Understanding the iPhone 3GS
by Anand Lal Shimpi on July 7, 2009 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Mobile
The Inevitable Comparison: 3GS vs. Palm Pre
In response to my Pre review, many of you posted that the article read more like a comparison to the iPhone or a list of things for Apple to improve. I wrote it as such because I felt that while Palm out-innovated Apple in many ways, it fell short in just as many. At the same time I felt that Apple had much room to improve given the impact of the Pre, while also holding its advantages over the Pre. In short, neither device is perfect and both companies have much to learn from the other. It wouldn’t be fair for me to exclude the Pre from this article, as the iPhone 3GS delivers speed but lacks the functionality of what Palm has done with the Pre.
It’s a wonder what a year makes. Apple originally shied away from enabling background tasks on the iPhone because it didn’t want to compromise performance or battery life. The latter made sense, but the former didn’t really jive - the more we asked of the iPhone, the slower it got. In particular, its performance took a dive once the official App store launched along with the 2.0 firmware. Since then, the iPhone hasn’t exactly been fast - especially compared to some newer smartphones.
Apple’s solution to the background tasks problem was server-side push notifications. Take the most popular example: AIM. Since Apple doesn’t allow 3rd party applications to run in the background on the iPhone, if you’re in the middle of an AIM conversation and lock your phone, go to the home screen or launch another app, your connection to AIM is lost and your screen name logs off. You won’t get any new messages until you log back on.
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With the iPhone OS 3.0 the AIM app can use Apple’s push notification servers to keep the connection active. The minute you close the AIM app on the iPhone, the connection between your phone and AIM is severed but kept alive by one of Apple’s push servers. Any new messages that are to be delivered to your phone go to Apple’s servers, which know your phone’s IP and whereabouts. The servers then push the message to your phone and you see it like a SMS notification on the iPhone:
Sweet, right? It’s great for receiving a single message, but it’s horrible for actually maintaining a conversation. To respond to the message I have to click view message, then wait for the AIM app to launch and log me in and only then can I begin typing. Now let’s assume that I quit out of AIM because I had to do something else, or even worse, let’s assume that I left AIM because I had to send a text message. I’m now switching between two messaging apps to carry on two different conversations. It’s cumbersome.
As AIM messages pile up, the counter on my AIM app icon increments to let me know what I’ve got waiting for me.
Switching between apps is made much faster on the 3GS, this whole process is far more annoying on the 3G or original iPhone because actually launching the AIM app takes far longer. It’s a better overall experience but still no where near the seamless setup that Palm offers. If you mostly text/IM people on your phone, then honestly, forget the iPhone and get a Pre - Apple simply doesn’t do the best job here any longer.
Sending IMs and switching between apps on the Pre, the way it should be done
The iPhone OS needs a drastic revamp. The OS was designed very well for what the first iteration of the iPhone was created for: single tasking with SMS, email, web browsing, phone calls, music playback and browsing through photos. Add several pages of apps to the OS and try to multitask between them and the OS quickly shows its limits. Although Apple has added a very sweet Copy/Paste interface to the iPhone, that’s about the extent of how well you can work between apps thanks to Apple’s no background tasks limitation.
Palm got the implementation of a multitasking OS down right with the Pre, but the performance levels just aren’t up to snuff. Take using the dialer app for example. Animations are choppy and there’s a noticeable lag between when you tap a button and when the app responds. That just isn’t true of the iPhone and definitely not true of the 3GS; responsive is the key word here and Palm lacks it.
Unfortunately, what the 3GS has in responsiveness it lacks in productivity. The more I use the 3GS the more I wish I was able to run more than one application at a time. What I want is a phone that multitasks like webOS but with the speed of the 3GS. I believe that both Apple and Palm are capable of delivering such a device, I’m just unsure which company will do it first.
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Affectionate-Bed-980 - Wednesday, July 8, 2009 - link
It's unacceptable because what? HTC Touch Diamond 2 and Touch Pro 2 are flagship phones with ARM11 processors? Yes I pointed out some phones that have it, but have you guys even seriously used an S60 phone? Multiple S60 phones? I've gone through N80, N95, N82, and I've toyed with an N85 and 5800 also. The N97 is certainly fine in usability. It could use some more RAM, but even if you stuffed a Cortex A8 and some more RAM, the phone is still going to get a lot of flak except for people who look at it on paper. Symbian S60v5 is perfectly fine on ARM11. It doesn't need some insane CPU to keep up with the UI.Moreover, the N97 isn't really that much of a gaming platform like the iPhone. Think of the N97 like the Touch Pro 2. The Touch Pro 2 is more business oriented with the QWERTY and everything. HTC didn't upgrade the camera, and didn't bother to build it the same way the flagship Diamond 2 was built. This doesn't mean it's a BAD phone.
