Naruto Evolution

The second coming of the iPhone arrived at 8 a.m. today at Apple outlets and other stores in Silicon Valley, but lines of buoyant fans were still forming hours later.
And an earlier problem reported today with Apple's iTunes software that prevented the phones from being fully activated in-store seemed to have been resolved.

Fans at the Apple stores in Valley Fair and Palo Alto didn't seem too bothered by the temporary glitch.

"I'm very happy. It was worth the wait," said Mitch McHone, the first to buy the 3G iPhone this morning at Valley Fair.

By 7:30 a.m., at least 150 people had lined up at the shopping mall's Apple Store, many of them working on Apple laptops as they waited. The first person in line got there around 5 p.m. Thursday; Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak got arrived around 4 a.m. today.

A party atmosphere prevailed, with dozens of Apple employees - including one female worker with a fake Mohawk hair style and spiked boots - taking pictures of each other and the customers outside. As the magic hour approached, fans clapped rhythmically, while others were heard whooping.

A few minutes before 8 a.m., the doors opened and customers poured through, with Wozniak among the lead group.

But it was 40-year-old McHone who bought the first iPhone, and was first to "walk the line" as he called it, through the gauntlet of employees who gave high-fives to customers entering the store. As each one left the store, they received a rousing
applause.
"Why am I here? Because I want to be the first person to have a 3G iPhone," said McHone, who had been waiting outside the mall since 5 p.m. Thursday night.

"I've been up 27 hours, no shower," said the car salesman from San Jose, who was dressed in sweatpants and a t-shirt. He bought two 16-gigabyte white phones - one for himself, the other for his wife - for $299 each. And $30 covers for both phones.

Andre Linde, 27, of Cupertino, arrived Thursday at 6 p.m., and was fourth in line. The tech support staffer for a San Francisco software company said he called in sick today.

"I did it for the experience. This is fun," said Linde, who had shared the previous hours waiting with others, using their laptops, watching Web sites, DVDs and talking on Skype.

"It was a great community feeling. I'm getting an iPhone and I'm making friends."

Wozniak, bearing doughnuts, had come to imbibe in the Apple culture.

"Last year, I had one coming from Steve Jobs, but I still wanted to do this" he said of his early morning arrival.

He clearly reveled in the attention, with customers and employees posing for pictures with him. "I sold you the accessories last year. Remember me?" said one Apple employee.

Dressed entirely in black, Wozniak bought two 16-gig phones, one black and one white, because he said he can never decide what color he wants.

"I could get someone to do this for me," he said while waiting in line. "But, it's fun. We are all here - Macintosh enthusiasts."

The faithful gathered at the Palo Alto store on University Avenue were equally enthusiastic. A line at 11:30 a.m. still extended around the block, down from around 400 at 8 a.m. to about 200, according to a security guard hired by the store.

Fortunately for them, Apple employees were handing out free Peet's coffee and bottles of water.

Among the customers was 18-year-old Haidy Hui of Sunnyvale who, with three friends, had camped out in front of the store since 9 p.m. Thursday.

Exhausted but elated, the University of California-Berkeley freshman finally got her new phone (her old one had just broken).

"I just wanted to go. You can communicate with people like you," said Hui of the long wait in line, which she likened to a small party. "When you got it, you felt like everything was worthwhile."

The lines of those who want to get their hands on the latest version of what the faithful call the "Jesus phone" started early in places like Tokyo, where some buyers had waited in lines around a city block and happily counted down the final 30 seconds before stores opened.

This morning at the flagship Apple store on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue, a line of hundreds encircled the block ahead of the opening. Many of them were already owners of the first iPhone, suggesting that Apple is preaching to the choir with the new model, which updates the one launched a year ago by speeding up Internet access and adding a navigation chip.

Alex Cavallo, 24, was in line at the Fifth Avenue store, just as he had been a year ago for the original iPhone. He sold that one recently on eBay in anticipation of the new one. In the meantime, he has been using another phone, which felt "uncomfortable."

"The iPhone is just a superior user experience," he said. The phone also proved a decent investment for him: He bought the old model for $599 and sold it for $570.

Outside an AT&T store in Atlanta, more than hundred people had lined up.

Edward Watkins, a 34-year-old engineer and avowed "techno nut," said he didn't mind paying an extra $10 a month to the carrier to upgrade his phone.

"I'd pay an extra $30 or $40 a month for that. It's a smoother running phone. It's driving a Beamer as opposed to a Chevy Metro."

Sales of the new 3G iPhone were expected to draw fewer crowds in Silicon Valley this time around.

But those on hand to get their hands on the latest technology from the Cupertino company were no less ardent than those who lined up just over a year ago to buy the first version of the device.

