iPhone 3G

Apple announced its new iPhone 3G yesterday, to luke-warm receptions.

While some are foaming at the mouth about it, most are justifiably nonplussed. 

Another point of view I saw yesterday claimed the iPhone 3G is 2-3 years behind the times.  I'm somewhat inclined to agree here, 3G should have been in the original iPhone, and GPS isn't all that important to me, given what the original was able to do with triangulation.  That isn't to go as far as to agree on the 2-3 years behind, in some ways it still leaves its competition in the dust.  That being said, the iPhone 3G is just an evolutionary release that brings little of note to the table.

The thing I like the least about what Apple is doing with the iPhone is the Application Store.  While I'm not happy about Apple controlling all of the application distribution on the iPhone, what riles me the most is Apple taking 30% of all revenue generated by 3rd party applications.  That's a pretty stiff tax for just using their platform!  As much as Microsoft has been deemed the 'Evil Empire' they don't charge a thing for anyone to release software for Windows, and if they had there is no way that Windows would be the market leader the way it is today.  In my eyes Apple sets sets unprecedented lows here when it comes to milking the developers who might try to enhance their platform.

In the end, I will probably get one, not because I think it is the phone I want, but because it is the best phone for me right now.  The rank of features I'm looking for in a phone runs Internet > Phone > Email.  If Blackberries had a better internet experience, I would be more strongly considering those.  The two projects that I was holding out for were the OpenMoko and Google Android OS.  Unfortunately, OpenMoko has been stumbling, and at this point I'm writing it off until next year at the earliest.  Google's Android OS has potential as well, but there simply isn't enough out there about it yet, nor any reliable dates.