Spot the deliberate mistakes!

iPhone 3g - let's be clear about something...

It seems my previous post needs some clarification.

Imagine if you took a 3g iPhone and ran over it with a lorry - a big lorry - then smashed it with a hammer and dropped it in a vat of molten steel. Imagine you then took the steel and made it into mesh and then did the same thing again. You'd end up with something that was still better than any other mobile.

iPhones are incredibly good, technologically far superior to anything on the market and horribly addictive. The 3g variant will also be great and have lots of fans. My only issue is that I had expected something... more.

I'm not even sure what it is that I expected or wanted - just something a little 'wow'! The original iphone delivered that 'wow' and while the 3g is a good upgrade, it isn't enough to get me to upgrade the hardware - let alone get in a queue!

iPhone 2.0 - firmware and hardware

Now, seriously, I'm not one to moan.

Wait a minute, I am - but that's not the point.

It's 1.50pm in the UK and still we have no iPhone 2.0 firmware - well, not officially anyway. And since Apple Legal got into gear, even the unofficial links to something that was either the final beta or the real deal have been taken down too.

The iPhone 3g is out - I've just had a go on one. The iPod Touch 2.0 upgrade is available for download. The App Store has been up for a while. MobileMe (dreadful name) is there, doing it's thing (whatever that may be).

But no iPhone 2.0 firmward upgrade? What have we done wrong? Come on, sort it out.

Actually, this problem is all of Apple's making. Steve Jobs and Jonathan Ive have raised the bar so high that we expect miracles. We want it all and we want it now. And sometimes we just don't get it. The wait for 2.0 firmware has led so many people to jailbreak their iPhones that it's small wonder that the teams working on the jailbreaks announced that they'd broken 2.0 earlier this morning.

And another thing, I've had a go on the new iPhone. Now, I'm a first gen iPhone person. It is a brilliant bit of kit (and will probably be even better when/if we ever get 2.0!) that made everyone reassess what they want out of a phone. It is stunning. How would they possibly top it?

Well, the answer seems to be with a 3g phone that has a nasty nasty shiny plastic back. The original has a lovely brushed steel back and is solid. It also has less battery life than the original - and if one more person says to me 'well, if you want longer battery life, switch off 3g', I'll scream. It's like saying 'I've got a 4x4 gas guzzler but it's very environmentally friendly because I don't put any fuel in it'! The whole point of the 3g iPhone is that it's 3g! If the battery can't cope with it, don't put it in.

It also, and this is a classic example of raising the bar and raising expectations, has two tiny horrible little screws in the bottom. The original doesn't. The original is just a nicer design! You might think that I'm trying to find reasons not to like this and am relying on little things but it's a little device and the little things are what makes it special (or not).

And another thing, have you seen the 'white' one? Well, it's only what at the back, which makes it look as if someone's just stuck a decal on it. At least with a decal, you could take it off once it becomes grubby - can you imagine a white 3g iPhone after a few months? Yeuch!

The iPhone is special. The original was incredible. I am sure that the new firmware will make it even better. But iPhone 3g is a mistake. Sorry Apple - I'm a big fan but...

Today's lesson - If you make something really good, don't follow it up with something inevitable or something that's worse.