Buy iPhone 1.0 or wait for 2.0?

[chris7b]

I was supposed to get an iPhone for christmas this year but put it on hold due to speculation of 2.0 news at MacWorld. Is 2.0 likely to have GPS or 3G. I could care less for 3G as it sucks batteries and would probably raise the price of the data plan. I could live with EDGE. However GPS would be a fantastic addition. I hear everything else is software changes that could be applied to 1.0. I also do not need more than 8GB, actually 4GB would probably do if it was still available. Anyone heard anything different? Should I wait?

 

[intogamer]

I would just get one if you're on AT&T. You can get 4GB refurb from Apple.com Google Maps is pretty good. Pretty much the same as mapquest printed out. You notify the iPhone when you make the turn, exit. Edge is pretty good(I'm on T-Mobile, but AT&T is faster) As most all the negativity of Edge is from the slow phones.

I personally don't think that the iPhone 2 will be released until end of 2008. It's just too quick in 1 year. The current one is going great with all the features. Apple will continue to milk as much as possible. Probably after Steve's goal of 10million iPhones in 2008? The iPhone is pretty much a niche phone, either you buy one or you don't. It doesn't seem like there will be an iPhone killer anytime soon. I doubt AT&T will be able to handle the all the 3G capacity yet.

 

[bigrash]

I don't think that they'll anounce the next iphone at Macworld in January. Probably would have been hearing more about it in all the rumor sites. Plus, their main "attraction" at Macworld will be the new slim notebook anyways.

 

[thegimp03]

If you can wait and don't NEED a new phone right now, I'd wait. The 2nd-gen iPhone can only be better than the 1st-gen because it should have additional features as well as any glitches worked out.

 

[pm]

So, I'm the opposite. I would take 3G over GPS - I pretty much never miss the GPS capability on the iPhone, but EDGE is pretty slow.

If you know where you are, Google Maps works nearly as well as a GPS - and it's more powerful to be able to get real-time traffic updates. I don't miss the GPS function on my iPhone at all. I just enter cross-streets into Google Maps. And there's always Navizon on the iPhone - if you have it jailbroken for apps. It uses cellphone tower triangulation to determine your locations. About the only time that I'd miss a GPS would be hiking - but I got my iPhone in Sept and my hiking days were winding down. For next year, I'll just use my GPS and carry the iPhone too. But for directions in a city or town, I just use Google Maps and it works great.

But the internet access on EDGE on an iPhone is slow and laggy. It's like click-and-wait. Using the iPhone on WiFi rocks, and I can only imagine that 3G would be similar. WiFi is a battery pig too, but surfing with it makes an iPhone almost as fast as a laptop.


The things that I would like to see on future iPhones are:
1. Able to use any GSM carrier - ie. iPhones ship unlocked.
2. Able to view Flash websites - ie. an Adobe Flash player built-in (I miss Pandora... a lot)
3. Java support - if there's a Java JIT compiler built-in to the iPhone, it's very limited.
4. The ability to add 3rd party applications to the iPhone without hacking it.
5. A standard headphone jack - the recessed headphone jack is incompatible with most headsets.
6. The ability to synchronize the iPhone with more than one computer - this one computer limitation is really annoying when you use multiple computers at work and home.
7. Better Bluetooth support - able to sync with Bluetooth laptops for updating calendars and contacts, and stereo bluetooth headset support
8. 3G support for faster web accessing
9. A built-in GPS
10. Voice-dialing - cheap phones have this - why not the iPhone?
11. The ability to browse webpages offline.
12. A better, built-in IM client.
13. And, although it's probably asking for a lot given I want 3G and a GPS, better battery life would be nice too.

But none of these are worth waiting for, in my opinion. I am pretty happy with iPhone 1.0 and don't miss much. I'm never bored - between being to browse anywhere (slowly) that I can get a cell phone signal and watching movies and music, I have a portable internet entertainment devices that can make phone calls. iPhone 1.0 is pretty good... a few things missing, a few things more limited that I'd like, but not a lot of glitches to speak of.


By this time next year, we should have several different phones based on Google "Android" to choose from, 3G should be more prevalent in phones and from the providers, and I think there will be many more iPhone-like phones to choose from. I'm glad that I didn't wait... although I hacked my iPhone so I'm not locked to a contract and can switch (and Ebay my iPhone) when I see something better.

 

[josh0099]

Data plan prices are the same no matter what network you use them on Edge vs 3G. 3G speeds are way way better then edge though so it would be better to have 3G then GPS mo...

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

3G vs GPS is a huge call. It's essentially my current decision.

Sony Ericsson K850i vs. Nokia N82.

Well it's also a non-smartphone vs smartphone debate and so the balance leans heavily in favor of the N82.

To be honest, EDGE blows. Even as someone who's only seen 3G on friends' phones and have never truly experienced it I can tell you how much it SUCKS to be in a crowded place and not even have webpages load. I remember that one football game I was at where Cal was poised to take the #1 spot with LSU going into OT against Kentucky. In that whole triple OT fest or whatever it was I got to refresh the scores TWICE only. Instead I relied on text updates from my friend who was watching on TV simply because the GSM/EDGE network was completely slaughtered or something. Maybe too many people were using it at the stadium. 3G not only gives you better connectivity, you can make voice calls over 3G. I remember when the Bay Area 5.6 earthquake struck sometime this fall I couldn't make a single call for a good 25 minutes. Some people reported success using 3G voice calls though. Plus, 3G voice calls area lot clearer. If you're going to be doing heavy web stuff, then you definitely want 3G. I just check my email and maybe sports scores when I'm bored, and those are all bookmarked so I'm not that big of a bandwidth hog.

I say 2.0 will have 3G rather than GPS. If you really want GPS go to another phone. Is GPS great? Yes. Hell yes. Google Maps vs. Garmin XT/Tom Tom is no match.

With that said I think I'm still going to sacrifice 3G (K850i) for more features (N82)