I would not be surprised if Apple sells 1 Million units alone or more in pre-orders on the new phone. For the first time that I can recall, the Apple store went down because it was being hit so hard by consumers who wanted to put them name in the pre-order hat. With many 1st generation iPhone users willing to now upgrade to the new device + the incentives that AT&T is giving to many iPhone 3G owners I expect the new phone will sell very quickly and will become very popular very fast. I think in this case, the “Gizmodo-gate” will help overall sales because people are aware of the phone at a much higher level than normal. It received A LOT of press, and because of that everyone has seen it already. The keynote even played on it a little bit at the announcement, which was the best thing for them to do. Although it wasn’t an intentional leak, I see it doing nothing but helping sales of the device at this point for the average consumer.

Every place that has the iPhone up for pre-order today has had problems. The AT&T internal servers have been going up and down, and because the Apple store accesses those servers to verify what price you will pay for the phone (either subsidized price, or unsubsidized, etc based on current contract, or contract renewal) they haven’t been able to have success either. This has left many people upset, but I suspect many of the vocally angry people are some of the more informed consumers, that feel they MUST have the pre-order in for the device as soon as humanly possible.

So, were you one of the ones that got booted out of either AT&T’s system or Apple when you tried to pre-order? If you got kicked out of pre-ordering, are you still going to buy the device as soon as you can get into the system? I hope that many people were ‘just talking’ and that they truly been’t going to change their mind on the device they were going to buy just because of a huge flood of interest in the device by others. Please let me know your thoughts!!

-Kyle

OS 4 will be released sometime this summer…not soon enough. So, here is my basic breakdown on the features and what they have to offer.

Multitasking:

I’m very happy that Apple has added multitasking to the list of things that the iPhone will be able to do. For many of it’s users, we wanted it awhile ago and were just willing to deal with not having it. The UI is okay, but I don’t like the fact that it will push the current app up. I would rather have it up over as a ‘pop up’ and just switch that way. It is a personal design aesthetic like I think I’d personally like more than what they showed, but I’m not going to complain about having multitasking. Now, to be fair, it isn’t “true multitasking” in all cases, because some apps are just essentially paused instead of keep going in the background, but I think for the user that is best anyways. You don’t want a game to keep going when you need/want to do other tasks. The ability to use music streaming apps and geo location apps in the background will be a big plus overall with the phone. I’ll stream last.fm in the background while I do other things on my phone.

iAds:

This honestly makes me nervous. I understand that Apple is directly competing with Google in this and that all they want to do (besides make money) is to show that they can compete. It may be nice fo devs to integrate their ads better into the app, but I hope that with paid apps we won’t see them. Free apps I’m okay with seeing them, as long as they aren’t overwhelming. I don’t have the issue with Apple. I have the issue with devs getting greedy and making ads obtrusive. Overall, it just makes me nervous, and for now until I see it in a real life application I can’t judge it.

Application Folders:

This will finally allow me to store apps on the iPhone that I don’t use all the time. I still expect to use the search feature to find most apps, but at least I can keep my app pages down to 1 or 2. The first page of apps I use often, and the 2nd of apps I don’t use all that much but still want to have on hand just incase. The UI is nice, but it isn’t what I imagined.

Universal mailbox:

I like having my e-mail addresses separate, so this isn’t a big deal to me, but I’m sure there are a lot of people that are really happy about this. They also have threaded messaging, which is nice, but again, I’ve learned to live without it.

iPad:

It won’t be available for the iPad until Fall. To me, this bites. I knew that the new OS would run on the iPad, I was just expecting them to release it at the same time as the iPhone update. It isn’t really logical to me that they are waiting to add it to the iPad, but that is the decision they are making. It just means that I will be buying the iPad when multitasking is an option. I really like the iPad, after having played with it in person for about 2 hours now, but I’m still going to wait until I can do several things at once and use it the way I want to.

Other:

Spell check – Finally!

Bluetooth keyboard – Finally, although I don’t see myself using it with something other than the iPad

User-defined wallpaper – Just like the iPad…finally, it is here. Will I use it? I doubt it, but we’ll see.