You guys are thinking of this whole thing like a computer or something. Have you seen the N95 photos? It's a 2007 phone. Pretty much the best 5MP all around. The N97 does a little better. Yes it demolishes the 3MP crap on the 3GS. So coming from a more computer-centric crowd here yes it makes sense to bash a CPU, but from a mobile phone perspective it's not even that bad at all. If anything the phone was first a phone before it was a camera and then an MP3 player, and now a powerhouse mini computer. If you're telling me that in 2006 I could've bought a Sony Ericsson 3 MP cameraphone, then why are we still stuck there on the 3GS? There are more important features that phones push for such as music, camera, later GPS and connectivity, and now processing power. Give it some time and I bet you Nokia will have a winner soon.
What crappy screen on the N97? Resistive? Get over it. The iPhone is capacitive, so all phones must be capacitive? The iPhone has a Cortex A8, everything else must have it? Please. Multi touch is patented by Apple, so it's a little difficult to move into that arena for now. There are advantages and disadvantages to both resistive and capacitive screens. Just because the N97 doesn't mimick the iPhone doesn't mean it sucks. HTC's WinMo phones are resistive screens too. So are the new Samsung Omnia II and Pro phones. So is the new Sony Ericsson Satio.
Different phones are built differently, but honestly when you look at pure functionality, the lack of multitasking is much larger than a CPU difference.
I feel it is justified to say Nokia needs to get to work, but to hear this from people who really doesn't have as much experience with unlocked phones is like hearing one of those ditzy people who buys Apple thinking it'll solve their spyware problems on their PC tell you why a Mac is superior. I'd rather hear it from the computer guru. Gizmodo may be negative, but I think Engadget gave the N97 a fair look and so did other reviewers like PhoneArena, GSMArena, Mobile-Burn, Symbian-Guru.
Look I have nothing against Apple. I have a 3GS too. It's just not my thing and I'm back on my N-series. I'm not a Nokia fanboy or anything. There's plenty of criticism I've given the N97 and Nokia in the S60 section of HoFo, but I believe having had 3 iPhones, Anand is quite biased.
vshah - Wednesday, July 8, 2009 - link
Anand,Thanks for this excellent article, I really enjoyed the cpu benchmark/comparisons you did; they paint a very clear picture.
I was curious as to your thoughts on the multitasking implementation on Android. Holding down home for a couple seconds brings up the 6 most recently accessed apps/tasks, and I've always found switching between them to be pretty fluid. Have you had a chance to try that out?
Thanks,
Vivan
MrX8503 - Wednesday, July 8, 2009 - link
This isn't even a phone site and it has the most in depth review of the iphone yet.I guess being a tech site, Anandtech has an edge over other sites that just review phones.
Good Work!
kmmatney - Wednesday, July 8, 2009 - link
I needed a new phone for work, and spent about 30 minutes in the local AT&T store testing out phones yesterday. After using the blackberry and iPhone for quite some time, I have to say the iPhone was much better. I was way more productive with it - everything was easy to do, while I felt like all the other phones were fighting me. Overall, a fantastic phone for business - I went for the 16GB 3GS model - the only gripe is the 7 day wait for shipment.sprockkets - Wednesday, July 8, 2009 - link
You mentioned using voice command. Can you use it via a BT headset?Also, does it play ringtones over the headset? Does it announce who is calling over the headset?
nafhan - Wednesday, July 8, 2009 - link
Thanks for a great article!One minor complaint, and it's really not even a complaint. I want to point out that this would have made two excellent stand alone articles.
First article would have been about the current state of mobile CPU and GPU architecture. This section was excellent and detailed enough that I really felt it deserved it's own article rather than being lumped in as part of your iPhone impressions.
Second article would have been your impressions and review of the 3GS.
WeaselITB - Wednesday, July 8, 2009 - link
I agree with this - it does seem that there are two articles vying for attention here, and with a bit more polish they could have been published separately.That said, I do want to commend you for this article. These are the types of in-depth reports that made me start reading AT ten or so years ago, and they are the type of in-depth reports that keep me reading. Thanks, Anand.
Rolphus - Wednesday, July 8, 2009 - link
I think this is an important point. Apple see the iPhone as a device, exactly the same as the iPod. No "user" compares about the iPod's CPU, any more than they care about the CPU of their refrigerator. For it to be a true consumer device (rather than a computer), it should "just work", and work with acceptable performance, in all the situations it's designed for.Yes, us techies want to know more, and that's precisely why we come to sites like Anandtech and read your articles. I don't think the mainstream user is ever going to care about these specs, but rather what the phone can do.
medi01 - Wednesday, July 8, 2009 - link
Wouldn't it be better to review alternatives? Like Samsung's new shiny MOLED display smartphone?wuyanxu - Wednesday, July 8, 2009 - link
superb article! a lot more indepth than all other websites. would love to see more like this, with more information on how the graphics cores improved its performance.however, what you should not forget is avaliability of jailbreak for 3GS. in the conclusion you've mentioned the hassle of re-launching apps. with a jailbreak, you will be able to send an app to background and get instant re-lanuch.
my dream phone would be an iPhone with Andriod-like pull-down status bar notification system, and have JB's backgrounder come as standard.
the pull down status bar will have the top 2/3 to be notifications. press to launch its apps. the bottom 1/3 will be icons of opened apps, and to close it, simply drag the icon to a reserved area.
the idea is similar to a jailbroken app called mQuickDo, except with the notification system.