[miffed]

Checked the "stock updates" on the o2 site at 9am this morning , and there were two semi-local options - Westwood Cross , Thanet , and Chatham
Being easier to get to , I thought I'd give Westwood Cross a go - by the time I got ready to leave the house it was 9.20am , so I rang to check if stock was likely to hold out for another half hour .... And they told me the list was wrong and they had no stock ! :(
so I tried Chatham , (expecting a similar story ) - but the guy said "We are getting some over the next hour , your best bet would be to get here over the next half an hour or so .." CLICK !
Unfortunately encountered a little traffic on the way ! - and got there 45 minutes later - There was a long queue (well , about 5 people , but it felt long !) , had a bit of a chat with the guy behind me , who was really keen to get a 16GB , Imagine how guilty I felt when I got the last 16GB in the shop !

I was a little surprised to be honest - Despite the o2 site saying I needed ID , Account number ,Credit card etc , and rumours that they were making some people produce passports etc - All they took from me was my debit card and Phone no - they even accepted payment in cash

The other thing that didn't match up with the o2 site , was the SIM changing activity - The o2 Site says to simply use my existing SIM - whereas the guy in the shop started explaining the difference between 2G and 3G SIMS (bringing back memories of Three in 2003 :D ) so I have a new sim which will activate over the next 24hrs - Cynical old me currently has it syncing with the old sim in it !

So far I have noted the new iPhone feels generally "Bigger" than the old one , and doesn't seem to fit in the old ones dock (well , it might , but feels like it would need a harder push than I am willing to apply ! )

On the whole I am pleased with the cosmetic appearance though :D

[miffed]

hmm, couple of things I have noticed so far ...

The screen is better on the 2G - the 3G seems to have a mild orange/yellow tint to it (barely noticable TBH - unless you hold the two of them next to each other , then it is blatantly obvious that white is 'whiter' and the colours are more vivid on the 2G , In fact , thinking back , I am sure I noticed a similar difference between the iPhone and the Touch back in November - I cannot compare the two now as I sold the Touch

Size , despite the measurements being much the same , the 3G is DEFINATELY bigger , I am not annoyed by big phones anyway , so it is fine by me - but the one area it does notice is the edging - I kind of liked the way the screen went right up to the side edges of the device on the 2G , but there is a noticable border on the 3G , again , looks great on its own , but when the two are side by side it is noticable

Feels nice in the hand though :D

Now starting to regret upgrading the 2G to 2.0 , as I'd like to unlock it and use it on t-mobile - but hey ho , there do seem to be options available , but nothing as simple as Ziphone though !

[Ben]

Congratulations!

Despite the 3G being slightly larger, you've got to admit that it does look and feel substantially thinner and look much sleeker. Regarding the screen, apparently it's not a hardware issue but a software one... using the 'leaked' and slightly different v2 firmware actually gives a cooler screen rather than the warmer appearance on shipping iPhone 3G's. Maybe Apple will fiddle with the colour in a future update, but I'm happy with mine the way it is.

[Hands0n]

Nice one geezer :D I was going to try for one on the day I went off on holiday, but thought better of it. I plan to do the crazy chicken with head off thing the Saturday we're back :)

The screen colour thing is also apparrent on iPhones with v1 firmware according to other reports. It is a soft setting but not one that is open to user change.

[miffed]

The screen thing really isn't "Bad" , just different TBH

One thing I did have a problem with , I restored the 3G from a back up of the 2G , all seemed to go well , but then I just went to show some apps to my mate , and none of my apps worked , they sort of came up for a few seconds , then went back to the home screen (all of them !) - I synced with iTunes and they all dissappeared ! - I am assuming that although iTunes synced them across , it wasn't REALLY happy about me having these apps on two iphones ?
They were only free apps , so it didn't really matter - but word of warning for anyone else upgrading (Handson ? )

In the meantime , Downgrading back to 1.1.4 on the 2G was a breeze
- The trick is making sure you are in DFU mode and not Recovery mode (even though iTunes identifies DFU mode as recovery mode - just to make things even more confusing !!

So I now have the 2G one unlocked and on T-mobile , the first interesting thing is I am now getting a special "iphone" version of the iGoogle homepage ! - Not sure why I was not getting this before ?

So , I am going to use both iPhones for a while , comparing "legit" and "not so legit" Apps - Just to see which gives me the nicest experience :D
Although talking to a mate today , the renegade factor of the Installer is wearing a little thin , of all the "Free" apps my mate has on his iPhone - nearly all of them have updated now and are asking him to pay for the Apps - Fair enough in some respects - But TBH it certainly takes a bit of the shine away , and make me think the legit way is probably the best way to go

[miffed]

Oh ,and I should add ....

The activation problems seemed to be smoothed over now - I bought the phone at around 10 -10.30am , the new SIM was active by 1.30pm - so none of the 3 day wait business for me ! - although I cannot be sure that this isn't simply upgrade customers only.

[gorilla]

I think the activation woes only occurred after I got mine :-)
I think you'll get used to this new version, I think it's got promise

[miffed]

Congratulations!

. using the 'leaked' and slightly different v2 firmware actually gives a cooler screen rather than the warmer appearance on shipping iPhone 3G's. Maybe Apple will fiddle with the colour in a future update, but I'm happy with mine the way it is.

See , where I realise this is the official line , I don't know if I buy it

While I was reflashing my old iPhone yesterday , I had a bit of a crash jailbreaking 1.1.4 , and I accidently let iTunes restore to 2.0 - ( this would have been the official release ) and there was no orange screen to be seen

My guess is that the Orange screens are cheaper !

....And talking of cost cutting - The Dock !

