I Am Bismark

given monday’s iphone 3G announcement, i think its time to revisit this post.

lets reexamine my pros and cons, this time from a upgrading from an original iphone to an iphone 3G perspective:

pros:

1. its sexy. i love apple products. every time i meet a friend with an iphone i will just sit and play with it incessantly.

well, i already have a sexy iphone. the real question is the iphone 3G sexier? tough call. i like the brushed metal back of the current one… i think i will have to see one in real life to make this call.

2. windows mobile blows. i have a samsung blackjack right now. it is a pain to use. it has an ugly and unintuitive interface and slow loading apps. internet explorer mobile is worse than its desktop counterpart. and of course there is no good free way to sync it with my mac. i need to spend $40 on the missing sync.

obviously now a moot point.

3. i’m already on at&t and i am paying the exact same amount now as i would be if i switched over to an iphone plan. no changes there.

here is where things do really change. lets assume that i am only interested in the subsidized $200 iphone. this means that i will have to sign a new contract with at&t, which means i will have to get the smartphone data plan. this is $30 compared to the $15 data plan i am using now on my hacked phone. this puts my bill at $80 a month, which is going to be quite a lot once i return to my life of poverty come september.

4. as mentioned above, its not only a phone, its also an internet device (to feed my email and browsing addictions) and a media player (which automatically syncs with the app that i keep my media collection in, itunes).

only difference here is that now its an internet device with a much faster connection speed. its comparable to upgrading from a dial-up modem to DSL. less waiting time.

5. apple just released the beta sdk. there are going to be some sweet apps coming in june.

its now been pushed back to july. the new 2.0 firmware will be available for my current iphone, meaning i will get most of the benefits. there may be some apps that require the A-GPS system, and its still not known if the new iphone 3G has updated hardware specs that some apps might require. another big question is whether or not the 2.0 firmware will be hackeable or not. if its not, i could always get an original iphone plan, which is still $15 dollars cheaper, but i would be losing my intel employee discount. this is something we can only wait and see about.

cons:

1. 3G. let me repeat that again. 3G. the iphone does not yet have it. despite the suckiness of the blackjack, websites do load dang fast on it. i don’t know if i could handle dial-up speeds on my phone.

obviously fixed if i get the new iphone.

2. iphone 2.0. this is directly related to con #1, since we all know that iphone 2.0 will have 3G and probably more. the biggest issue is when this will come out. some people speculate june. if thats the case, then my best bet is to wait. i would not buy the missing sync (since i would only use it for a little while anyway), and i would not purchase a micro-sd card for my blackjack. other speculation says sometime before christmas. this is a little tougher. i would really need to weigh in my above pros with the $500 i would be throwing down. if iphone 2.0 is going to be next summer, then yes, i would want to get an iphone now. it would definitely be worth it for me. but since i have no way of knowing when it will be, i am stuck.

no longer applicable.

to be honest, i am almost leaning towards not getting the new phone. one possibility of changing this is entering into a family plan with molecularbond and charlie. depending on how many minutes we would decide on, i might be able to get a low enough monthly bill to make it worthwhile…. gosh i want one, but gosh i need to be fiscally responsible.