Saturday, August 23rd, 2014
I lost my iPhone 5 on a plane flying to Melbourne from Wellington. After the initial panic and the realisation that I could not get my new SIM card until I returned to London I started to calm down so I would be weeks without full functionality. I had to dig out my oldest iPhone that had not been touched for years. it was disinterred, charged up, and away it went with an Australian SIM card.
Apart from the embarrassment of being seen with an ancient phone, in reality it is not bad at all. I owned an iPhone 1 and loved it. It lasted for two years when I migrated to the 3GS, then a 4 then a 4S and finally a 5 and a 5C for my wife. I sold the iPhone 1 but all the others are in pretty regular use. London is home to the 5 and 5C, Australia home to the 4S and the 3GS. My daughter uses my iPhone 4 in New Zealand. That is pretty amazing that 5 generations of iPhone all work and do a pretty good job.
What I like about the 3GS.
IT sits nicely in the hand. And it is very light.
IT is reasonably fast running iOS 6 (it can’t run 7).
It can handle most things I need it to.
BUT the battery is weak, it does have a tendency to collapse and need to be rebooted.
And iOS 6 is not half as good as iOS 7. Going back to the old iOS really makes you realise the effort and transformation of iOS 7. But you can adjust back really quickly although there are some things that take a age to remember how you do something on iOS 6 that is now very straightforward on iOS 7.
But considering it is four years old, it will get me by until I get back to the UK and I can buy a new phone. IT is practically jurassic in phone terms yet it does lots of stuff really well. I never would have believed it. Does that mean that I am abandoning the upgrade at all costs nonsense? Of course not?? I will be back in the hunt for an iPhone 6 but the experience of stepping back 4 generations of phone has been way better than I expected. I have to admit that I quite like the soon to be retired beast!