The new iPhone, more a pocket PC than a cell phone, will run on a faster network. That means users will finally be able to experience speedy Web access, the device's forte. It also comes at reduced prices - $199 and $299, depending on the amount of memory. The iPhones, though, will come attached with more expensive, two-year AT&T service contracts.


Users will be able to download cheap or free applications from Apple's new App Store. The features will enable users to find restaurants on the run, play video games and get nearly real-time Major League Baseball updates.

The iPhone's appeal, though, is as much cultural as it is technological. For many iPhone fans, today's 3G launch is not just a sale but a happening.

"Fashion used to go down the runways. Today, it comes out of the design labs of consumer electronics companies," said veteran valley forecaster Paul Saffo. "And Apple is the Ralph Lauren of cellular fashion."

Even analysts, whose role is to pick apart tech companies and their products, get caught up in Apple's sway.

"Apple is the supreme puppet-master of the electronics age," said Ken Dulaney, an analyst with Gartner, a research firm. "They are able to orchestrate these important events. They are almost like rock concerts."

For Apple, the 3G iPhone is less about zeitgeist than big business. Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster estimates Apple will sell nearly 13 million iPhones this year - the company says its goal is 10 million - and 45 million next year.

Apple works as hard to polish its products as it does its image, observed Steven Addis, chief executive of Addis Creson, a brand strategy and design firm in Berkeley.

"There is a small handful of brands I call identity brands, and Apple leads the way. You get a sense of identity by using this brand, by being seen using this brand. You are one of the cool kids," Addis said.

Not to be left out of the cool crowd, Addis planned to head to an Apple store this morning to get his hands on his second iPhone.

Extra, extra: iPhone 3G: The Sequel, is worth the wait.
It's cheaper, faster and a lot friendlier for business. Apple's blockbuster smartphone already had nifty features such as visual voicemail, a splendid built-in video iPod and the best mobile Web browser I've ever used. With GPS newly added to the mix, this handheld marvel has no equal among consumer-oriented smartphones.

I reach that verdict after having tested the new iPhone for more than two weeks.

And that's without trying out the eagerly anticipated online Apps store. There, you'll be able to purchase programs from outside developers covering everything from social-networking tools to games. The Apps (for "applications") feature doesn't go live until Friday, when the new phone starts selling at Apple and AT&T stores.

The iPhone's successor arrives a full year after the mind-boggling hype and hysteria surrounding the first iteration's debut. Whatever your opinion of that first iPhone — and I've been a lot more positive than negative — its impact far outweighs the 6 million units that have been sold to date.


In my first review, I wrote, "iPhone isn't perfect, or even the most ideal smartphone for every user."

The statement holds true with iPhone 3G, though frankly, the list of reasons the device doesn't make sense for a certain class of users is shrinking fast.

Start with buyers on a budget who might have loved an iPhone but couldn't afford one.

Apple has already announced that an 8-gigabyte iPhone 3G costs $199 with a two-year AT&T service contract, down from $599. A 16-GB model fetches $299. One catch: The service contract now costs more.

Next are business customers. Many companies were hesitant to cozy up to iPhone for corporate e-mail and other services. They fretted about security.

But I've been using iPhone 3G to access my USA TODAY mail, calendar and contacts. Messages and calendar entries are "pushed" to the device, so they show up right away, just as they do on other computers. With your employer's blessing, set-up is a relative cinch.

But not all of iPhone's early drawbacks have disappeared. You still cannot shoot video, take advantage of Bluetooth stereo or dial with a voice command. Such features are common on rival devices. (I'm hoping some shortcomings will be addressed by third-party developers.)

Meanwhile, for all the hoopla involving AT&T's speedier, third-generation network, I couldn't access 3G in parts of my northern New Jersey neighborhood and elsewhere. When the fast network isn't available, the phone automatically reverts to the pokier and oft-maligned Edge network.

IPhone 3G still lacks a physical keyboard, too. You'll have to get comfortable with "tapping," "flicking," "pinching" and other finger-typing tricks with its virtual keyboard, which only appears on the screen as required — when you are entering a Web address, for instance, or typing a note.

With practice, I've gotten pretty good at it. A big challenge is learning to trust it as it makes predictive auto-corrections on the fly. But it's not for everybody.

Even the old phone gets a makeover with new iPhone 2.0 software. Among other features, it supplies layouts for several international keyboards. You can even use your finger to draw Chinese characters.

You can also more easily search through your address books when locating contacts to call or message. The phone now supports PowerPoint attachments; and you can move or delete multiple e-mail messages at once.

Another change (on older and newer iPhones): You no longer receive a pop-up offering to remove a downloaded movie after watching it, to free up space.

