First look at the iPhone 3G

Apple will open its App Store on 11. July.

When the iPhone 3G is lying on the desk in front of you, it doesn't look much different from its predecessor. This second generation of Apple's much-desired mobile phone, which is scheduled to go on simultaneous sale in 22 countries on 11 July, has the same highly polished, scratchproof, mineral glass surface, held in a thin stainless steel frame, as its predecessor and, at 62 mm in thickness, it isn't noticeably stouter. Apple gave heise online an advance test model, so we were able to examine the iPhone 3G more closely.

When you hold it in your hand, its slightly curved plastic back does make it feel quite different from the previous model, whose flat back cover was made of brushed aluminium. The more rounded edges mimic the design features of the iPod and the MacBook. As before, there is a reflective apple on the back to help aim the 2-megapixel camera for self-portraits. On the whole, build quality on iPhone 3G is to a high standard, but Apple has clearly economised on materials. Although Apple has not revealed which processor is used, it appears that the same ARM CPU is at work in the iPhone 3G as in the previous model – all the navigation tasks and programs run, more-or-less, just as fast. The bright liquid-crystal display has the same resolution as before, with 480 × 320 pixels. The backlighting is somewhat brighter than in the earlier iPhone, which on our test model, seemed to give a slightly blurred impression of the image.

The iPhone 3G is delivered with version 2.0 firmware, and when sales begin, this will also be available for the previous model. Using the new firmware, VPN can be used to connect to a company network, via the most popular protocols (PPTP, IPSec and L2TP). The preinstalled applications have also been revised. There is a search function in contact management, and the calculator has been improved. With the iPhone held sideways, the calculator can display in scientific notation. By the time sales begin, a few things are likely to change in regard to applications: Apple is opening App Store, a user portal for the iPhone and the iPod touch, from which additional applications can be downloaded. This is claimed to be possible over a mobile phone connection for files up to 10 MB in size, but for anything beyond that the App Store has to be contacted via Wi_Fi or through iTunes on a PC.

On initial use, the hardware changes in the iPhone 3G are barely noticeable. The earphone socket is no longer recessed and hidden by the casing, so it will now accept most variants of headphone connector. The new UMTS/HSDPA module is meant to ensure faster downloads in mobile-phone operation, with the YouTube application or while surfing, but the speed bonus has to be paid for: battery life is down by a half. In our first downloading tests, with UMTS-IPv4 connections in a problematic reception area, our sample iPhone 3G required even longer to download from the heise page: up to 40 seconds on one occasion instead of 22 seconds for our tests on the previous model. Both mobile-telephone standards are a long away from achieving the typical Wi-Fi connection download time of 8 seconds.

If it weren't for the fact that the GPS receiver, also new, is mentioned in the technical data sheet, you could almost overlook it in operation. There is no display of current GPS status. Only the camera application and Google Maps, when launched, offer a position-finding option. If this option is selected, they then use the GPS receiver. With the option on, photographs will include location marks in the EXIF data, and Google Maps shows your current location with a flashing point. The current integrated route planer only offers rudimentary navigation options, without voice announcements.

(trk)