The iPhone, Rehashed

By Rob Pegoraro
Thursday, July 17, 2008

A year ago, Apple's iPhone made most competing cellphones look like stone tablets with antennas. But the new iPhone 3G, introduced last week, doesn't make quite the same leap forward.

It's not that the iPhone 3G isn't an exceptional smartphone. It's just that this new model doesn't constitute a mandatory upgrade from its predecessor.

The iPhone 3G shares its single best feature, the ability to run add-on programs, with the older model. Its faster Internet connection, however, suffers from AT&T Wireless's limited coverage and exacts a price on battery life.

And while the iPhone 3G costs much less upfront -- new customers pay $199 for a model with 8 gigabytes of storage or $299 for a 16-gigabyte model -- it costs about $15 more a month to use. So if you've been pondering trading in your old iPhone, wait.

If you've been using some other smartphone, though, the iPhone 3G is harder to resist.

The 3G refers to AT&T's mobile-broadband network. In time trials, the 3G delivered download speeds two or three times as fast as AT&T's older EDGE data service on the original iPhone.

Like the first model, the iPhone 3G can connect to WiFi wireless networks for even faster downloads. You will need that WiFi option, considering the limits of AT&T's 3G coverage. Many not-so-distant suburbs fall outside of it, including most of Southern Maryland and large chunks of Loudoun and Prince William counties.

The 3G eats away at battery life, too. Instead of the 10 hours of talk time the first iPhone allowed, this one only lasted for about 4 1/2 in one test. When set to keep reloading a couple of Web pages on a 3G connection, its battery -- sealed inside its case -- lasted just under five hours.

AT&T's voice and data bundles start at $69.99 for unlimited Internet use and 450 weekday calling minutes but do not include any text messages, making the service cost $74.99 with 200 monthly messages. That beats Verizon's rates but exceeds those of Sprint and T-Mobile.

The 3G also includes a Global Positioning System receiver, allowing more precise navigation than the older model. But it still only offers driving directions, not ones for walking.

Apple's software sets the iPhone apart from the look-alikes those other carriers have rushed to sell. Its smart, simple, "multi-touch" interface lets you run most of the phone's features with one- or two-finger swipes, while its on-screen keyboard does an amazing job of correcting most mistakes.

Its Web browser makes full-sized pages even pleasant to read. But it can't play Flash multimedia besides YouTube videos, which open in a separate program.

The iPhone also brings along most of your computer's information and entertainment.

Its calendar and contacts programs link to a Mac's iCal and Address Book applications or to a PC's Outlook, Outlook Express or Windows Mail (or the address books of Google and Yahoo's Webmail services). You can let iTunes keep things coordinated or use Apple's new, $99-a-year MobileMe service to synchronize over the air -- though MobileMe's initial buggy performance argues for holding off on that.

And the iPhone plays your digital music, photos and videos just like the iPod that it is.

Now the iPhone's capabilities transcend the efforts of Apple's programmers, thanks to the App Store, available in iTunes and on the iPhone's home screen. This archive of third-party programs makes the software-loading routines of Palm OS or Windows Mobile phones look painfully primitive: Select a title you like, and after a couple of taps and a short download, it's ready to use.

The store carries about 800 applications, some free but most costing 99 cents to $10 (paid through an iTunes account). The selection already covers a broad range -- games, to-do lists, databases, e-books, Web-radio jukeboxes -- although it still needs an Internet calling program.

The iPhone 3G's system software throws in some small but notable usability fixes -- for instance, you can now search your contacts and delete multiple e-mails at once. But the same software, App Store included, is a free upgrade for first-generation iPhones.

How could a new iPhone make the old version obsolete? Apple would do well to address the other complaints iPhone users have raised: the inability to copy and paste text between applications, its laughably inadequate support for picture messages (to view them you must visit a special Web page and type in a cryptic username and password), its woefully limited Bluetooth support, and a camera that can't record video.

More storage would help, too.

But the most useful upgrade for the iPhone would be to stop locking it so tightly to AT&T. If you want to use another compatible network -- say, when traveling internationally to avoid AT&T's steep roaming rates -- you still must take your chances with unauthorized, risky unlocking utilities.

In many other aspects, the iPhone is the device that changes everything. But in this aspect -- even as other carriers move toward more open networks -- the iPhone alters nothing at all.

Living with technology, or trying to? E-mail Rob Pegoraro atrobp@washpost.com. Read more athttp://blog.washingtonpost.com/fasterforward/.