iPhone 3GS

Well, the new iPhones have been announced.

I've always told my friends that it was unlikely that Apple would add enough features to make me upgrade from the iPhone 3G. And especially since it turns out that they're going to charge more for folks who own the 3G iPhone (since it's subsidized, and 2 years haven't yet elapsed). But it looks like I will get one anyway. How can I say that without hypocrisy?

A while ago, we got a 1st generation iPhone for Scarlet. For reasons we haven't quite figured out, it seems like the reception and call quality on it have gone down lately. Perhaps AT&T has been optimizing their network for 3G coverage at the expense of 1G. But in any event, it's certainly true. We swapped phones a while ago, and for half the day, she said the 3G did a much better job, particularly around our house. Then I had her disable 3G on the phone for the rest of the day, and it sucked just as bad as her old iPhone.

iPhone 1Gs were always unsubsidized, so we can upgrade that phone to a 3GS without penalty.

But Scarlet doesn't really want all the fancy new features. She just wants the phone to work better (that is to say, properly). So we'll go ahead and upgrade her phone to a 3GS, and then we'll swap the SIM cards and resync them. Presto.

Yes, Apple will still be selling the 8GB 3G phones for $99, but I don't think that's a really good deal. Doing it the way we plan will get her twice as much space for music and movies, and I'll get the voice command (which would be very handy for driving), and the better camera.

And, of course, if we wind up getting one of the rumored AT&T Femtoocells (the jury is still out on that idea), we'd have to upgrade her anyway, since they apparently won't work except with 3G phones.