New iPhone

Well, Apple managed to do it again: completely delight and simultaneously piss off their customer base. They have gotten so proficient as this they have turned it into a quasi art form.

Bottom line is that this iPhone isn't all that, especially compared against the prior two versions, where were both groundbreaking. I'd categorize this as more of an incremental, "evolutionary" improvement on the platform. There are a number of "nice to have's", including video recording and voice control, but nothing that I'd categorize as game changing.

The bad news though: if you own the 3g you are pretty much hosed on this though given the new pricing structure, unless you're moronic enough to pay "asking" (hello, Beno!). I think I have a way of getting the 32gig at $299 provided ATT is kind enough tto take back my Nokia e71x, and if that turns out to be true (I will know in the morning), I'll go for it. My major rationale for purchasing iPhone 3g s (what's up with that branding, btw?) would be the video recording feature. I'm the right demographic for that. As an example, it would be killer to shoot video from the iPhone of the Girl's swim meet and email it immediately to my father. That would be cool. But in my opinion, it isn't more than $299-level cool.

On a related note, I checked out the Pre earlier today and was very impressed with the OS but not so much so with the build; it indeed has a "plasticky" feel to it. I'd buy this but only once it moves to AT&T. Not worth the migration to Sprint and I'm mentally going to let this go, though my boy Dave is convinced I'm going to torture myself over this over the next few days. Something tells me he's right. He knows me better than I know myself at times, particularly as relates to gadgets.

Anyway, Apple announcement days are always interesting. And oh, if you were ever interested in buying a MacBook Air, now's the time.