AT&T Delivery Comes through as Promised and Restore from 3G to 3G S Works Well
AT&T never promised delivery on the 19th, but said they would try; with the help of FedEx my iPhone 3G S arrived at 11:33am on the 19th . Thanks AT&T. Setting it up took a little time but the instructions are fairly straight forward.
- Charge the iPhone (that took about 1 ½ hour)
- Activate with iTunes (that took about 10 minutes). iTunes asks if you want to restore from a previous backup, I said yes. The restore was very quick and when completed the restore was lacking my applications and music. After some research I found a drop down window which displayed multiple backups from my 3G with the same name (another iTunes rant: why aren't the backup dates displayed?). Instead of trying to figure which backup was valid, I plugged my 3G back in, changed the device name (click on iPhone name in left bar to edit), manually forced a backup (the backup name is the iPhone name). Then I plugged my 3G S back in and did a restore using the backup I had just created (new iPhone name). This time the restore took a little more time but everything went back into place, even the location of the applications on the Home screen. Pretty cool (Hey Microsoft take note).
- The instructions tell you to check voicemail, my Visual Voicemails where restored correctly. I never checked the real mailbox but everything seems fine.
- The next step is to activate the phone itself online @ http://att.com/activation or by calling 855.895.1099. I activated online and was told to wait at least 15 minutes. My 3G S screen displayed a message that "Activation could take some time". After about 15 minutes I rebooted the unit and voila my iPhone 3G S was now active on the AT&T network. The iPhone 3G S came with an installed SIM so there was no swapping required. When I activated online the new SIM card was automatically registered (all I needed was my phone number).
This was the easiest Smartphone upgrade purchase and setup I have ever had. Kudos to Apple and AT&T since waiting in any kind of line is not my cup of tea. I drove by the Clarendon, VA Apple store yesterday and there was a line but nothing even close to the last 2 years. Clearly offering pre ordering to customers is the way to go…
My 3G INCIPIO silicon case (which I love), fits the 3G S perfectly. If there are new design cues on the 3G S, I can't see them.
My impression so far; the 3G S is faster but it is not like night and day. As I speculated before this is clearly an evolutionary design and if you are happy with your 3G there is probably no need to upgrade, but if you have a 2G then this is the device you want…Still I do love the autofocus on the camera and the compass is a nice feature. I have not tried the video or the voice control yet…
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