Software changes in the 3GS that the 3G can handle

[Saladinos]

I'm quite annoyed with the fact that some of the great improvements in the 3GS are small software changes that the 3G could handle. Here's a list:

1. Battery Percentage (see here)

The restriction to the 3GS makes no sense.

2. Accessibility Settings (see here)

The 3GS includes:
- Full-Screen Zoom
- White-on-black mode
- VoiceOver
- Mono Audio
- Speak corrections

These are all fairly simple things to do with Quartz, OSX's rendering engine, and in none graphically-intensive applications, this should be a piece of cake for the 3G. I'm pretty peeved that Apple is withholding this, especially since it serves the purpose of making the phone easier to use for handicapped people (e.g. partially deaf, poor-sighted) and because the 3G can handle this.

3. Voice Control

Surely this can be done on the 3G. IIRC, we've been using the 3G fine for the last year without it being so slow as to not make these things possible.


The first two are the biggest two. Voice Control is more of a feature, so it's fair if Apple wants to restrict that to the 3GS (maybe. You could argue that software improvements are part of the price, especially since Apple accounts for it that way). The battery meter and accessibility settings aren't really "features" and I don't believe that the 3G hardware can't handle them, although we'll know for sure when the jailbreakers enable them.

 

[hefeglass]

then buy the new one and stop whining..

 

[jman240]

Who says they won't be coming to the 3g eventually.

Look at the iPod touch. Definitely capable of running almost all the apps the iPhone can run, yet, it was launched without them and they were added in.

Who is to say the 3g won't get these features in a coming update. Apple probably has to develop these separately anyway and their main concentration was the new iPhone 3GS since, well, it's new.

I mean, in 3.0 the iPod touch is just now getting Google Street View which the iPhone has had for months.

Makes sense to me at least.

 

[jalpert]

The voice control feature is not surprising. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't the new iPod Shuffle have a small chip that controlled the readback of the voices? Maybe this is a hardware requirement therefore why it's not available.

Same with with Accessibility. It's really all or nothing with these guys sometimes.

Also, it could just be the fact that the 3G S has more ram and a faster processor. Maybe the voice recognition just won't run at the slower speeds.

 

[jmmo20]

Fair enough.. voice control, the voice over stuff, these features do require cpu power.. but.. BATTERY METER?

for god's sake.. that's as stupid as the first calendar version in the ipod touch that couldn't add or edit events... it was so stupid that Jobs had to come up and say "it's a bug".. a bug? whatever!!!!!

 

[Saladinos]

Who says they won't be coming to the 3g eventually.

Look at the iPod touch. Definitely capable of running almost all the apps the iPhone can run, yet, it was launched without them and they were added in.

Who is to say the 3g won't get these features in a coming update. Apple probably has to develop these separately anyway and their main concentration was the new iPhone 3GS since, well, it's new.

I mean, in 3.0 the iPod touch is just now getting Google Street View which the iPhone has had for months.

Makes sense to me at least.

The iPod touch got it later because Apple's interpretation of accounting laws indicate that it has to charge for all new features. Charging iPT users for a minor update would have annoyed more people, so it makes sense to bundle it with 3.0.

These features will probably be enabled by jailbreakers anyway. It just would have been nice for Apple to not restrict basic things like a battery meter to the 3GS.

3G owners pay for that update every month according to Apple's accountants. Whilst upgrading for more features is acceptable, upgrading for minor things and accessibility enhancements that the iPhone 3G could handle isn't.

Let's say I'm partially deaf and the mono audio feature (which the 3G could do) would really help me. I'm paying for this update every month, the hardware can handle it, are you saying it's fine for Apple to say I need to spend $300 more for it?

 

[jman240]

The iPod touch got it later because Apple's interpretation of accounting laws indicate that it has to charge for all new features. Charging iPT users for a minor update would have annoyed more people, so it makes sense to bundle it with 3.0.

These features will probably be enabled by jailbreakers anyway. It just would have been nice for Apple to not restrict basic things like a battery meter to the 3GS.

3G owners pay for that update every month according to Apple's accountants. Whilst upgrading for more features is acceptable, upgrading for minor things and accessibility enhancements that the iPhone 3G could handle isn't.

Let's say I'm partially deaf and the mono audio feature (which the 3G could do) would really help me. I'm paying for this update every month, the hardware can handle it, are you saying it's fine for Apple to say I need to spend $300 more for it?

No, i'm saying I have a good feeling it will be backported eventually and thus the 3G will have it.

The applications already existed on the iPod touch, people who bought it after the upgrade didn't have to pay extra for it. iPod touch users have to pay for 3.0 which brings more features to the iPod touch than it had before.

I have a feeling this is only a temporary separation between the 3G and the 3GS to maybe try and upsell the 3GS. Lets revisit this idea in about 2-3 months with the inevitable 3.0.1 update or something like that. I'll bet the 3G gets more features then.