A little over a week ago, I bought an iPhone. Technically I didn't have to pay for it because my mum used the $500 Singtel voucher that she got from work. To be quite honest, when I was going over my options for a new phone, I didn't consider the iPhone at all.
Firstly, I knew that I didn't need a phone that had 16gb worth of space for music because I much preferred my gadgets seperate from each other. An MP3 player for my music, a camera for taking photos and a phone for just calling or texting. And I also hated how overhyped the iPhone became, to the extent that people were even pre-ordering it beforehand and queuing up on the first day of launch just to get their hands on this phone as soon as possible.
Anyway, I ended up picking this one because the Samsung one that I wanted (F480) was out of stock and my mum's voucher was expiring soon. After using it for a little over a week, I'm glad that I decided to get this phone afterall.
The iPhone 3G is a perfect example of a transactional model of communication. Video calling, texting, emailing, voice calling enables simultaneous exchange between senders and receivers. With 3G technology, users are able to video call their friends instead of just traditional voice calling. Video calling is quite possibly the next best thing to face-to-face communication, not only can you hear the other party's voice, you can also see their various facial expressions. However, one bad thing about video calling is the tendency for the channel to be impeded by noise. The environment that the other party is in also plays a big part in communicating through video calling.
One of the pros for the iPhone is the amount of memory space available in it for people who don't mind listening to music on their handphones. It definitely beats the other phones which requires you to get a memory card in order for you to add more storage in it.
Another point worth mentioning would be the very handy and user-friendly touch screen interface. While using applications like Safari (Apple's version of internet explorer), a flick or tap of your finger would suffice in either scrolling down or zooming into the screen.
One other trait of the iPhone that I also liked immensely was the idea of sorting your texts into "conversations" where the parent message and all consecutive replies are grouped into one message alone. It makes viewing so much easier.
Of course there are cons to this phone as well. One jarring feature in the iPhone is the fact that you are expected to pay for custom ringtones. Apple expects you to purchase a song from the iTunes store, which I may add, is still not available to us at the moment, and then pay again if you wish to convert said song into a ringtone for use in your phone. It is utterly ridiculous in my opinion to have to pay to have your song converted into a ringtone.
Since I'm not one to nitpick, other than that very annoying trait mentioned above, there are no other major problems that I have with the iPhone. Some minor problems I had though were the softness of the maximum volume, slight lag of applications at times and the weight of the phone.
So is the iPhone worth getting? Yes if you listen to music on your phone, like internet on-the-go, and wouldn't mind carrying a slightly heavier phone than usual. But the price is pretty steep at the moment, so I say wait on it for a couple of months more before making that purchase. And who knows, maybe by then, there will be yet another phone launched threatening to out-rival the iPhone.
