In case you don’t have an interest in all things iPhone, it has been 10 years since the original iPhone was released. Personally it doesn’t feel that long since we either had small… phones in our pockets, or were struggling with the bulkier smart phones of the time (Windows Mobile anyone?)
To celebrate the tenth anniversary, Three UK offered to sent me an old school iPhone handset. With the challenge to use the iPhone 3G for three days instead of my iPhone7.
“Why not?” I figured?
Well…
Installing Apps On The iPhone 3G
Its kinda small and cute to hold, in fact I found I could lose it in my pocket. (How long has it been since you said you could do that?) All nice, and cute to start with. I then powered it up and got installing apps.
Step 1 was navigating the old school app store, which simply felt slow and laggy to use. To the extent that some images were not loading. My attempts to download apps (once I got there) were mostly met with notifications advising me to download old versions. This didn’t seem to do the trick.
No matter, what I did I couldn’t log into my Twitter / Snapfeed accounts.
The good news was that Facebook let me log in… but. My word it was slow, and it only seemed to let me load one page of my newsfeed – and that was all.
Instagram was one big tease. On one hand – look at that beautiful icon! It also loaded up! It let me enter my username and password.
It then asked me to upgrade my phone.
Great.
So no. I must say didn’t use this particular phone exclusively.
Using The Internet On The iPhone 3G
Slow on 3G
Slow on my wifi.
Interesting reminder into how different the web must have looked 10 years ago…
iPhone 3G Camera Verses The iPhone 7 Camera
Its OK, I knew this wasn’t going to be a massively fair fight, so i thought I would get out and about around here, to find different conditions I could take pictures in.
The Group of Trees
I stumbled into this group of tree’s that can be found in our local field. I’d never found them before, and figured it would make a good test for the two cameras.
The iPhone 3G feels a little Blair Witch
A far clearer image.
The Train Line
My attempt at going somewhere with a bit more light.
A Moody Shot on the 3G
Far more detail
Lego Photography
I decided to give the iPhone 3g as much light as I could.
The 7 makes far better use of the light.
Sadly it seemed to struggle to focus on multiple objects.
What is Good With The 3G?
There were some positive highlights from the trip back in time. For one, the default map app STILL WORKS! And powered by Google Maps. AND kept up to date…
But my personal highlight must be playing… Crash Bandicoot Nitro Kart 3D!
He does appear to be doing a bizarre dance – don’t take the mick out the graphics too much, it was impressive at the time!
The More Things Change..?
With all my qualms about speed and photo detail set to one side, using the iPhone 3G reminded me of Apples focus on user design. The fact that they’ve not made any massive design changes to the iOS shows that if you can use one iPhone, the chances are you can use any iPhone.
Holding the old Phone in my hands, I could help but wonder.
The iPhone 3G used to be cutting edge. What is phone technology going to look like in ten years time?
And considering the difficulty I using current apps, what will the above progress mean to the people that get left behind?
My hubby is an apple mad person and has had pretty much every iPhone out there, including the first ever. I cannot believe how much the photos are different! I like using my iPhone for some things, but you just cannot beat a SLR #TheSatSesh
Great review. Thank you for sharing ? i Have had to send my MacBook in for repair and I am currently Using an old windows laptop. OMG it is driving me mad so I can only imagine what the speed of the old iPhone was doing to you. #thesatsesh
Wow! What a great little experiment/trip back in time! The photos really demonstrate how the technology in our hands and pockets has advanced so much over the years. I love that you were positive about the 3G though too! Thanks for linking up to #thesatsesh