Anyway, I can finally celebrate. My friend’s old iPhone 3G is officially sold, all money collected, and no complaints from the buyer. I feel vindicated proving that it is possible to sell a used iPhone, even one that is defective and two generations old. It is possible to circumvent fraudulent buyers on eBay, by having patience and determination. I can declare that if you are an owner of any model iPhone in any condition it will sell on eBay and you may be quite surprised how much you’ll get for it. Furthermore, if you own an iPhone in good condition you can get more for it than you paid for. Which oddly means two things: if you ever want to upgrade to the next generation of iPhone, you can get it for free! And if you really want to try you can buy a new iPhone 4, break your contract and pay penalties to AT&T and still sell it for a profit on eBay.
So I was one of the first iPhone owners when the original iPhone came out years ago. I used to be thrilled about each upgrade in features and performance. But when the new iPhone 4 came out, the thrill just wasn’t there anymore. Other friends that owned iPhones would get excited about the new model and I just couldn’t get excited. I mean I swear even if it had 3D holographic displays, I wouldn’t get excited. I guess I’m just not that excited with gadgets, anymore. The recent bad publicity with the iPhone 4 having antenna or proximity sensor problems sort of caught my attention. So after watching the rest of the general public get iPhone 4’s ahead of me and hearing 100% of the people I’ve talked to in the end become completely satisfied with it, I started to think about upgrading my iPhone 3GS. The biggest reason for me was not the features but the financial incentive. The upgrade would initially cost me $299. I’d get a phone that is a faster and has a brand new battery. But then I’d be able to sell my older 3GS phone for more than $300 on eBay! And because Apple got mixed into a big antenna media fiasco, Apple also gives me a new case valued at $35 for my iPhone 4 for free. If I hold back from upgrading, my 3GS starts to lose resell value and I won’t have owned the new iPhone 4 long enough to qualify for the discounted price when the next generation iPhone comes out in 2011, and I don’t get a free case. So oddly economics pushes me to buy the latest and greatest.
Now as far as the phone itself. Yea it’s the best iPhone to date. It’s got really great battery life. It has a really crisp display, video phone capability and a really great camera. But when I think of these things I yawn in boredom. So what. While the video phone feature and how well it’s integrated with normal cell phone calls is actually a very impressive technological feat, I find people aren’t inclined to use it. I mean most people don’t really care to show their faces during a cell phone call. Most of us attention deficit people like to reserve our eyes and hands for multi-tasking like watching TV, walking, holding things or even driving while talking on a phone.
So while I pooh pooh all the greatest features of a really very good electronic device, the iPhone 4, I should also pooh pooh all the supposed faults that Consumer Reports complains about. This phone is supposed to lose reception and signal strength if you touch one part of the phone. There’s even YouTube videos showing where to touch to get this featured defect to work. Well this “feature” of dropped calls doesn’t seem to work. The iPhone 4 behaves like a normal phone. Touch the supposed weak spot and nothing happens, the number of bars don’t budge, phone calls work and don’t drop. Wrap your hands around the phone and the phone works. Hold the phone up to your face while talking and nothing bad happens. No dropped calls. No mysterious mute or pushing of buttons. The iPhone 4 pretty much works like a phone. Ho hum.
The iPhone. The thrill is gone.