I have a phone upgrade this week with O2 and was looking at getting an I-phone. The question I have is the the "S" worth the £70 extra that O2 want or am I better just getting a standard one for free.

I'm not a big video user so the video doesnt bother me, but is the faster internet noticably? Ive used a mates standard i-phone and thought the speed was ok.

Also anyone suffered with the overheating battery problem or is that just a few out of thousands problem.

Your thoughts would be appreciated as the £70 could go to getting some rigid 29er forks to finish my inbred… ?

for £70 go for the S. I went from 3G to 3GS and it is far quicker, has the option of 32GB memory (which I'd go for if you can afford it). It has voice control (don't know if this was included on the OS3 update for 3G) which is really handy if you use your headphones when on the bike or bluetooth in the car. The camera is much better too.

Basically you'll be pleased with either, but if you can afford the extra then get the 3GS

Worth having for the extra memory alone, but the better camera, faster processor, extra RAM, and the digital compass are all plusses as well. Not noticed any issues with the battery, oh, and battery life is much improved too. By the time I get an upgrade the next version will have been announced: 64Gb phone? Can't wait 8)

The voice control is absolutely pants. I wouldn't dare use it for fear of accidentally ringing a client.

'Play Black Sabbath'

'Calling Xxxxx Xxxxx'…

Useless. Perhaps it is my Yorkshire accent?

LOL @ Mastiles

Some in-car bluetooth things have voice control on them, so if that is the only thing swinging it then you might want to look at them.

my mate was saying the same about his voice control, but mines worked really well.

I would recommend going for 3GS if its your first phone. The overheating issue is only for stupid people gaming during really hot sunshine for hours, or leaving it in the sun for ages. I never experienced my phone being "hot". It does go warm after some games/films.

I'd say go for it. I like my 3Gs and, as JxL has said, never felt it get hot.

I'd agree with the voice control comments though. Maybe it's my middle England diction, but currently it's getting about 50% of the commands right. Either that, or it does not like playing AC/DC or Silverchair.

Useless. Perhaps it is my Yorkshire accent?

Well it doesn't work with my public school accent either 🙂

I recently got a 3GS and I'm very happy with it but having used other peoples' 3G models in the past, they seemed plenty fast enough and I'd probably have gone for one of those if O2 weren't making the price difference on them too small to be worthwhile when taking out a new contract.

That said, it's possible that new apps will come out which rely more on 3GS speed so it may prove a better bet in the long term (I took out a 2 year contract so that's a real consideration)

Is there any way of 'tuning' the voice commands?

Either that, or it does not like playing AC/DC or Silverchair.

It's due to the way it tries to guess how words sound. For "AC/DC" it will parse it as three separate words:
"AC" it will expect to be pronounced soft A with a silent C, like "Ah", "/" is "stroke" and "DC" is pronounced with a hard C, "Di-K"

You also have to really shout it for some reason…

I don't want to look like the mad people that walk through most towns, so shouting at it is out.

I don't know about the tuning… Given that people were complaining that the spell checking didn't learn, I guess that it may not.

I'm still annoyed that the bluetooth implementation is hobbled. It's a standard FFS!!! Follow the standard! That way I can use a more accurate GPS unit when I am in the car or on my bike. Or running even. Oh yes, and the way it stops collecting data when it screensaves is a tad annoying too. Means that most of the mapping software is useless.

One more annoying thing… Lack of multi-threading. Is there a point in having a Skype app (which works quite well really), when it needs to be manually turned on and running to pick up a call? All it needs to do is run in the background, then it would be useful. Oh yes. Yes it would.

I don't want to look like the mad people that walk through most towns, so shouting at it is out.

Nah, why would you look mad walking around shouting "Ah stroke dik"? 😉

One more annoying thing… Lack of multi-threading.

It can do it. Jailbroken phones do it and the Mail, Safari and iTunes apps do it. But they choose to prevent app developers from doing it as it can be a massive drain on the battery.

What gets me is how my e61 did it with loads of apps, and yet this shiny new thing can't.

I _know_ the screen is big and that draws a lot of power, but it's not much bigger than the one on my old phone, and the battery is not that much bigger. Maybe Apple need the extra power to feed the pixies in the phone or something.

I wouldnt imagine that it even needs to be jailbroekn for multi threading. I use a messenger app (could be fring or could be ebuddy) and it has the option to keep running after you've exited the program.

Don't be silly – Pixies don't run on electrickery, they run on Angel Dust.

Is there an app to convert electrons to Angel Dust then? I'll check the App Store.

Just checked on the Skype app… No such option as running after exit. Which is a shame, as the Windows version seems almost impossible to kill off. The Japanese Knotweed of the VOIP world

There will be. There is every other useless app. out there…

Oh yes, and the way it stops collecting data when it screensaves is a tad annoying too. Means that most of the mapping software is useless.

That doesn't seem to happen on mine – trail guru runs, collecting data even when it goes into screen saver mode, so long as it's in the foreground. It is annoying that they've prevented most apps running in background but I reckon it's really so that the interface remains slick and never gets slowed down by too much stuff running.

My phone got fairly warm (but not silly hot) in my camelbak while running the GPS.