One thing that made the first iPhone so much fun was its motion sensor or "accelerometer," which orients the screen from landscape to portrait, as you admire photos or surf the Web.New cool stunt: You can switch from a basic calculator to a scientific one, by rotating the screen.

Activation

Those who bought the first iPhone had to activate the device on a PC or Mac in their home or office. That's when you received an AT&T phone number and chose your voice and text-messaging minutes.

Now, you take care of those details in an AT&T or Apple store. "We want people to leave the store with their phones up and running, and leave them with a buying experience similar to what they're used to with other phones," says AT&T spokesman Mark Siegel.

The practice also cracks down on folks who want to "unlock" the iPhone so they can switch to another carrier.

You still sync up all your music, pictures and more through iTunes software back at your computer.

The network

Apple's claims that 3G speeds are twice as fast as Edge were confirmed by my own download tests. It generally took 10 to 30 seconds to load popular websites through 3G, a lot zippier than when I accessed the sites on Edge. Oddly, parts of the pages sometimes showed up first on the older iPhone screen. But pages always finished loading on the 3G device first, often by a half minute or more. Wi-Fi, if available, is still the fastest method for downloads.

AT&T says its 3G network is now in 280 major metropolitan markets, with 350 planned by the end of the year. But as I discovered in my own greater New York City neighborhood, there are still holes in 3G coverage areas.

Appearance

The physical size and shape of the new iPhone hasn't changed much. There's the same lovely 3 1/2-inch multi-touch display. The new device is a bit curvier on the back than the first one.


The metal backing of the initial device has been superseded by a sturdy glossy plastic. The phone feels perfectly comfortable in my palm. The ringer switch and other physical buttons are now metal. My test unit came in black, though Apple will be selling a white version, as well.

The design changes aren't merely aesthetic. They're a nod to iPhone's 10 internal wireless radios. Plastic, unlike metal, is transparent to radio waves, improving reception, Apple says.

The headphone jack is now flush so it can accommodate any standard (3.5-mm) headphone, a welcome development to those of us who needed a clumsy adapter to use our favorite non-Apple headphones.

You can use iPhone's internal microphone to talk if your own headphones don't have one. Just be sure to really snap in your headphones; otherwise, sound comes through the iPhone's own speakers, not the headphones.

GPS

By "triangulating" signals from Wi-Fi and cellphone towers, the iPhone could previously determine your general location. GPS adds live tracking and may deliver more precise results.

I was pretty impressed by the accuracy on the new device as I drove along in my car, searched for nearby pizza places, and requested directions.

Alas, the feature begs for the audible turn-by-turn directions found on Samsung's Instinct and others. (Again, I'm hoping a third-party developer will fill the void.)

Pictures

IPhone remains a fabulous photo viewer. But Apple hasn't done much to improve its 2-megapixel camera. You still can't zoom, shoot video or use a flash. Taking pictures is a tad clumsy.

But the presence of GPS means pictures can be "geo-tagged" with the location in which they were taken. After syncing images with a computer, you might plot their location on a map. Geotagged pictures ought to work well with social-networking applications.

A nice new feature built into the iPhone 2.0 software lets you easily save a Web image to your phone or a picture that arrives via e-mail. You can use the image as the phone's "wallpaper" or sync it to your computer.

You can also post pictures to Apple's new MobileMe Gallery on the Web, part of a $100-a-year subscription service. The MobileMe service, the latest iteration of what used to be called .Mac, was also not ready for testing.

Audio quality

Apple has improved overall audio quality of the device. The speaker phone sounded better, as did music played directly through the phone's speaker.

Of course, it all still sounds better wearing headphones.

Parental controls

A new "restrictions" feature (found in Settings) means Mom and Dad can prevent the kids from downloading any applications, or from accessing the Safari Web browser, YouTube, or iTunes.

Turn on the YouTube restriction, for example, and the icon for the video site disappears from the iPhone home screen.

Powering up

There's a new small, easy-to-travel-with power adapter. Apple says you'll get five hours of talk time on a 3G network, double on Edge, and up to 300 hours of standby.

You can turn off 3G to preserve the battery. I started receiving low battery warnings toward the end of a busy work day; I found myself charging the device overnight, the same as with the older iPhone.

But I couldn't juice up the latest device using my Bose SoundDock or Belkin car kit. Apple says there will be adapters to permit charging with certain older accessories.

Technical explanation: The new iPhone only supports USB circuitry, not another method known as FireWire.

Wish list

As with its predecessor, iPhone 3G doesn't support popular Web browsing standards such as Adobe Flash, Windows Media Video or Java. And there's still no removable battery.

I'd have also loved Apple to add a slot for expandable memory. It did not.

While not everything on my wish list made it onto the new device, Apple has raised the bar with iPhone 3G. To which I offer an enthusiastic thumbs up.