It was the 8th of June 2009.
The iPhone 3G had been quite a success at Apple,
with over a million sold in the first week of launch in over 70 countries worldwide.
That's pretty impressive!
Fast forward to the WWDC conference in San Francisco,
Phil Schiller then takes the stage
talking about how well the iPhone 3G had sold,
and then announcing their next iPhone.
The iPhone 3GS.
As you already probably know,
the 'S' in iPhone 3GS stands for speed.
Apple quoted this as "the fastest, most powerful iPhone yet".
Lets go ahead and take a look at the phone, shall we?
Looking at the hardware of the iPhone 3GS,
it has a very nice classic look from the previous iPhone 3G.
With a comfortable curved back,
a metallic bezel
and tapered edges to make it feel thinner than it really is,
make the iPhone 3GS feel... elegant!
Even by today's standards.
Now the curved design idea has appeared in a few phones today
like the Moto X, Moto G and iPhone 5c.
But overall, the design of the 3GS feels quite classic.
Even if the glossy plastic back annoyed some people...
One of the main selling points of the iPhone 3GS was its specifications.
They're a bit underpowered by today's standards
with Apple's A7 on the iPhone 5s,
and the Snapdragon 801 on every other device.
But back in 2009,
it was definitely a nice improvement on the iPhone 3G!
Taking a look at the display,
it featured a 3.5 inch capacitive multi-touch screen
with a 320 x 480 resolution,
which stayed the same from the iPhone 3G
with an unimpressive pixel density of 163 pixels per inch.
It was starting to get a little small,
with phones like the HTC HD2
which had a 4.3 inch 480 x 800 resolution screen,
with a pixel density of 217 pixels per inch.
The iPhone 3GS has a good display for the time
but isn't very impressive by today's standards,
with 1080p displays from the Galaxy S4, S5, Note 3, HTC One and so on...
Taking a peek at what's displayed on that screen, the software side,
things get a little bit familiar.
The iPhone 3GS originally came with iOS 3.0
and can be upgraded all the way to iOS 6.1.6.
As you can see it looks exactly the same as older versions of iOS,
but there were a few features added;
like the useless Passbook app,
App Store + iTunes improvements,
and a black camera interface instead of a silver one, and more...
It was a minor improvement over iOS 5,
but of course iOS 7 doesn't run because of the slow, middling hardware.
Sorry about that!
Speaking of the camera,
the sensor was upgraded to 3MP with an auto-focus lens.
And to be honest, it's quite a good improvement
over the 1st generation and 2nd generation (3G) iPhone's 2MP fixed focus sensor.
In iOS 5 a feature was added where you could pinch to do a digital zoom,
and also a square grid to help frame your shot.
It also allowed you to use the volume buttons to take a picture,
making it feel a little bit more like a digital camera.....
...sort of??
The stills themselves look okay for the time
with good colour reproduction, but not as sharp as other phones today.
But for 2009 standards, this was top of the line hardware!
Macro performance was also pretty good for the time,
considering that this was the first iPhone with auto-focus.
Yay!!!!!!
You could tap a certain subject into the frame
and bring it and the exposure to focus.
Or tap another subject and bring it into focus.
This was called tap to focus.
But the big feature of the camera though, was video recording.
Yes this was the first iPhone to record video believe it or not!
To get to video mode was simple.
Just by swiping the switch at the bottom or top right,
to the small video icon.
The interface looks almost the same at first glance
except for the big red record button, instead of the photo button.
You couldn't tap to focus in the initial release of the software,
but with iOS 4 and higher Apple added support for it.
The video itself looks, once again, ok for smartphones of 2009.
It records 640 x 480 video at 30 frames per second.
It sounds pretty low compared to phones of today,
that record 720p, or 1080p video
and even 4K video in the case of the Galaxy Note 3, Xperia Z2, Galaxy S5 etc.
The camera doesn't have any stabilisation which leads to shaky video.
But of course, the technology for stabilisation wasn't yet there in smartphones of 2009.
And finally, gaming!
It delivers its graphics from a PowerVR SGX535 GPU
with 32-bit architecture.
Most 2D games run very well on the iPhone 3GS,
like Dumb Ways to Die which runs smoothly most of the time,
Jetpack Joyride runs very fluid and also smooth,
and even Flappy Bird runs alright on here.
(unless you're terrible at it like I am)
"...oh that was rubbish!"
Play slightly more demanding games like Sonic Dash,
and you'll start to see some dropped frames here and there,
which leads to a not so great playable experience....
Sorry Sonic!
If the iPhone 3GS was my only phone,
I think it would be pretty useable in 2014
unlike some of the older iPhones available.
With a very smooth iOS build,
a good selection of apps still supported from the App Store,
the iPhone 3GS is quite an interesting phone
even by today's standards.
Of course there are more better iPhones today
like the iPhone 4s, 5c and 5s....
But the iPhone 3GS is a pretty nice device,
and showed off how powerful the iPhone could be compared to other flagship phones,
and that's exactly why it earns its place in my smartphone collection.
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For now all I have to say, is thanks for watching this video!!!
*beep sound*
"...taking a peek at what's displayed on that screen, the softwar-"
*messes up line in voiceover recording*
"ooh yes... ahhhh!!!!!!"
"at least I got a high score..."
"...right there"
"...it also allowed you to use the volume buttons to take a picture"
"making i--fe--"
*sighs*
"the script is hard!"
"...gaming."
"it delivers its graphics from a--
*messes up line again*
*sighs*
"it's just taking its time..."
"do di do doooo do di do doooo"
*that's me signing a made up song or something*
"here's a movie...
"that I loaded up earlier"
*continues on with the rest of the recording session*