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    iPhone 3.0: Apple's First Law of Inertia

    I've always sucked at making decisions. Leave where we're having lunch up to me and we'll likely be having dinner there.

    If there's one thing about modern life I cannot stand, it's the plethora of options we have. Sure the freedoms we now enjoy are terrific, the new opportunities exciting, the potential adventures limitless, but instead I like to focus on all the bad choices we can now make.

    Lately, my indecisiveness is getting worse. And if I had to place blame on a particular culprit (and I must as implicating my own neuroses is not an option), I think Apple has had a lot to do with it.

    It's just the way they relentlessly make great products and then have no problem making those products obsolete - and dramatically cheaper - in a matter of months.

    This weekend, the new IPhone - the 3GS - launched and is doing quite well, thank you very much (apparently, others have so far resisted Apple-induced indecisiveness). It certainly sounds like a great device - it's got video, a faster processor (the S in 3GS stands for 'Speed' and who wouldn't want that), more memory, such revolutionary new technologies as Cut & Paste and MMS (note the very subtle sarcasm) - and all of it, for the same $199 price as the original IPhone 3G (which was slashed in price by $100).

    But that's what Apple always does. Faster, better, cheaper. You may call it progress. Innovation. I just call it infuriating. How can they possibly expect me to take the plunge and buy a device - enslaving myself to AT&T Wireless' piss-poor customer service track record for 2 years, no less - when I know something better is right around the corner.

    Do you remember when Apple launched the first IPhone in 2007 and less than three months later cut the price of the device from $600 to $400 in order to spur sales. I remember joyfully snickering at all those Apple fanatics who rushed out to buy the original Iphone at launch and were given a lousy store credit voucher to reward them for their loyalty ... "Suckers!"

    Now as I sit here holding a cracked, crappy Motorola RAZR, listening to a Nano that's several generations old and doesn't even play video, typing on a single-core Dell computer that runs like molasses, I can see the truth: The joke's on me.

    I'm paralyzed from the gadget down.

    Comments

    You've overcompensated. Always buy 2.0. 1.0 is too soon. 3.0 is too late. Except for Microsoft, in which case 3.0 might still be too soon.

    Besides, you only need the thing to last the duration of a 2-year contract anyway.

    FYI, the speed and memory improvements are nice but unnecessary. The new features are available to existing iPhones. I look forward to upgrading my firmware. No buyer's remorse here.

    So what are you waiting for? Go get yourself a geek toy.


    I second the motion.  I just got my iPhone 3GS today - AWESOME.  Best smart phone ever.


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