Bear with me on this one. I am a geek, and as a geek, it is my sworn duty to own the first versions of all gadgets that entice me with their sleek shininess. This satisfies the greedy tech monster – a smaller yet more furry and orange version of the Cookie Monster, if you will – inside me and allows me to show off to all my friends who accordingly “ooh” and “aah” over my cool new toys. Before you go off and say how I end up just being a beta tester for manufacturers who put out new products without adequate QA to ensure they work the way they should for the majority of users, this term does not apply to me. I am a geek, dammit. This is what I do. And I love it.
With that said, it is incredibly hard for me to say that I don’t think I’m going to upgrade to the iPhone 3.0 firmware beta. I’ve been hemming and hawing about this one, much like Patrick over at JAIB, but I’ve been reading through some of the bug lists users have posted on forums and I just don’t think I could live for 4 more months with some of those issues, assuming the final version of 3.0 is released in July with no updates until then. Let me explain…
I love my iPhone. My iPhone is in my hand even when I walk around the house. I check my email regularly, catch up on Twitter, browse the internet, check movie listings, read ebooks and my RSS feeds, and so much more multiple times a day, which I can do anywhere and anytime thanks to my iPhone. I’m not a big YouTube fan, but I do use it to find web videos that accompany current events and tech news and reviews. My battery lasts me all day on 2.2.1, even if I don’t charge it in the middle of the day at work. And while I don’t text a ridiculous amount, I do rely on it a lot and need it to work consistently. I also regularly use Maps to get around since my GPS unit pretty much stays in my car, and it’s saved me and my friends from walking miles when we thought a restaurant was closer than it was and vice versa in planning on taking a taxi when we didn’t need to.
From what I’ve been reading online, it sounds like many of the 3.0 bugs so far affect the features and functions that I count on and use the most.
Add to this that my previous smartphone, a Treo 680, was buggy as hell. Yes, I got it the week it came out, but Palm had been working on Palm OS smartphones for years by that time, so I didn’t consider it as a truly new device that would have a plethora of bugs as such, but it did. I was sick and tired of dealing with its utter crappiness and even my 1.0 iPhone was a blessing of stability and a solid feature set in comparison.
So, what I’m trying to say is that I just don’t think I can handle my iPhone flaking out on me given how much I rely on it. I’m not chicken. I’m not. I’m still a geek. I am. I am, I tell you! Right?
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