The 3Gs By An iPhone Virgin

Well it's been a couple of weeks since I broke my iPhone cherry and queued outside my local O2 shop and got my hands on the new iPhone 3Gs and I have to say that I have been really impressed. But a lot has been written about the iPhone in the past, and at the moment all the talk is about the new features like the camera, voice control and the fingerprint proof screen and this is my view on these new features.....

THE CAMERA: At 3 megapixels, the camera isn't going to win any prizes but it is certainly at a level which means it can be put to good use and with the video function, which has previously been missing from the early models, you have yourself a device that can make your media almost instantly available to the world, by making uploading to YouTube so easy.

Below you will find links to a photo I took with the iPhone and two videos, the 1st I video recorded with my iPhone and the 2nd is me recording and uploading that video to YouTube, just to show how easy & quick it is.

VOICE CONTROL: Another function that has been talked about by the media is the voice control. I have now been using the voice control for a couple of weeks and it has worked pretty well, when it comes to it's basic functions, but when it comes to recognising the names of artists or albums it can get it wrong, so you do need to speak clearly and hope there is not too much background noice. Below is a video I recorded of the voice control in action, although, unlike what appears to be in every news report in the media I am using Stereophonics instead of The Killers.

FINGERPRINT PROOF: As I'm an iPhone virgin, I am not familiar with the problems the earlier models had, but I have had a PDA in the past and I did get problems with my N95. I have found the iPhone screen pretty resilient to my fingers and have found that the screen cleans very easy with just a quick wipe.

Moving away from the new features, I just want to mention the apps, because as a newbie to the world of Apps I have enjoyed trying the various offerings available, from the games to the social media tools, and thought I would quickly write about a couple of my favourite apps so far.

Firstly there's AudioBoo, which is where you can post an mini podcast to the AudioBoo website, for all to listen. Your not just limited to their website because if you have iTunes, you can submit your "Boo's" RSS feed to be listed on iTunes. I have recorded a 'Boo' of this blog post and you can find the link below.

There is also a number of apps to help you stay in touch with various social networking websites, so updating your status on the move is easy. I have even tweeted a little message for the readers of this blog, just refer to the links below.

My favourite game is Wild West Pinball, which at the time of writing this is free to download.

Ultimately, I have found my first expeirences with the iPhone very enjoyable and with the wide range of apps available, I can see the boredom factor not really kicking in, as you can do a surprising amount of stuff, including this blog entry which has been written using the Wordpress app, with the only non-iPhone input coming from the 'making off' video I recorded and giving this entry the once over before posting.

Here are the links to the content mentioned in the blog

• Photo taken with iPhone 3Gs - http://twitpic.com/9fh7n


• Video that I recorded with the iPhone 3Gs - SD


• Video of the video camera in action - Watch in either SD or HD


• Video of the Voice Control in action - Watch in either SD or HD


• Twitter post sent using Tweetdeck App - View Tweet


• Listen to this blog post on AudioBoo