Cheers everyone, I guess I will go for the 3GS

must be the Yorshire accent – only thing I can can get it to do is play O by Damien Rice, which is bad enough as it is!!!

Having used my 3G in the car going up to London last Sunday, the GPS was perfectly accurate enough. It's not like the N95's crappy GPS that only works when the phone's open, then takes fifteen minuits to lock on. If at all. Also, how is the BT hobbled, AFAIK, it's fully functional A2DP stereo BT, so should work with a third party receiver. I'll have to try with my QStarz unit for fun, somtime.

all the people that are having trouble with the voice control, are you doing it right. I couldn't get anything to work with it at first, then I did the thing that no man wants to do. I read the instructions! Been spot on ever since.
You need to say
play – artist – …….
play – song – ……..
play – playlist – …….
Leaving a slight pause between each. I tend to make playlists for certain artists and give it a name that is easily identified by the phone.
It's the same with calling. Have to say call or dial – contacts name – and type (eg, mobile, home, work).
This has worked 99% of the time for me and my daughter.

It's not like the N95's crappy GPS that only works when the phone's open, then takes fifteen minuits to lock on. If at all.

You need to update the firmware to get it to work properly – the standard one is exactly as you describe. The V20 firmware and onwards make it work just how it should – eg quick lock (under 30 seconds if not faster) and accurate. And it works while closed.

The reason (according to the internet) about why some bluetooth GPS units do not work with the iPhone is that the iPhone does not know how to talk to them.

From what I have read, headsets etc are all well and god, but the GPS units open a virtual COM port, and the iPhone just does a massive ????? and can't talk to it. Some of the standalone GPS units have speakers and mics in them for voice dialing, which the iPhone can do, so you can use them for handsfree calling, but they can't talk NMEA or Garmin and get the more accurate data from them.

Apparently TomTom will bring out a nice iPhone specific cradle with built in GPS unit when they release for the iPhone, giving both charging and more accurate locating, but it's likely to make the cost of software + hardware near as dammit equal that of a standalone unit. Which is good.

I'd like to know why Apple didn't implement a protocol in the standard way, but I think I can guess…

I'd like to know why Apple didn't implement a protocol in the standard way, but I think I can guess…

I don't think what you are talking about is part of the Bluetooth protocol.

From what I understand Bluetooth only provides a standard method to talk to these devices (by implementing the Bluetooth-RFCOMM protocol to provide serial communications over radio). So they may well "implement a protocol in the standard way" but that doesn't mean it will understand what the device says – only that it will "hear" it.

In much the same way you can plug a multitude of devices into your PC (or sync with them over Bluetooth) but you still need a software driver to make any sense of what the device says.

Well, that will teach me to go on about things that I don't understand.

Am I still allowed to be annoyed at not being able to use an external GPS unit though?

Am I still allowed to be annoyed at not being able to use an external GPS unit though?

It's because apple decided to lock down the bluetooth, so that applications basically can't use it (can't open RFCOMM connections), except for some Apple specific things (e.g. the new Bluetooth games network stuff). With a jailbroken iPhone, it might be possible. It might also be in a later firmware update – be surprising if it wasn't at some point, they seem to have been opening stuff up a bit recently.

Part of it is probably because they want to control exactly what hardware people can connect to it, forcing special Apple approved things that they make money on rather than letting anyone use a standard device.

Joe

Oh yeah, to the original person – if you want an iPhone you should get the 3GS – the compass has real potential to be useful for mapping / route following / route recording software once people update for it.

Joe

Am I still allowed to be annoyed at not being able to use an external GPS unit though?

Yes, but for the reasons Joe states, not your own 🙂

Fair enough. I can live with being told what to be angry about.

I would like to state that I really like my 3Gs. It's wonderful.

I like Wild West Pinball. Worth it for that alone…

Thanks everyone for the advice. Got a 3GS today. Loving it so far but just got to figure out how to get it to receive my emails from my Blueyonder account

Got mine today as well!

Mrs has had a 3G for a while and used to mock me with my Nokia, safe to safe I have had the last laugh (until she gets to upgrade before me)

clubber – Member
It's not like the N95's crappy GPS that only works when the phone's open, then takes fifteen minuits to lock on. If at all.
You need to update the firmware to get it to work properly – the standard one is exactly as you describe. The V20 firmware and onwards make it work just how it should – eg quick lock (under 30 seconds if not faster) and accurate. And it works while closed.

…which is fine, except I have to fanny around trying to find a Nokia service center to upgrade it, because Nokia won't allow me to do it via my computer. Because I choose to use a Mac, not a Windoze machine, so their updates aren't available to me. I'm not spending hundreds of pounds on a new computer just to update an old phone, when I get all my iPhone updates free and regular via my six year old laptop.

I'm thinking about getting a 3GS iPhone. How much memory is essential?

Would a 16GB be enough? Not sure I can stretch to the price of the 32GB model.

I've got the 16Gb version, I think its enough.

Think I have about 12 podcasts with 5+ episodes on each, 20 albums, 1 film & an episode of top gear, and getting near the maximum of apps. I still have about 7Gb free.