There is a lot to be said for all the positives of the new iPhone 3g… but lets take a moment to focus on some of the negative aspects…

• First and foremost (to ease us into the bad) here is a bittersweet problem -
  With bandwidth being as expensive as it is in South Africa – One really wonders what the overall total cost of ownership would be for running an iPhone in this country.

  Recent international figures indicate that consumer usage of bandwidth may be up to 30 times higher than on a regular phone.
  All that ooohing and ahh’ing over a rich web experience and the host of available things to do on the phone would undoubtedly lead to more usage and may result in overall prices.

• The prospect of having GPS functionality on your phone is great, but the truth is that the A-GPS technology that is present in the new iPhone (a technology which factors in hot-spot and cell phone tower location data into positioning calculations) is only really as good as the information the iPhone is being fed. Does Vodacom have this functionality present on their cell towers, and if so, how wide-spread is it?Then there are the maps, which are a separate issue altogether, what map data will the phone make use of, can it be updated, would there be a choice of 3rd party mapping, and how complete are those maps?
  

• On the iPhone (1st Gen) – There was also an apparent issue with connecting to a laptop via bluetooth, to use the phone as a dial-up modem for laptop surfing. A few hacks were discussed to make this a reality. Has that issue been resolved in the iPhone 3g?The new specifications are still reporting to have “Bluetooth support for headsets only” – This isn’t nearly enough of a standard if the iPhone wants to compete with the other vendors in this arena.
• The battery life is not actually as long as it reportedly is the iPhone specs informational pages. Some people see the iPhone as an expensive teenagers toy, whilst others hope to embrace the host of features it offers to use it as a successful business tool. How will the limited battery life effect this?The battery is also not user-replaceable and this could lead to more expensive ownership in the long-term.
• Video Camera & MMS – There is still no video recording, and the only apparent way to send images from the phone is via email, and not by MMS like some of the other phone vendors allow.

Some people were “put-out” by how quickly the iPhone 3g was put out after the iPhone 2g – My gut tells me that Apple have done this new version of phone largely in response to the wide spread jail-breaking of the 1st generation iPhone, and in an attempt to drive market penitration in many more countries. I wouldn’t at all be surprised if a 3rd generation of iPhone was to hit the shelves a year and a half – two years from now…

The ever-delightful Chris Evans.

For some of the world, the much anticipated wait for the new 3g iPhone is almost over…

For some lucky users, the wait is already over, take a peak at the images of the new iPhone 3g that was leaked to the public.

Image: Washington Post

For all of you looking to buy the new 3g Iphone, here is a sneak peek of one such unit, which was somehow leaked to a member of the public.
The picture shown above shows the box contents, whilst the centre image shows widescreen internet browsing of the new iPhone 3g.

Below, a “special” clip for removing the SIM card.