bryan stratton dot com

I’ve received no fewer than three taunting messages from “friends” in the 48 hours since Apple announced that the new 3G iPhone would be released on July 11th. “Don’t you wish you’d waited?” they asked. “The new one’s going to have so many more features, and it’s $200 cheaper!”

My short answer: No, I don’t regret buying my iPhone in February at all.

My long answer: No, I don’t regret buying my iPhone in February at all, you covetous jackals. You don’t even have iPhones, which means you barely qualify as human in my book. Which, by the way, is an audiobook that I can listen to on my iPhone while I’m browsing lolcats, checking Red Sox scores, and downloading music. The future called, but your caveman phone just sent it straight to its primitive, non-visual voicemail. Press “1″ with your unopposable thumb to listen to it!

And if having a five-month head start on being unendurably smug isn’t enough of a reason for not regretting my purchase, here are five more:

1) Size Matters: My music collection clocks in at about 130 GB. When I bought my iPhone, the largest storage capacity was 16 GB. After formatting, that left me with only enough room for about 10% of my music. The 3G iPhones, spiffy as they are, don’t have any increased storage, which will be my primary reason for upgrading when I finally get around to it.

2) I’ll Be 2.0 Too: Most of the really nifty 3G iPhone stuff that was demoed at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference were third-party apps that will be available to all iPhone owners when the iPhone 2.0 OS is made available as a free download in a few weeks. That’s the truly great thing about the iPhone – the software is upgraded regularly, which adds additional functionality over the life of the device. You don’t have to buy a new one every year to get all the good stuff.

3) You Get What You Pay For: I paid $500 for my 16 GB iPhone when I bought it. The new 16 GB 3G iPhone is going to retail for $300. It’s also not going to come with the $50 dock that was included with mine, nor will it have the fancy-pants multi-head power adapter that mine did. That’s not $200 worth of goodies, but it softens that $200 early-adopter penalty somewhat.

4) 24 Easy Payments of $15 More: Unless you’re willing to unlock your iPhone from the AT&T network with some shady software (which might not even be possible with the 3G iPhones), you have to sign up for a two-year commitment to AT&T, and they’ve goosed up the rates for the 3G iPhones. The data plan is now $30 a month instead of the $20 for the original iPhone, and instead of getting 200 free text messages, they charge you $5 for them. Over 24 months, 3G iPhone’s service plan will cost $360 more than the original plan, which eats up that $200 price drop and then some.

5) I Love My Effing iPhone: Did you see the piece of crap “smartphone” I was stuck with for two years? Thick as a brick and nearly as functional. I could never get the wifi to work reliably, and the novelty of having Word and Excel on your phone wears off as soon as you try to use them on a 3.5-inch screen. To add insult to injury, it cost as much as the iPhone when I bought it, and that was back when the dollar was actually worth something. The iPhone does lots of things well, and it’s learning new tricks every day. It gets more delicate caresses from me than my girlfriend does, and don’t think that that hasn’t led to a few arguments. I listen to it as I fall asleep and check email on it as soon as I wake up (because my office is at least 10 feet from my bed, and that’s way too far to go to see if I actually need to get up yet or not).

A buddy of mine who works for Microsoft and hates all things Apple didn’t hesitate to praise the iPhone as one of the most amazing gadgets ever developed. And he’s absolutely right. It’s impossible to overstate how truly remarkable this thing is, and now that it’s reached a very competitive price point, there’s no reason for any of you to not experience the magic for yourself.

Go ahead. Do it. Join us.

Join us.

Join us.