iPhone 3GS: evolutionary, not revolutionary

So the keynote of WWDC 2009 is over and the results are in. What was the dominant feeling of the announcement: evolution, not revolution. Most of the Mac notebooks were upgraded to the new improved battery that had been announced earlier in the year, and the price of some high end models dropped. Entry level Apple notebooks however are still way too expensive to compete with $299 Linux notebooks. The only good news for the price conscious Mac user (admitting that such a person even exists) is that the upgrade to Snow Leopard, the next version of OSX, will only cost $29. This is a lot cheaper than what Microsoft usually asks for Windows upgrades, so at least the users that invested in expensive Macs will get the benefit of a cheap OS upgrade.

The star of the show was of course the next iteration of the iPhone: the 3GS. Gizmondo has a nice feature guide that will get you up to speed on the improvements in this new version of Apple star smartphone. Improvement is the main idea behind the new iPhones: there are no revolutionary features, but Apple solved a lot of the issues of the current model. Copy and paste will now work thanks to the inclusion of iPhoneOS 3.0, and the crappy camera of current models has been replaced by a nice 3 Megapixels one with autofocus, auto exposure and the possibility to capture video. Tethering will finally return to the iPhone, but unfortunately not for AT&T users.

Of course some will say that this is only fixing omissions and flaws that shouldn't have been in the initial product, and they are not entirely wrong, but at least Apple is fixing it's mistakes. As far as improvements go we have a faster processor, faster 3D graphics, more ram and more storage. 3G speed now reach 7.2 Mbps thanks to HSDPA, and the price is down to $99 for the entry level model. In other words: more of the same for less money. Even the design will be exactly the same as the previous version. As really new features there will be voice commands, but personally I am not a big fan of these as they tend to be unreliable in noisy environments.

To conclude I would say that a lot of what Apple announced leaves an aftertaste of "more of the same". Most of the progress has been in fixing flaws an evolving the existing products, and that is a good thing, but nothing really new was announced.

Image cc by katielips

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