iOS4 and iPhone 3G

With all the coverage of Antennagate (I have to admit I like that name), iPhone 4 continues to dominate the media world. Being a latecomer to the iPhone party, my iPhone 3G is not up for renewal until March of next year. Admittedly, knowing what I know now, I should have gotten a 3GS, but at the time I was an Apple and iPhone noob. The thought of paying over $100 for a smartphone (I paid under $500 for my last laptop) when all of my experience was with Windows CE/Mobile phones was too much for this frugal geek and his even more frugal wife. And to be honest, besides occasionally overrunning the 8GB memory with podcasts, music and audiobooks, I've been VERY happy with my 3G.

Along came a double-whammy. I got my iPad (Wifi + 3G) and I allowed iTunes to install iOS4 on my unsuspecting iPhone 3G. First, I LOVE my iPad with a passion, mainly because I'm visually impaired and appreciate the bigger screen, but also because it is excellent for browsing the web, social media and reading. I'm sure iPhone native apps being super-sized on the iPad irks some users, but for me and my poor eyes it is a godsend. Second, iOS4 has slowed my iPhone 3G down badly, it seems like once I get over the initial super-slowness it picks up and is usual, but if I lock it and don't use it for a while the slowness is bad again. As a neat freak I like the folders for apps, but the general degradation in performance is really killing the iPhone for me right now. It seems like every day my iPad calls out to me: "enable the 3G, Terry. It's only fifteen bucks and you can connect anywhere." This is especially tempting because my work Wifi is locked down tight and I wouldn't even think of asking the "sheriff" for access for my iPad. My only consolation there is that our managers all just got Blackberry Storms and complain constantly about them.

I know there's a vocal minority out there telling me to jailbreak my phone or that I shouldn't have installed the iOS4 upgrade. Jailbreaking, while somewhat attractive to me, goes against my favorite feature of the iPhone and iPad, they just work; I'm worried that going down that road, while technically interesting, is more headache than I want to deal with right now. After all, I support very complicated business systems all day and my home/family network on nights and weekends; I don't want another device to "tweak" and deal with. As for not upgrading, eventually I was going to have to take that pill for some App or another that required iOS4 and again the sysadmin side of me believes that keeping systems fully upgraded is almost always better than letting them fall behind. And no, I won't take a swipe a Microsoft on that point, you can hate and ridicule the monolithic company, but I know there are dozens of hardworking coders and engineers that are just as human as I am.

So I guess I'll just limp along until March or Apple makes some performance fixes for my 3G (I'm not holding my breath). I'll be begging my beautiful bride to enable the 3G on my iPad and possibly bribing her with an iPhone of her own when her contract comes up. But at the end of the day, both my iPhone 3G and my iPad JUST WORK, and there's no way I'm going to dust off my Samsung Blackjack and go back to Windows Mobile! And no, I don't want an Android phone either, Google worries me far more than Microsoft and I'm not drinking the Droid koolaid yet.