iPhone 3GS: An Easy, Painless Experience

Posted on June 20, 2009 by Bruce Keener

After using an iPod Touch as my PDA for over a year, and a BlackBerry Curve for my phone, I decided to take the plunge and get the new iPhone 3GS so I could have an all-in-one device.

It was an absolutely painless process. I went to an AT&T store yesterday (the day of release) at about 10:30am, stood in line outside for 10 minutes, went into the store for 15 minutes, and came out with an activated iPhone 3GS 32GB model. Painless.

Then, I came home and hooked it up to my iMac, and the setup utility asked if I wanted to use my iPod Touch’s data, and I said yes. This resulted in all of my settings, data, and apps being transferred to the iPhone. Easy.

My thoughts so far: I loves it. It is fast. I have not measured the connection speeds, but they are much, much faster than I was getting with my BlackBerry or with WiFi on my Touch. Apps open so much faster, too. And the battery life looks really, really good. It is much better than on my Touch.

The only negative I’ve seen so far: when I went for groceries, the signal at the grocery store was almost non-existent, even though it is 4-5 bars at my home (a distance of only a few miles). This is in Cobb County, outside Atlanta, and one would expect a strong signal everywhere within the county. So, AT&T still has work to do on boosting the signal strength. They recognize that, and have supposedly stepped up their upgrade plans, so let’s hope this improves in the near-term. Otherwise, when AT&T loses their exclusivity with the iPhone, they will lose customers in a big way.

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  • H Cooper

    Glad you’re loving the new iPhone. I bought one PAYG, since I still have 5 months contract to run on my 3G (I use it so much having two isn’t excessive…really:)). I haven’t activated it yet, as I’m waiting for my new MacBook Air to arrive next week, but I’m glad to hear how fast it is. I’m in the UK, so I wouldn’t know the ATT signal strength, but O2′s has always been poor here; 1 bar if that in supermarket, and often no network signal in my home a couple of miles away, so it sounds like a common problem!

    • http://www.keenerliving.com/ Bruce Keener

      I’m thinking Steve Jobs should give you a big, fat, sloppy, wet kiss for all the stuff you are buying from him! :)

      I hope you enjoy your 3GS (and the Air)

  • Pat

    Bruce,
    Congratulations on your new iPhone..I have a 3G and use it as my laptop replacement. My time management apps include iThoughts for Mind Mapping, Things for GTD list management, Evernote for knowledge archiving and notetaking, Google calendar for my hard landscape, and Runkeeper for physical fitness. I also have Netnewswire for RSS feeds. Your eBook helped me set all this up for my iPhone. Thanks and good luck..
    Pat

    • http://www.keenerliving.com/ Bruce Keener

      Hi Pat,
      Good to hear you are getting such great use out of your 3G. They are pretty remarkable devices.

      Thanks for the list of apps. I haven’t tried Things, yet, but lots of folks seem to love it. I still use Appigo’s ToDo app and it works nicely for me. I may give Things a spin this week, though. I also need to make better use of Evernote. I’ve just let it go to waste instead of getting good use out of it.

      Glad my ebook helped you get set up.

      I much appreciate the comment. Take care.

  • Thomas R. Hall

    Are you going to do a full “review” of the iPhone 3GS, Bruce? Or are you revisiting your iPod Touch post? Imagine that you would have some interesting insights now that the 3.0 OS is out (regardless of which device it is on).

    I think that Appigo’s Todo is good for tasks, but I will probably move my project planning back into OmniFocus, now that copy/paste exists. Are you using Toodledo’s subtask features with Appigo Todo to scratch that itch (projects w/ several subtasks)?

    • http://www.keenerliving.com/ Bruce Keener

      Hi Thomas,
      I haven’t really felt “inspired” to do a separate write-up of the 3GS, at least yet … there are already so many reviews available. I feel like I would just be adding to the noise on it. But I will continue to give it some more thought.

      I haven’t really tried the subtasks feature yet, but I am at the point where I want to experiment with task apps again. Steve Rubel mentioned a new app that he is using, via this post: http://www.steverubel.com/the-big-to-do-over-to-dos Sounds interesting and I may experiment with it … I kinda like the idea of a system that is based on text files. Lots of folks praise OmniFocus, though, that’s for sure. There is also a lot of positive press for Things.

      • Thomas R. Hall

        I also love simplicity and eschew complexity. Text files are great, and the interface on TaskPaper looks great. Hog Bay Software makes good quality software. Will be interesting once the web site and iPhone app come out.

        Until then, OmniFocus on the Mac allows exporting to other formats, including HTML and plain text (actually, TaskPaper format)!

        I will keep an eye on TaskPaper and if it gets the iPhone and web apps, I’m sold.