High-quality photos of Apple's iPhone 3G
Apple's new iPhone 3G went on sale at 8:00 a.m. sharp Friday on the East Coast. We picked up a couple of black 16GB models, activated them in the store, then came back to the office to prepare the following high-quality unboxing and comparison photos.
Everyone who buys one of the new handsets from an Apple retail store will get a snazzy white bag (below) to tote them home in. It's nearly identical to the black bag that accompanied first-generation iPhone sales last year.
Also similar is the iPhone 3G's retail packaging, which could be mistaken for the original iPhone's box if it weren't for the "3G" on the sides and the photo of the handset's home screen on the front featuring the App Store icon.
There are some slight differences once you pop off the top of the box, however. Immediately you'll find the new iPhone nestled in a carton made of recyclable material. Directly underneath the carton is a polishing cloth (no longer imprinted with "iPhone"), two Apple logo stickers and two pamphlets -- "Finger Tips" and an iPhone 3G "Information Guide."
Removing the pamphlets from the box then reveals three accessories: a set of earphones (no fuzzy covers), a USB charging cable, and a USB power adapter that has seen a hefty size reduction compared to the one that shipped with the original iPhone. What you won't find is an iPhone 3G Dock, which is now sold separately for $29.99.
Apple Retail stores have the iPhone 3G Dock in stock, which is unusual when compared to recent iPhone and iPod launches, where official Apple accessories have lagged days and often weeks behind in availability compared to the devices themselves.
Still, as previous owners of an Apple Bluetooth Headset, we found it a bit disappointing that Apple is not (yet?) offering a standalone version of its Dual Dock capable of charging the headset and the iPhone 3G simultaneously. It's unclear whether newly manufactured versions of the Bluetooth Headset will include a revised Dual Dock to serve this purpose.
Stay tuned, as we'll soon be publishing a set of notes from our activation experiences at Apple's retail stores this morning.
Everyone who buys one of the new handsets from an Apple retail store will get a snazzy white bag (below) to tote them home in. It's nearly identical to the black bag that accompanied first-generation iPhone sales last year.
Also similar is the iPhone 3G's retail packaging, which could be mistaken for the original iPhone's box if it weren't for the "3G" on the sides and the photo of the handset's home screen on the front featuring the App Store icon.
There are some slight differences once you pop off the top of the box, however. Immediately you'll find the new iPhone nestled in a carton made of recyclable material. Directly underneath the carton is a polishing cloth (no longer imprinted with "iPhone"), two Apple logo stickers and two pamphlets -- "Finger Tips" and an iPhone 3G "Information Guide."
Removing the pamphlets from the box then reveals three accessories: a set of earphones (no fuzzy covers), a USB charging cable, and a USB power adapter that has seen a hefty size reduction compared to the one that shipped with the original iPhone. What you won't find is an iPhone 3G Dock, which is now sold separately for $29.99.
Apple Retail stores have the iPhone 3G Dock in stock, which is unusual when compared to recent iPhone and iPod launches, where official Apple accessories have lagged days and often weeks behind in availability compared to the devices themselves.
Still, as previous owners of an Apple Bluetooth Headset, we found it a bit disappointing that Apple is not (yet?) offering a standalone version of its Dual Dock capable of charging the headset and the iPhone 3G simultaneously. It's unclear whether newly manufactured versions of the Bluetooth Headset will include a revised Dual Dock to serve this purpose.
Stay tuned, as we'll soon be publishing a set of notes from our activation experiences at Apple's retail stores this morning.
Comments
A gallery of images taken from one of the first iPhone 3Gs that went on sale Friday at 8:00 a.m. Eastern time. More to follow notes to follow shortly.
[ View this article at AppleInsider.com ]
Heh...lint magnet...
Heh...lint magnet...
I was thinking the same thing...
A gallery of images taken from one of the first iPhone 3Gs that went on sale Friday at 8:00 a.m. Eastern time. More to follow notes to follow shortly.
[ View this article at AppleInsider.com ]
2.0 Updated basically bricked my original iphone supposedly due to the huge demand on Itunes. It's been two hours.. "accessing itunes store" Kinda poor planning on Apple's behalf. I hear Apple employees are letting new adopters activate their handsets at home because of this mess.
I'd like to think you used an iPhone to take those images. No? Oh well...
...and this was also my thinking. I don't think the pictures were taken with a SLR camera.
2.0 Updated basically bricked my original iphone supposedly due to the huge demand on Itunes. It's been two hours.. "accessing itunes store" Kinda poor planning on Apple's behalf. I hear Apple employees are letting new adopters activate their handsets at home because of this mess.
My ATT store in Central time Zone couldn't unbrick any of the phones. total confusion. Sent us home to do it on itunes. Can't connect to itunes store, they went ahead and changed my SIM # so im dead in the water with no phone. What the heck is going on. Poor experience Apple. How long have you known this was coming ? I should have waited a few weeks.
Maybe...
Right now, if I plug my iPod Touch into my Mac, and it launches iTunes, it Locks up!
Skip
My ATT store in Central time Zone couldn't unbrick any of the phones. total confusion. Sent us home to do it on itunes. Can't connect to itunes store, they went ahead and changed my SIM # so im dead in the water with no phone. What the heck is going on. Poor experience Apple. How long have you known this was coming ? I should have waited a few weeks.
Well, they obviously misjudged the response this new release was going to get. The MobileMe servers are dog slow - and Apple took the 2.0 software link down for us 1.1.4 users... They are apparently getting slammed. I empathize with your predicament, that is very frustrating...
Too bad for those that had problems activiting their iPhones. You should have seen this coming on the first day of introduction. Not your fault but you just should have waited a few days until the excitement and activation load settled down. I don't think this sort of thing can be helped with such a huge amount of orders to process at one time. It's not a natural load for any server.
The more I see of black, for some strange reason, the more I am beginning to like white!
hahaa. i kid.
the new phone does look really nice. and i really like all the apps that just came out. i wish i had the money to waste on this phone, it's just not a practicle purchase for me right now.
(I know not funny).
Settle down guys... they're being slammed across the world right now with interest in multiple services. The volume on their servers, while clearly beyond what they were expecting, will be way greater than what it will be in short order as things calm down. You will live just fine having endured a short period of inconvenience.
Do you really think the response was beyond what they were expecting? I don't think so, I just think it all went 'a little' wrong. They haven't managed to get me.com working properly. They've had a long time prepping this. I tested the email today and if it remains this slow I'll stick to gmail. Several of the other services have ben on and off for days. This is a 'world wide' launch - there is no way they didn't realize that a people were going to activate their phones, or try me.com. They have so many outlets, multiplied by the number of sales staff and / or terminals. Not complicated to figure out what the load would be. They just screwed up. Not good advertising but it'll get fixed. For a company that prides itself on presentation and design, this really sucks, however. 1st impressions are IMPORTANT. I would not like to be hanging out with SJ today.
Quote: "Apple has an exclusive deal with network operator O2 in the UK - but O2's web-based activation system requires the use of Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser to register a new phone: It won't work with the Safari browser bundled in Apple's Mac OS X. In its Regent Street store, Apple had installed VMware Fusion desktop virtualisation software on some of its Macintosh computers, allowing them to run Internet Explorer on Windows, but the activation process was still not working."
I'm no expert but surely these problems could have been forseen and ironed out before launch day? It's been over a month since Apple announced the iPhone release date.
Clearly the problems are not with Apple or the iPhone itself but with the activation process.
I had a play with the iPhone in my local Carphone Warehouse. Looks really good and seems to sit in the hand more comfortably than the first version.
Can't wait for the PAYG version so I get one for myself.