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iPhone 2G, what a marvelous device for about a year
A few years ago, in 2005 actually, I was picking grapes and teaching wine making to a friend that works at Apple. He had been hired when the company he was working at was bought by Apple. Prior to the purchase he was a programmer on what was a web based calendaring system for Mac users.
While we were picking grapes, I asked what he was up to at Apple. He responded that he was programming an OSX micro kernal OS. To almost anyone else, it would have just slipped by un-noticed. But I know a bit about compiled operating systems and what a micro kernal would be used for.
I responded, "Oh wow, you're writing the iPhone OS!"
He was quite shocked by the remark and spent so much time denying that was what he was working on... that it left no doubt.
Mixed in with the denials were things like, "iPhone... I don't know about that... how did you hear about it?" and later "where did you hear about the iPhone?"
You see, it's really hard to deny something and then give credence to the denial by foraging for its point of origin.
I explained the only reason to build a micro OS was to use it on a portable device that had memory constraints. He said it might be used for a laptop. I replied that hard drive capacity would not be a restraint obligating a micro kernal OS.
I even knew the name of the company that Apple had contracted with to help on the engineering and that was the moment where he dropped the pretense.
Yes, Apple is secretive and they expect their employees to abide the secrecy. To this day, if I send an email to his work email address and there are any words that can be sniffed out as having to do with an Apple product... that email doesn't arrive.
If I send him a message at home and his work is in any way mentioned in it, I don't get response.
But I have learned a number of things "in person".
The original 2g phone, from what I can infer wasn't the phone Apple had originally wanted to produce and sell. There were engineering aspects that weren't "clean" enough. I was given the impression, the 2G iPhone was kicked through engineering sooner than wanted so Apple could get something in end users hands before Google's Android OS became the slightest bit viable. At that time.. early 2007 Google had already publicly begun the Android OS and their intent was to use the OS to serve Google ads on an interstitial basis on Android phones.... the way there are iAds now.
Study of the iPhone 2G compared to later models would seem to show it wasn't fully baked by the time it was kicked out the door. Remember, it was first revealed in January of 2007, and proclaimed it would be ready to ship in June. They kept to the deadline.
Things I never liked about the 2G.
1) The upper glass/digitizer and LCD screen were are laminated together obligating the owner to spend quite a bit getting merely a cracked upper glass replaced. I believe, the only way for Apple to get the Touch interface working at the level they needed... so your finger lined up over the digitizer and LCD exactly enough that the Operating System would see "finger and D" instead of "finger and S" was by gluing them perfectly over one another.
2) The battery was soldered in. Look, I firmly believe Apple expected the original iPhone to be used at most two years. Even internally... they labeled the 3G (according to software releases) as version 1. The Li-Po battery in the iPhone used the way people do with cell phones (leave them charging all night) had at best a useful life of two years. By hard soldering them in, they set the circumstance to obligate replacement. They *had* been making monolithic devices without user replaceable batteries for years, but this was a degree harder still to replace.
3) The 2G relied on two small wires with snap down fittings to make the antenna connection for the telephone and the WiFi connection. Though they used an industry standard for the ends, about half way through the manufacturing they started to cover the connection over with a hard silicone seal making it impossible to take off the antenna connections without destroying them... and typically that meant destroying the logic board female or jack connection. I'll never be convinced the reason for that was anything but to make sure the phones were retired early.
Okay, let's say you still have a 2g and want me to work on it..... I won't do it... even for money. What should you do?
Anyone that knows me would say three things about me.. I'm pretty smart, I can fix anything but a rainy day and I have unfaltering truth that I give people constantly.
Here it is... I won't repair the 2G anymore because that phone is such a bad implementation of what an iPhone needs to be.
You need to upgrade at AT&T. A 3GS will cost $99
You need to begin using at minimum a 3G or a 3GS, these are LIGHTYEARS beyond the kludgy 2G device, and the 3GS won't be rendered obsolete until mid-2012.. if ever actually
I would never counsel someone to throw something out without real good reason. It's not in my nature to trash something still useful, but that device needs to be jettisoned.
If you are not under contract with AT&T and need to find a used iPhone and this were my problem to solve...
I have two methods...
1) a 3GS on Craigslist should sell for $215 to $315. The price fluctuation depends on short term availability, condition, and whether it's jailbroken/unlocked. When you shop, look to see all the pins in the docking port are straight and not bent. Bring your own earbuds to make sure you have sound in both ears. Bring a working GSM SIM card and eject theirs, insert yours and call a friend to check the ear speaker, the mic and the touch interface/keypad. Do not buy something like an iPod or iPhone on eBay. eBay is a bad venue for pricey gadgets like this which you can't check out in person.
2) Buy one from a friend "paid" to loose theirs. I would scan the horizon of friends I know that use an iPhone... with a shopping eye... and think about who has a contract in place that would allow them an upgrade and pay the upgrade.... for example... a friend that has an 8 or 16 GB 3GS may have gotten it in June 2009, their two year contract is about to expire, or their 18 month upgrade window is open and they are entitled to an upgrade to an i4 or i5 for $199. They will have to resign a 2 year contract. Pay them $260 to "loose the phone" or "drop it in the toilet and then threw it out because it was so..."
They may still wonder if there is something they will be missing by not waiting until June when the next iteration comes out.... so what. There will always something better they missed out on. It's an elaborate phone.
In fact there will be nothing too startling in the iPhone for AT&T users this coming year (2011). The news will be that Verizon may have two models of an iPhone by year end and that AT&T will incorporate GSM (ATT/T-Mobile) and CDMA (Verizon/Sprint-Nextel) capability into the iPhone 5 making it useful with basically any carrier. Also expect the iPhone 5 to be sold through all major US carriers.
Sooo... the take away is "buy" one from a friend paid to loose theirs.
I'm waiting for the iPhone 5 to come out and here's my analysis of why I don't want an.... iPhone 4
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