Don't know if I am alone here , but I would have been 100% happy to have paid £20 more for the phone and had the dock included in the box ! - just a pain in the ass really ! , I suppose this way everyone gets the choice whether they want it or not , but I wrongly assumed that the old iPhone dock would fit , so didn't even think to buy one - now I have to mess around ordering one and waiting for it !
Ah well !

[Ben]

I'm not certain... but I think doing a restore of an iPhone uses the later 2.0, like the leaked version.

[miffed]

Although the yellow tint is definatey there , it is only really noticeable when compared directly to the old iPhone , and the 3G's screen is actually brighter (although this may be because it is new ) so I am not going to lose any sleep over it
One thing I have noticed after a days use , the Phone side of things is much better - the ringtones seem louder (than the standard 2G , about the same as the modded version ) - and the earpiece volume and speakerphone are far more usable !
Also the feel of the thing , it just feels great in your hand ! - nice and smooth !

Tried to get a dock from o2 (canterbury) and CPW today - to no avail :(

[Ginz]

I'm having troubles with ringtones.. Downloaded iToner which is great but the majority of my most recent music has been bought on the iTunes Music Store and it's all protected.. there must be a way to get protected music in to iToner to make as a ringtone? Not sure myself.

[chagle]

If you've got access to a Windows PC / Parallels try:

www.soundtaxi.info ;-)

[Ginz]

I managed to sync them all on iToner last night and they play within iToner but don't sync up to iTunes.. to make it worse the ones that I did somehow managed to get on to iTunes/ iPhone were wiped when I did the latest sync.. Not happy.. It should be such an easy process to get ringtones on it!

[Hands0n]

Friday night, arrive back from holiday in Turkey. Saturday morning, the quest for the iPhone 3G commenced :D

I checked the stock situation on the O2 website and it said that there was stock at the store in my local town. But we needed to get to Bluewater this morning for junior to buy a couple of Mac games. I tried my luck in the O2 store there with no luck - "There are no iPhone 3Gs in Bluewater save for the Apple store" said the O2 store manager.

So I tried my luck on the way home and the local O2 store had plenty of stock. While I was there another two went, one 8GB and one 16GB. I, of course, chose the 16GB.

The O2 store chap asked me if my existing iphone SIM was 3G, I didn't know and said as much. We had to physically remove the SIM from the iPhone 2G and sure enough, part of the SIM's serial number contains the magic "3G" characters. So no need for me to do any more than just pop the existing SIM into the new iPhone 3G when I get it home. :) Very nice.

Registering the new iPhone in iTunes was a bit of a chore, it seemed to cause iTunes to get into a bit of a strop. I had to reboot the Mac as iTunes would not "Force Quit". Even then I had to resort to the hard reset (hold the power button down for greater than 5 seconds) to get the Mac to shut down.

It took some fiddling around - I got iTunes to accept and register the new iPhone 3G. I also managed to restore the iPhone 2G backup to the 3G and that worked a treat. All of my apps and everything else came over with little exception.

I did have to go into iTunes and tick off again all of the media that I wanted to be dropped onto the iPhone 3G. As far as iTunes was concerned there was no media ticked. It wasn't much but it was a bit of a pain, especially as there is no helpful documentation about how to actually do this process properly.

Of course, I had to remove and re-install the MobileMe account on the new iPhone, also re-enter the password for my other mail accounts that I have set up on the iPhone.

The leather case I have for the 2G is a "snug" fit against the 3G - but it fits and so will help me keep the handset in as near mint condition as I like to keep them.

My experience with the iPhone 3G mirrors that of the 2G so far. But that is because I have not yet had a chance to roam around the place on the mobile data network - I'm on my home WLAN so far.

Initial assessments;

It feels slightly more bulky in the hand, but not by much
The case has a distinctly "sticky" feel that the iPhone 2G did not have. It does make the handset feel more secure in the hand, less likely to slip than the brushed aluminium of the 2G
I can notice the warmer screen colouration - but it is not at all distracting, merely noticeable, even without standing the 2G alongside.
3G browsing was briefly tried, it was much as I'd expect it on a standard 3G handset (is this not HSDPA?). Much quicker, but not blisteringly fast.


Must go and play now :D

[Ben]

Congrats!

Yes, it's HSDPA btw.

[Hands0n]

Hmmm, well I am in a fairly variable 3G area - I'd say much the same as when I last tried O2's 3G with a SE K600i. I am not quite having to press the iPhone 3G against the window glass to get a signal, but there are only a few places in the house I'll pick up 3G.

The silly thing is, the iPhone 3G across O2's mobile data network is performing better here in 2G (not even EDGE) than it does in 3G :eek:

I have my iPhone 3G set to auto switch betwen 2G and 3G networks (that'll do the battery a power of good [not]). Just now I managed to get a 3G speedtest and got a speed of 428Kbps (http://iphonespeedtest.com) which is vanilla 3G. I have to suppose that O2 have not got HSDPA turned on here. Repeat tests will have to happen in London next week :)

I am sure that this is not the [mobile data] experience that Apple would like to see. However, I suspect that O2 are completely indifferent to the fact.

[Ben]

Vanilla 3G would have topped out at 384kbps in theory, so you probably were getting HSDPA speeds... I'd have thought... not that they were doing you a fat lot of good :D

Sometimes, when I'm in sight of an O2 3G mast, I do get really great speeds that are comparible to WiFi.

However, with weak O2 3G signal I get little to no throughput and have had to disable 3G on one occasion in order to get a decent connection over 2G. Which wasn't even EDGE (i've only seen EDGE much closer to London so far).

I will run from the arms of O2 as soon as Apple make it officially possible and there are attractive iPhone tariffs out there from other networks. Unless, of course, O2 dramatically improve their 3G network. Oh, and fill in the 2G gaps. I never see 'No Service' on Vodafone! In fact, I rarely see it on Orange either.