When the original iPhone was released, I was simply stunned. As I saw things back then, it wasn't exactly light years ahead of its competition, and that's what I feel now about the iPhone and the iPhone 3G, too. What made fall in my chair and stare at the monitor in front of me for about 30 minutes, without any idea on what to write about Apple's new phone was the fact they managed to come up with a really revolutionary design for its time. Unfortunately, the iPhone 3G didn't change much, and fell way below some people's expectations, including myself, but Apple's marketing division managed to push it above its predecessor. How?
While the iPhone was a big step forward for all the smartphones manufacturers, giving a lot of them new ideas and the role model to follow, the iPhone 3G came as a small step forward for everyone, and - unfortunately - a lot of problems, when compared to the "2.5G" iPhone. If I say "iPhone 3G problems," I am sure a lot of people would come and scream, cursing Apple, their mobile carrier, the day of birth, and so on, but things aren't that dark, after all.
According to a recent report, the number of iPhone 3Gs on the market is almost (or maybe already above) the same as that of the old generation iPhones. So, it took about a year to sell 6 million iPhones, and less than two months to sell as many iPhone 3Gs?? Awesome!
Just two more things - some early estimations say that the Russian market will engulf over 3.5 million iPhone 3Gs, but I guess we should wait and see. What I can tell you is that the Romanian market is already chewing them faster than the local carrier was expecting, but it remains to be seen how far will the iPhone 3G go here in the long run.
Oh, I was just about to go, but here's one more - the French carrier for the iPhone, Orange, just admitted capping 3G speeds! This only happened following an uproar on the part of its iPhone customers, but it's good to notice - before blaming Apple, look at your carrier, and check the user manual a few times...