Remember to reboot your iPhone to get the MMS to finally appear after the Carrier Update.

you realize that you're setting Josh up to get robbed!!!! thanks for sharing though. i'd be kinda careful about publizing this and that of an actual person's carrying contents. perhaps making a typical anonymous Engadget staff's carry alongs would be better next time.

My iPhone 3G S is the third iPhone i've had. i started out with the first gen 4 months after its release. then the following year, i stood in line for the 3G (never will i be doing that again; just wanted to see what it was like). this year, after AT&T gracefully caved to early adopters like me, i upgraded to the 3G S on with the subsidized pricing. Overall, this is the best iPhone they've put out. the main reasons for me to upgrade were 1. storage capacity, as i was already out on my 3G 16 GB 2. video capabilities (i don't want to jailbreak) 3. the new ARM processor running at 600 MHz (since the 3G lagged a lot on 3.0 software).

as i've stated before, this is the best iPhone out of the 1-3 generation line up. it's very responsive and i rarely get app crashes (some apps that have been upgraded to the compliant 3.0 works great now). Accelerometer is more responsive and so is Spotlight search (when activating the Spotlight feature). also to note, the iPhone reboot is so damn fast. i've seen the videos to where it boots in an average of 18 seconds. mine, for some reason, boots in 12-13 seconds. the strange part, when i first got the the phone, the 3G S booted in a minute to my dismay. but a few days after having it, the 3G S has been booting in 12-13 seconds. i wonder if the iPhone 3G S software has some AI built in or maybe the apps that were upgraded to 3.0 software compliancy may have helped out.

battery life is much better on the 3G S. it lasts about 10-20% more than my 3G. also, the battery meter is more accurate, too. my 3G meter held a full measure around midday after normal use. then in the afternoon, the meter went down dramatically fast from 80% to 30% (i use Free Memory, a $.99 app that measures memory and battery life). there were times the 3G had a full battery the whole day. and then minutes later, it would show half a battery. with the 3G S, battery drain, according to the tests in Free Memory (and the iPhone meter as well as the percentage usage which is only available in the 3G S), showed a more consistent drain and no dramatic delta changes like my old 3G. i've also tried to discharge the 3G S battery fully. did that take a long time to drain (with bluetooth on and connected, 3G on, video playing with volume at 100%, wifi on, GPS on, Push notifications for mail and apps on) the battery. i was very impressived with the battery life.

my only gripes: 1. non user-replaceable battery (i know it's the architecture for a slim device and all, but it'd be nice to be able to replace the battery with a spare). come on, 90-something percent of smartphones especially business phones, have user replaceable batteries (this non-replaceable battery is becoming a trend with Apple; look at the latest MacBooks). 2. the carrier AT&T. i will agree now that AT&T is a horrible carrier. i've been with them for 10 years now. 3G is NOT AT&T's forte, so they need to shut the hell up about fastest 3G and more bars in more places schtick). if it's on EDGE, i have no issues, except from that occasional tower hand off that cuts you off (shame on you, AT&T. Verizon is better at that than you are, tsk tsk). a side note, i used to work for a consulting firm that helped AT&T deploy the 3G (HSDPA and UMTS) back in 2007. the senior consultant that managed the project for AT&T told me AT&T was the worst out of all mobile carriers that he's managed 3G deployments for. AT&T was the most disorganized and used unorthodox "best practices" for their data routing. it was an utterly pathetic commentary of AT&T's routing services. so, it's not Apple's fault that MMS and tethering is not available stateside with AT&T. the 3G S is VERY capable; it's the damn carrier AT&T for not following suit and making it ready for the launch of the iPhone 3G S. it's been said, written and spoken over and over: AT&T is the chink in the iPhone 3G S' armor. i hate Verizon for its outdated protocol (CDMA believe it or not, is outdated; you can argue all you want.. just check the facts out: majority of the world uses GSM) and their authoritarian way of dealing with customers and its own App store. But i won't be surprised if Apple moves to Verizon if AT&T keep their ineptitude up. AT&T has the technology, but they they need to get their shit together.

other than that, i am VERY happy with the iPhone.

The code names Intel comes up with are after the natural bodies of waters here in the United States, such as lakes and ponds. if you look up all their past names such as Katmai, Prescott, Merced, etc they're all named after lakes, ponds, rivers.

C'mon, guys! can't you also see that Engadget was also trying to poke fun of Vista? clearly Windows 7 has beaten Vista in a lot of areas and it's a friggin' BETA!!!

you can't, however, compare it to XP, mostly because XP has been out for 9 years now.

i want one... hopefully, RIM will finish up and release their latest Blackberry connect virtualization software for WinMo so someone can install it on their new Fuze (hopefully me!).

seems suspect... the message had a misspelling in it... "reccomended"? isn't it recommended?

No business entity ever takes the blame themselves. it's all part of the business processes. i've been in IT consulting for 14 years and i've worked with almost every hardware and software vendors out there. no one will accept fault; it's mostly for legal issues in case the companies get sued.

Dell, HP, IBM, etc. usually points their fingers at Microsoft in the 14 years i've been in the business. Microsoft also does the same... points the fingers back the hardware vendor.

Engadget is not biased for Apple. they've made fun of Apple before (especially this year when Apple/AT&T's iPhone 3G fiasco launch), but IMHO, they haven't been biased towards anyone... they say it like it is with a lot of humor and sarcasm.

weird. i bought my unibody macbook the day after the announcements. the very next day, i took it in for memory upgrades to 4GB. i have not had ANY lockup issues at all (i'm using VMWare Fusion 2.0 and VERY often too). in fact, it's made me love Mac OS X and Apple more. and just to let everyone know, i switched to Mac for the first time.

my work laptop is a Lenovo ThinkPad T61 running Vista Business. now that locks up more than anything be it memory or what.

so, no memory issues here with 4GB maxed out.

Man, you hit the nail right on the head with your comment. i carry two cell phones: iPhone 3G and a BB Curve 8310 (for work; i'm an IT consultant in the field for 13 years). most of these BB fanboys do NOT know what the hell they're talking about. most of these whiners have no technical education to understand the differences between AT&T and VZW, especially when it comes to mobile communications protocols. GSM is much more secure and encrypted than CDMA. the iPhone, though it has its limitations, by far, surpass RIM's attempts at emulating the iPhone. first and foremost, Apple has spent years getting the iPhone and its software to work seamlessly. RIM just jumped on the bandwagon after Apple made it "cool". i'm sure the Storm will get better and better as RIM learns from users and the industries.

the Storm, like the iPhone 3G, was pushed out too early. so far, the Storm hasn't been able to live up to what Verizon and RIM has criticized the iPhone 3G's shortcomings. Apple was able to sell 1 million iPhones in its July 11th weekend debut. yes, Apple had outages during activation, but it came back in 20-30 minutes (i know, i was in line and was able to get mine activated in the store on July 11th after standing 7 hours in line). Verizon had a lot of reported issues of activation outages, which is a fact (just google it); and the irony of it is, it was nowhere near the capacity of the iPhone activations... so Verizon needs to quit calling the pot kettle black.

the Storm had lots of bugs crippling it versus the iPhone 3G. the iPhone can't also be blamed for its call quality either. AT&T's 3G network is still in its infancy, while Verizon's network has been solid and fully deployed for years now. if the iPhone 3G is set to EDGE (though albeit much slower connection), it would've not had any call quality drops since EDGE is totally saturated throughout the US.