iphone_cropped A while back I wrote a review of the iPhone 2G (EDGE/Original) shortly after I decided to sell it. The timing of my review fell shortly after the App Store was released, even though I had it jailbroken and had many apps on it before the APP Store. My main reasons for selling it included its buggy App install, cumbersome text input via the touch screen, and no backgrounding. And I was happy with my MotoQ (Windows Mobile) device for a while, but grew out of it.

So, around christmas time I decided to get yet another iPhone. This time I got the 3G phone. The major draws of this was first the 3G speeds (even though where I attend college they only have EDGE, but will be getting 3G soon), GPS integration, and expansion of the App store. Am I happy now? Yeah, I am happier than I was with my original phone but still not 100% happy. What will make me love this phone completely? 3.0, however I will touch on that later.

Bigger App Store = Better App Store
The app store now has more applications than it did when I got rid of my 2G iPhone. The growth of the store was a major deciding factor in the purchase of a 3G iPhone. The social applications are by far my favorite, including Facebook, tweetie (twitter), Twitxr, Palringo (Instant Messaging), Colloquy (IRC), WordPress, etc. I feel that is really where the iPhone shines, as it makes it very easy to connect with other people no matter where you are.

Plus, there is a seemingly endless supply of games, and other time killers available for free or a low cost, something that is not matched on any other device.

Now that you don’t have it, you miss it
I ran into this feeling after I sold my 2G. Once I got rid of my iPhone, I started to miss it. Sounds dumb to say I took a phone for granted, but I did. The iPhone was a bigger part of my daily routine than I gave it credit for. I used it for web browsing a lot, getting directions, and chatting. Yeah, the MotoQ could do all those things, but the interface was a lot more ‘out dated’ looking than the iPhone counterparts. The tight integration the iPhone has with its apps (mainly Mail, Maps, Safari) makes the experience a lot better than having to install Google Maps java app on the MotoQ. Now that I have a 3G iPhone, I once again am able to do the things I missed from my 2G, and a lot more, plus I have a new level of appreciation for the device.

No backgrounding? The iPhone isn’t for me then!
I love staying signed into AIM. I enjoy allowing anyone to send me messages at any time, and the fact that the iPhone couldn’t background was (what I thought) a killing point for me. I didn’t understand the reasoning behind not allowing it, and that annoyed me. Fast-forward to my 3G iPhone. I jailbroke it, and installed a ‘hacked’ application that allowed me to background applications, and I thought it would be sweet. Was it? No. Absolutely not, unless you love charging your phone mid-day. Backgrounding = battery killer.

iPhone OS v3.0 – A cure to my final complaints
I am a member of the iPhone developer program, so I was able to get my eager hands on the beta of the 3.0 OS. I have it installed on my 3G, and love it. However, because I am bound by an NDA, I will not discuss anything that was not said by Apple publicly.

Backgrounding
Apple decided to address backgrounding by finally integrating push notification. They still do not allow backgrounding of apps (which they claim kills battery, and I can confirm that), however they are allowing applications to get notifications pushed to them from a server which is a close second to backgrounding. With this, you can still get an AIM message while the app isn’t running for example. I am very excited for this.

Landscape SMS with Messages app
Apple is going to allow you to text message, write notes, and use all other Apple apps in landscape mode. This means you can turn your phone on its side and get the longer keyboard, which makes texting easier (for me anyway). This is a major, MAJOR plus for me as when my phone was jailbroken I was using iRealSMS to text which did a similar thing.

MMS integrated with Messages
3.0 will allow you to finally send MMS (aka Picture Mail) to people. This is a major plus for me as well. While in the past I would just email pictures, this is a better solution.

Copy and paste
Finally, the 3.0 will allow you to copy and paste. I have never used this on any phone, but now that the feature is there I am sure it will be used.

There are plenty of other reasons I am looking forward to 3.0, but these are the main things.

So yeah….
If you can’t tell, I am very pleased with my iPhone 3G, and am loving the phone once again. While the beta I have on my iPhone of 3.0 has its problems, it looks absolutely promising. Apple keeps pushing the iPhone in a better direction, and the phone continues to evolve into a more exciting product. I highly recommend this phone to anyone in the market trying to find a new device, and with the release time of Summer 2009 for 3.0, now is a fine time to buy the phone.