iPhone and 3G

Jenn showed me her iPhone yesterday, and it was great to see what it can do.

She mostly uses her iPhone for email, SMS text messaging (via a Globe prepaid sim card), and internet surfing via WiFi in her location.

In other words, she can view YouTube videos without having to pay for a 3G internet subscription plan, because WiFi access in her location is free. That beats having to pay those expensive per-kilobyte charges of Globe's GPRS system.

But what about iPhones and 3G? Well, it looks like demand is quite high, because the iPhone 3G $299 black 16GB model is (as always) out of stock. But not only that, even the 8GB model recently went out of stock.

If you're looking for an iPhone, you'll probably have to wait around 3 weeks. I wonder if this will have an impact on the iPhone upgrade market, because there are no available units to upgrade to.

Which means... those "inexpensive" secondhand iPhones (4GB) floating around at P13,000 to P18,000 (wall charger not included) will start experiencing price increases as fewer people give up their old models.

With this surge in demand for the newer iPhone 3G, will we see slowdowns in internet access as networks get clogged? Afterall, with a rather small viewing screen, people will most likely use their iPhones to view photos and videos instead of read through webpage after webpage of text, right?

And that means more bandwidth, more web traffic, and yes... slower internet access. Anway, that still remains to be seen.

Have you gotten your iPhone yet? :-)

[ First posted on 07/22/2008 by Manuel Viloria ]