The iPhone 3G S-QW38DOSN-FX/2
OK so I’m overexagerating. But I don’t like this constant addition of letter to the end of Apple product names. They’re starting to remind me of a Panasonic television.
Despite looking exactly the same (my friend Sam and I joked the ‘S’ stood for ‘Exactly the Same’) there are enough new features in the iPhone 3G S to make me go out and buy one. (See? It’s getting longer and harder to type out it’s name now!). I can think of reasons why Apple wouldn’t change the design of the iPhone. It would increase the price to manufacture a new body, it’s more cost during tough economic and there is absolutely nothing wrong with the old design. On the other hand, with the release of a new product I would have liked to see some sort of change.
Video capture and editing, a compass (“OMFG A COMPASS!! A COMPASS!!! HOW EXCITING!) and Nike+ support are a few good reasons to upgrade. I am also loving Voice Control. For me however, it’s the super ultra speed increase that has my wallet in hand. As previously mentioned, I’m an efficiency fiend. That means speed as well. There was no way I was going to idly stand by while someone else loaded Rolando faster than me! No way!
I also can’t wait for the 3.0 software to come out! Cut & Paste, MMS, full system search, landscape keyboards, notes syncing, faster web browsing and tons more! All for free on my current iPhone!
Continuing the trend, all the features of the iPhone 3G S and the 3.0 software update are incremental changes and aren’t anything bold and groundbreaking.
ARGH! I know, it’s a Zune!
Don’t worry, I didn’t go out and buy one. I’m in Australia, I can’t. But I did download and try the software on Windows 7!
So here’s my short review: iTunes is better.
Why you ask? It’s completely the user interface’s fault. You know the iTunes interface as a simple, sleek and highly usable. It’s not cluttered, it’s very unified and everything is going to be where you expect no matter what part of the software you navigate to.
I think of the Zune Software like this: it’s fine. Yes it’s totally usable and I could live with it. It has all the features of iTunes (minus the apps and ringtones). It even has some features better than iTunes. The Now Playing window in the Zune Software is pretty cool. Using the Zune.net social network, it grabs data and photos (similar to the Last.fm artist profiles) of the artist you are listening to and turns them into a fantastic screensaver like display. It’s far superior to the iTunes visualizers.
The problem I have is that the Zune software window is like a canvas. Any time you click into a new section, the user interface is wiped away and replaced with something completely different. You click from the Artists tab to the Album tab, and everything moves around. This is incredibly frustrating! While the iTunes sidebar is always there, the Browser is always there whether you’re looking at podcasts, music or movies, Zune doesn’t follow a unified browsing UI! To be fare, it’s something that I could get used to. It’s just something I don’t want to.
The user interface is gorgeous, I’ll put that out there now. Great graphics, great animations. Herein lies the problem. The animations are infuriatingly bad. Not the animations themselves but the rendering. When ever you change tabs, the UI you were looking at glides gracefully out and the new UI glides gracefully in. But the text! Oh god the text! It’s terribly rendered! The animation is fairly short, but not instant. So when the text is blurry and unreadable for about two seconds while it re-renders properly, I feel like bashing my head against the keyboard. How, after three versions of the software can’t the font render properly?
iTunes doesn’t employ fancy animations or transitions, but it is fast and properly rendered! For me, I would gladly ditch the animations and UI of the Zune Software (which doesn’t even follow Microsoft’s design principle) for the ease of use, simplicity and unity of iTunes.
Plus, I have an iPhone. I have no choice.
