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Did Apple take a step back on the iphone 3G

.Chris

.Chris

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Aug 22, 2007
771
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a Plastic back? I thought they were moving to all aluminum and glass structure on their products. The macbook pro, macbook air, imac, the 3 ipods and the old iphone all have this. But apple took a step back and went to plastic on the 3G?
does the plastic back have to do with the new 3G and GPS? They had to make it stick out a bit more so they can throw in the new parts or what?
 
.Chris said:
a Plastic back? I thought they were moving to all aluminum and glass structure on their products. The macbook pro, macbook air, imac, the 3 ipods and the old iphone all have this. But apple took a step back and went to plastic on the 3G?

DOes the plastic back have to do with the new 3G and GPS? They had to make it stick out a bit more so they can throw in the new parts or what?
Click to expand...

Step forward IMO. Feels nicer in the hand than the original. The original always slides out of my hand (my dad currently has one).

My dad has the same opinion...he can't wait to get his new iPhone, which is on order with AT&T.

I do believe they switched solely to save money. The thicker back is a separate issue from the plastic back. It was probably made thicker to accommodate the extra stuff.
 
.Chris said:
a Plastic back? I thought they were moving to all aluminum and glass structure on their products. The macbook pro, macbook air, imac, the 3 ipods and the old iphone all have this. But apple took a step back and went to plastic on the 3G?

DOes the plastic back have to do with the new 3G and GPS? They had to make it stick out a bit more so they can throw in the new parts or what?
Click to expand...

My understanding is that the plastic back allows for better antenna reception.

There's been some discussion on that in here somewhere, I believe.
 
They've got nearly a dozen antennae in there. Until they can work out the ceramic/a material other than plastic, plastic it is.

Which would you rather have? Lack of reception, or reception? Apple's already got patents on looking into the area.
 
t0mat0 said:
They've got nearly a dozen antennae in there. Until they can work out the ceramic/a material other than plastic, plastic it is.

Which would you rather have? Lack of reception, or reception? Apple's already got patents on looking into the area.
Click to expand...

I disagree that the aluminum back was causing any reception problems. I usually had 4-5 bars in most places. It is only now with the 2.0 update on my 1G phone where I experience fewer bars. I placed my phone next to another phone with the 1.4 software on it. My friend had 5 bars and I had 2...in my house. :(

As for the design, I think it is a step back. I like the 1G phone design way better.
 
jessica. said:
I disagree that the aluminum back was causing any reception problems. I usually had 4-5 bars in most places. It is only now with the 2.0 update on my 1G phone where I experience fewer bars. I placed my phone next to another phone with the 1.4 software on it. My friend had 5 bars and I had 2...in my house. :(

As for the design, I think it is a step back. I like the 1G phone design way better.
Click to expand...

It's because the antennas were behind the plastic little cover that was on the bottom of your phone. Which broke off on mine a few weeks back.

They went 2 steps forward with the plastic back. Genius design and reception.
 
Step forward.

It feels better in my hand. It also aids reception (more than just edge/3g). As has been mentioned it was hard to maintain a solid grip on the 1st generation for me.
 
I think Apple took a step forward, at least as far as ergonomics go. The iPhone 3G feels a lot more comfortable in the hand.
 
I don't like the look of it near as much, but if it improves reception, it's here to stay. But considering I will probably never carry my phone without a case again, it doesn't make much difference. In fact, I have a glossy black case on mine now. It shows prints like a mother, but oh well. At least the screen doesn't scratch at first sight like the old iPod screens do.

The headphone jack is an obvious plus. Everything else seems to be the same (to someone who doesn't own a new one). I just hope they start bumping storage up in a hurry because 8GB is really starting to be a strain. I'll live with it, but in a year I could see filling it up with 500MB of just apps (the Texas Hold 'Em game is about 132MB).
 
Michael CM1 said:
I don't like the look of it near as much, but if it improves reception, it's here to stay. But considering I will probably never carry my phone without a case again, it doesn't make much difference. In fact, I have a glossy black case on mine now. It shows prints like a mother, but oh well. At least the screen doesn't scratch at first sight like the old iPod screens do.

The headphone jack is an obvious plus. Everything else seems to be the same (to someone who doesn't own a new one). I just hope they start bumping storage up in a hurry because 8GB is really starting to be a strain. I'll live with it, but in a year I could see filling it up with 500MB of just apps (the Texas Hold 'Em game is about 132MB).
Click to expand...

127.9MB to be exact. :)
 
I wish there was a brushed aluminum one. Like the iPod Minis. I think that would look really nice.. :eek: :D Might kill reception though, idk. I only need wifi and the EDGE/3G signal, couldn't care less about GPS.
 
IMHO...it is a step forward from a hardware perspective, but the firmware definitely has a ways to go...
 
I think it's a big step forward. Something about it being so shiny too makes the old iPhone look archaic. I see the old one and think of it as old technology even though they are so close internally. I love the new design.
 
I had reception problems with the old iPhone so I'd say they took a step forward.
 
You want to talk about steps back? How bout the fact if someone sends you a picture via SMS, it provides a link and a code to go to some website for instead of the friggin' picture? Lame.

Then again, maybe the original iphone did this. I wouldn't know as I didn't have it. I had a $10 walmart phone because of AT&T's lies. :-D
 
MonsterRain said:
You want to talk about steps back? How bout the fact if someone sends you a picture via SMS, it provides a link and a code to go to some website for instead of the friggin' picture? Lame.

Then again, maybe the original iphone did this. I wouldn't know as I didn't have it. I had a $10 walmart phone because of AT&T's lies. :-D
Click to expand...

This is the way it works on the original iPhone as well. iPhone does not have MMS. You can however send and recieve e-mail photo attachments in the mail app.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_0 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5A347 Safari/525.20)

yeah, what he said.
 
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