
I won’t list all the new features as there are many web sites that cover that, but there are some really nice changes that affect my daily life. The calendar is now multi-calender aware, which was something that was killing me on the old OS. Mail has bulk move and bulk delete now, which will save me a bunch of time. You can BCC mail now as well, which is useful in business contexts.
As I do more, I’ll do another post. So, with only a few minutes really into it, and not waiting in the long line, the OS upgrade is worth it. Not sure about the hardware. Luckily, everyone gets the OS upgrade even if they don’t buy a new phone.
I am saving myself for the first Android enabled phone, their developer’s challenge seems to have produced some excellent apps. Cool use of google maps, and I am sure you’ll enjoy the phone.
Any idea about real estate apps existing for it, like SmarterAgent?
Steve,
I made the big jump just going away from my Sidekick last year. I think I’ll stick with the iPhone for a bit longer. That being said…
The Android phones look really interesting. Andrew Tillman will be getting one for evaluation as soon as one is available. It’ll be good to have Andrew looking at it, as I’ll be biased towards Android since a friend of mine is on the dev team.
As for real estate apps for either the iPhone or the Android phones, I haven’t heard of anything in either case. I suspect we’ll see more on the Android platform, just because it doesn’t have a company being the gatekeeper.
We’ll be ordering another Linux based phone (the OpenMoko) for our CTO this week. He’s really interested in playing with that, and it’ll be good to go with his carrier.
Keith
I feel like such an idiot today, but I too grossly underestimated iPhone demand and walked into an AT&T store looking for one. That store was sold out. I called around, and the entire city of Phoenix is sold out. There is no estimate for delivery.
Friday I was headed out of town, so today was really the first day I could attempt to get one.