Tap to focus on video as well as 5x digital zoom for camera – Video: about time; Camera: meh

Playlist creation – I use smart playlists for that, and that is sufficient for me. I actually keep very little music on my iPad now that I use last.fm for most of my music discovery.

iBooks for iPhone – This isn’t a big deal to me, but I’m sure it will make the people who plan on using the iBooks store heavily happy. They are trying to make it available on more devices and I believe that they are responding to Amazon here.

More enterprise features – I don’t use it, but again the people who do will be happy I’m sure.

Game Center – meh. I don’t see the value in it yet, but I hope to later.

Conclusion:

Overall, it is good that Apple is updating the iPhone OS. It is about time, and some of the things they are fixing I’m very happy about. Most of it I am able to gloss over though because I’m not an App developer and truly can’t understand the power of everything announced until I see how it affects me as an end user.

oh, it will only work on the iPhone 3GS and the new hardware they are most likely coming out with in June/July. I have a 3GS because I’m fine upgrading every 2 years. I’m sorry for the 3G owners who will have to upgrade to get multitasking and other features, but I understand that Apple wants to push newer hardware with faster processors.

-Kyle

Check out Apple, Gizmodo, Engadget, and any other tech sites you enjoy to see videos and pictures of the features.

I knew I had these options:
1) Sell it on craigslist, which was the option I didn’t really like, just because people tend to be flaky on craigslist.
2) Sell it on eBay, which is just as bad as craigslist with all the bots.
3) Give it to a family member who wanted an iPhone, even though I recommend that they just get the ‘old’ 3G for $99.
4) Find a place online to recycle it or resell it, but at least gave me some money in my pocket for a still-in-working-condition phone.
5) Give it away to one of my twitter followers

I decided to go with the recycle/resell option so that I could hopefully guarantee a certain price for it without the hassle of trying to sell it on the open market. So, I started doing research and talk to people I know and researching my options.

I found these places to do what I wanted to do (Sorry….my mind works well with lists!):
1) BuyMyTronics
2) CashforiPhones
3) Gazelle
4) NextWorth

So, I looked at each one and for many reasons, Gazelle, stood out to me. They had very clean site design, especially in comparison to some of the others, and out of all of the quotes and payment options that I had available each place, Gazelle stood out to me because of the fact that they clearly have a desire to be ‘green’ and recycle electronics. Here is a list of what they will buy from you:

So, I decided to get a quote, and this is the condition I listed it as, and because I took the screen shot after I got the final inspection rating that is here:

I filled out the condition information, filled out my address and within 2 days, I had a box sent to me that I needed to put together and pack. I sent it USPS the day after I received it, and it took me just the 5 minutes to fill out the paperwork that came with the box, pack it, and get it ready to go to Gazelle. Once at the post office, I just dropped it off. No need to sign anything, because they sent a shipping label with the box. Simple, easy, and free to the user, all a plus. The process was pretty simple overall, and they seem to really want to help out the customer. They were active with me via twitter and every time I mentioned them I had someone contact me and ask me if they could help me with anything while I wait. Unfortunately, the overall process was slower than I wanted it to be, taking about 2 weeks total, but that was due to a high number of people sending in iPhones and upgrading like me. I asked them if they would take my still working TiVo Series 2, and they said no, not right now, but they are looking into taking TiVo’s and that they will contact me when the decide to. Because of my overall experience this year with them, I’m considering upgrading to the newest iPhone next year (whatever it may be, if it is worth the price of upgrade) with going to Gazelle to offset the cost of the new phone. I think this will be a good way for me to continually upgrade while getting a good amount of money for the phones.

Pros and Cons?

+ Great customer service, with 99% of the direct contact with the company on twitter.
+ Fast shipping of box
+ Good price offered for phone
+ “Green” – they want to help reduce electronic clutter by helping people recycle working and non-working electronics.
+ Clean and simple site interface that makes their purpose clear

- It took longer than I would have anticipated, but I understand that it was due to timing and that they seem to be a popular service.

Overall great experience, and I will use them again! You can try them yourself at http://www.gazelle.com/ or follow them on twitter at @gazelle_com

-Kyle