Now that Heller is out of the way, my next big “waiting for” is the iPhone.
Or more specifically, the iPhone 2.0 firmware.
I see only three improvements to the first gen iPhone that would make me consider an upgrade. Unfortunately none of them are quite enough at the moment.
1. More memory, sorta. The new iPhone will have 16 gigs of memory (Yes, there’s an 8 gig version, but who cares?) I already have one with 8 gigs, and right now I’m only using 3 gigs. I don’t think 16 is enough to make me switch. Also, I bet Apple is planning another version with more memory later in the year, like they did with the first iPhone. There’s already a 32 gig Touch, so a 32 gig iPhone is doable. I would prefer a 64 gig, but 32 would probably be enough to make me jump. With even 32 gigs, I could put enough of my music collection on the iPhone that I wouldn’t have to carry an iPod too. I can’t do that with 16 gigs.
2. HSDPA, or 3G as they’re calling it. Have you seen AT&T’s HSDPA coverage? I have no confidence AT ALL that the “improved” AT&T network will be that much faster than EDGE in real life. Why?
Because for HSDPA to work, the cell tower has to allocate multiple GSM channels for one HSDPA connection. Each GSM channel can carry 8 voice calls, so HSDPA would require the cell tower to give up at least 16 voice calls to make one HSDPA connection. What do you think AT&T’s priority is going to be? That’s right, voice will have priority, so the very places that have HSDPA coverage, large cities, are the same places that already have over crowded cells and a lot of dropped calls.
On top of all that, AT&T is years away from putting their new 700 MHz spectrum into production, so don’t expect AT&T’s 3G performance to improve much in the short run.
3. GPS. The only place I currently use GPS is in a car. The Garmin Nuvi works great. The existing localization function in the iPhone works good enough when I’m not in a car. Also, GPS requires that you be outside with a clear view of the sky, while the localization doesn’t.
All that was to explain why I’m looking forward to the 2.0 firmware instead of the new iPhone. 2.0 brings us the iPhone App Store, and hundreds if not thousands of cool apps to run on the iPhone. And they will work just fine on the first gen iPhone.
