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The iPhone 3GS has a Samsung S5PC100 600MHz ARM processor (Cortex A8 platform-- cutting edge and fast) and 256 megs of RAM, while the iPhone and iPhone 3G had a 412MHz processor and 128 megs of RAM. There's also a new graphics chip in the S model-- no wonder this thing is faster. Yet battery life is supposed to be better with the faster phone-- impressive since CPU speed and battery life are usually inversely proportional. While the iPhone 3G struggled to make it through a day with heavy use, the iPhone 3GS succeeds.
There's another element to speed and that's network speed. The iPhone 3G supported HSDPA 3.6Mbps while the iPhone 3GS supports 7.2Mbps. AT&T is in the process of rolling out that faster 3G standard and it will take them about 1.5 years to complete, but we'd hope to see it rolled out in some of the larger metro areas later this year. That means even faster web page and email downloads. But in our area (Dallas), download speeds are no better than the iPhone 3G running the new 3.0 OS. That OS sped up download times considerably: DSL Reports mobile speed test reported 360k on the iPhone 3G with the 2.0 OS and 1064k on the iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS running OS 3.0. Reception and Call quality Sorry, there are no great improvements here. The iPhone 3GS gets average reception and measures the exact same as the iPhone 3G using Apple's built-in field test that measures signal in decibels (smaller numbers are better, use the keypad to enter *3001#12345#* to get a reading on your own iPhone). Call volume and quality are the same with the exception of Bluetooth headsets: range is improved as is voice quality. Not there quite yet New for OS 3.0 which is pre-installed on the iPhone 3GS and is available as a free upgrade via iTunes download for the older iPhones, is MMS (picture and video messaging) and tethering (using the iPhone as a high speed wireless modem for a notebook). Unfortunately, AT&T isn't ready to support these new features out of the gate but they should be available later in 2009. Drive safely: voice dialing The iPhone wasn't the safest driving companion: no speed dial and no voice dialing -- oh my. New for the iPhone 3GS (and not available as part of the OS 3.0 upgrade for older iPhone models) is voice dialing. Press and hold the iPhone's center button (that's the only button on the phone other than the power button) to launch voice dialing and voice command. Yes, you can say "call Juan Doe mobile", and in fact you better say that because the iPhone won't match partial names and if you've got more than one number for a contact it will prompt you on screen as to which number to call (you must look at the screen to notice this, but you can say "home", "mobile" or "work" without touching the screen). To call folks start the command with "call". To digit dial a number, start your command with "dial". To find out what song is playing, say "what song is playing". Of course if you're going to press and hold the center button, you could just as well look at the screen and see what song is playing. But if iTunes is playing the song in the background (yes it can do that and the iPhone can indeed multitask when Apple wants it to) this feature is more useful. The good news: it's very accurate, though some Chinese names threw it for a loop. The bad news? There's no voice dialing over Bluetooth-- doh!  Other new goodies Also new for OS 3.0 (not just the iPhone 3GS) is Bluetooth A2DP stereo. Finally, the world's foremost music phone with all its iPod goodness, can play music through Bluetooth stereo headphones and headsets. And boy is it loud. . . and it sounds good too; better than average for a music phone. New for the iPhone 3GS is Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR with multi-point technology, which means it can pair with multiple headsets. It played well with a variety of current Bluetooth headsets and supported most call features except voice dialing. The new OS adds (don't fall down now) copy and paste. It only took 2 years and three OS revisions to get this basic feature, but now that it's here, we must admit it's the best implementation we've ever seen on a mobile device. It's very easy to control and works like a charm. It copies more than just text too: you can highlight a section of a web page with text, graphics and hyperlinks and paste it into an email message and it's all transferred intact and pretty. Apple has added iPhone-wide search. Swipe your application screens to the position that would be before the first screen of icons and you'll see a search screen (see below). It searches email (headers only), contacts, calendar and more.
There's a compass (magnetometer) that looks just like your Boy or Girl Scout tool of old. For hikers, map geeks and the like it's a nifty feature but the rest of the world will have to wait until applications like navigation programs put this to general purpose good use. iPhone 3GS vs. Palm Pre The Palm Pre is the new kid on the block and he's off to a very promising start. Running Palm's new Linux-based webOS, the Pre, like the iPhone, is very easy to use and full of eye candy. In fact, the Pre has even more special effects and animations in the OS, and while those do nothing to improve functionality, they are fun and attractive. Here are some comparison points: - Both have capacitive multi-touch displays that are wonderfully easy to use (the Pre's is more colorful). The iPhone has a larger display and that makes a difference when viewing web pages, movies and photos. - But that smaller screen means Pre is smaller and a little easier to fit in your pocket. - The Pre has a hardware QWERTY keyboard. . . but it's pretty bad and isn't a real improvement over the iPhone's on-screen keyboard unless you're really allergic to touch screen typing. - The iPhone can take advantage of the iTunes app store's obscenely large number of programs-- most of them very inexpensive or free while Palm's developer SDK won't be ready until September 2009, so we won't be seeing lots of apps for some time. Those 3rd party Pre apps will be written in HTML (the same code that's used to make web pages) and that means there's less potential for powerful applications (true .exe's in Windows-speak). - The Pre can sync to multiple PIM data sources-- that means you can sync you calendar and contacts to more than one Exchange server, Google's calendar and more (mostly without dupes), which is a unique feature. - The iPhone can sync directly to a desktop/notebook computer for PIM (contacts, calendar, tasks and notes) using Outlook or the Mac OS X address book and calendar. The Pre syncs only to the cloud (online services like Exchange and Google). - Both can sync to iTunes, but if Apple makes changes to iTunes, Pre syncing could break until Palm updates their syncing software on the Pre. - The iPhone is currently exclusive to AT&T while the Pre is exclusive to Sprint. Sprint's exclusivity will likely run to the end of 2009, while AT&T has had the iPhone exclusive for 2 years and will for at least another year. Only you can decide which carrier works best in your area and meets your budget requirements. Both charge $70 as a starting point, but at the moment, Sprint throws in unlimited text/MMS. - The iPhone 3GS doesn't have stellar battery life, but the Pre is even worse. - The Palm Pre multitasks while the iPhone doesn't allow 3rd party apps (generally) to run in the background. On the iPhone you can play music in the background, put a call into the background so you can take down notes or view maps in Google. - The Pre currently does not ship with voice dialing while the iPhone 3GS has voice dialing. To buy or not to buy? If you own an iPhone 3G and aren't eligible for the fully subsidized upgrade prices, then the iPhone 3GS may not be worth the $400 and higher cost of entry. But if you have an iPhone 2G (the first model) run, don't walk to get this. This is a darned fast computer for your pocket that's also the easiest to use and the camera is a big step up. If you like new toys and want to upgrade your 3G there are enough excuses to do so: faster performance (especially in demanding games and big web page download times), VGA video recording with YouTube uploads, faster graphics CPU (some detailed 3D games in the future may only be compatible with the 3GS). Voice dialing is also invaluable for those who make calls on the go (stop looking at your iPhone and drive!). And HSDPA 7.2Mbps doesn't mean much today but you'll notice the improvement when it comes to your area.
Prices: Websites: www.apple.com, wireless.att.com
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