I was sitting on a Chicago train on my way home from work, playing a game of Teto Teto!! on my first-gen iPhone. The lady sitting next to me suddenly asks, "Is that one of the new ones?"
"It's the original version," I responded.
"Oh, I wish I still had mine. My husband upgraded me the iPhone 3G, and I hate it. It only gets 5 hours of battery life."
"Do you like the apps and games and stuff?"
"I don't know. It keeps crashing and I can't get anything on it."
What followed was a 10 minute whining session about the iPhone 3G and her husband's bad decision making. A part of me wanted to troubleshoot her problems, but instead I just nodded in sympathy. For strangers, I know to keep my nerdery in check.
But the conversation on the train confirms my feelings over the past month of not wanting to upgrade. My original decision was based on economics. No free text messages? $10 a more a month on top of an already outrageous pricing plan? An upgrade fee on a free upgrade, huh? Higher taxes on the bill? No thanks, but maybe someday.
I'm one of those people who rarely makes a call on my cell phone. But here I am, paying AT&T Wireless $39.99 a month to make make 20 calls a month. That's over a $1.00 a phone call for mainly local calls. So you can see, I'm already getting fleeced.
But the battery issue is a deal breaker. Having a charged battery is the difference between having a phone or carrying around the world's most beautiful brick.
Steve Jobs was right about 3G, the technology isn't ready for prime time, at least not in the US. But nevertheless, there it is, on the phone because people were whining about it incessantly. And sure enough, they're selling like hotcakes. But at what cost to customer's perception Apple and the iPhone?
