Our campus is home to what might be billed as the most important battle since good versus evil, the Phillies versus the Rays, or you versus everyone in Houston Hall at noon. That’s right, I’m talking about Blackberry versus iPhone. If you are a student at Penn, chances are that you have already made up your mind and picked your favorite. If you have not, the third generation iPhone should be more than enough incentive for you to make the leap and head over to the Center City Apple store.
For those of you who do not yet own an iPhone, the time is now. The third generation is easily the most powerful, most affordable, and most practical version out there. The price tag alone should be enough to convince even the most cynical of cell phone shoppers (the 16 gigabyte version is priced at $199 with a two-year contract with AT&T).
This iPhone is significantly faster than most smart phones and all iPhones before it. All of your favorite iPhone features and applications just operate at a higher speed. Because of the 3G network, you can even use the iTunes app to download music directly to your iPhone.
Which brings me the App Store. Unless you have been living in a cave in the past few years, you have heard the ubiquitous Apple marketing phrase, “There’s an app for that.” Well, it’s true. Apple has a downloadable application for just about everything you can think of. The graphics in the games are amazing. The restaurant finder is handy. The FMyLife app will make you LOL. The possibilities are endless!
Got a previous iPhone model and thinking about upgrading? Aside from the notable increase in speed and more affordable price, the iPhone 3GS includes a number of features that will improve your current quality of life — you can now shoot video, edit video and post it to YouTube using only your handheld mobile device! Also useful is the cut-copy-paste function, which allows you to perform this operation on text and photos across applications.
Although voice recognition software works better for some than others, you can give it a shot on the new iPhone, prompting your phone to dial a number or play music simply by speaking to it. And while you probably won’t be finding yourself lost in a forest with your iPhone anytime soon, the new compass feature is pretty groovy to play with.
And let’s face it. You just look better whipping out an iPhone. (It has a touch screen!) iPhones are for trendsetters. Don’t you want to be a trendsetter?
Suffice it to say, the new third generation iPhone is definitely worth the price. This cool new gadget gets two thumbs way up from us.
