So. The 'Sport' version of the iPhone is with us. Of course 'S' doesn't necessarily stand for sport, but other high end brands such as Porsche use an S to differentiate their run-of-the-mill sports cars from their really-nice sports cars, so I'll leave the comparison in there.
The new product is a little underwhelming. No forward facing camera, little visible difference between it and it’s now cheaper (more on that shortly) sibling and price tags have not really changed much. There are some potentially exciting new bits and pieces under the hood, but on the whole this feels like a point update to the hardware.
The really cool stuff is in the software - and this we’ve known about for some time. So was this a slightly cynical attempt to answer the huge expectations for a new iPhone? I think the answer to that has to be yes. Ground breaking this product certainly is not.
Maybe this is why there has been none of the clever background support that came in with the 3G?
O2 are telling me that as a UK customer I will have to wait for my current 18 month contract to expire before upgrading to this device - something I find a little surprising as the ostensibly friendly option of upgrading your year old 18 month contract to a new 18 month contract every July would essentially tie you in in perpetuity.
There was no comment about price parity across countries - and the results of this are pretty clear when you compare a $99 3G in the US with a £96 3G in the UK. Has the missing hand of Jobs on the tiller undermined the level of attention to detail in all this?
Time will tell, I suppose. One of the things that has made the iPhone such an exciting piece of technology was it’s ease of access - both in it’s functionality and in one’s ability to get hold of it. Enforcing customers into the old ‘not until your contract expires’ upgrade path will surely consign the iPhone and it’s as yet unseen progeny to the heap of other bog-standard phones. We must have it NOW, or we will take a little more time to choose.
