The iPhone 3GS: A Parenting Essential?

My friends rave about it. “My child sat still at the Doctor’s surgery for 20 minutes watching Dora on my phone last week.” Mummy bloggers say it’s an essential tool to keep their blog updated remotely. Others just take a bunch of pics of their kids and upload them to Twitter.

I’d resisted the hype until now, but with the launch of the new-generation 3GS, it was time to finally give the iPhone a try.

Our brother site Gizmodo can give you the full rundown on the technical specs and performance of the device. Bottom line? It’s fast. That ‘S’ stands for speed. Other improvements have been made to battery life, camera resolution and the addition of voice-controlled dialling and video recording.

But what people really like about the iPhone – and this is only enhanced on the new version – is that it is fun. More on applications later.

In typical Apple style, the iPhone 3GS comes beautifully packaged. Vodafone have loaned me one with a Vodafone SIM for internet browsing, calls and text (sometimes I forget that it is primarily a phone.)
The device is shiny, slim and relatively light-weight, I can picture the thing sliding out of my hand when balancing a load of groceries and a baby, so a shatterproof case is probably a good optional accessory.

Usability wise, the touch screen is a whole world away from the standard Nokia I’m used to. It’s all about touching, tapping and sliding, but it’s intuitive – my two year old knew what to do instinctively. You’d think all that handling would leave a messy screen but, jam-covered little hands aside, the new fingerprint resistant oleophobic coating is a success.

Typing, however, is still proving difficult after a week’s practice. Typing with two thumbs is fast, but terribly inaccurate. Better results are achieved with one finger-tip, but it’s a slow process. Without the tactility of actual buttons it can be hard to hit the right letter. Turning the screen to horizontal mode seems to help, although I still find it hard to believe you could blog on the thing.

Now back to the fun stuff. Along with the groovy pre-installed applications like YouTube, Weather, Maps + Compass and iPod +ITunes, you can customise the phone infinitely to your family’s needs with free and paid apps from the iTunes App. Store.

For my own enjoyment, I’ve had fun with Sudoku, Air Hockey, Wordfu (a Boggle-like game) and Shazam (which identifies songs playing on the radio or over a speaker system).

For social networking and working, email, Facebook and Twitter have all been easy to install and trouble free, while the Dictionary.com and Note applications have come in handy. Although the voice recording application seems to record in high-quality, it does not record phone conversations, which would be most useful for journalists and, err, professional blackmailers.

As for keeping the toddler amused, I found a wealth of fantastic applications for kids. Wheels on the Bus ($AU1.19) has received rave reviews from around the world for its interactive educational features. Cooking Mama Lite (free) is a whole lot of fun to play together and uses a lot of movement – shaking the phone to ‘stirfry’ a dish etc to provide a fun and surprisingly enthralling game.

Scribble Lite, Bubble Wrap, and Chase the Dot (all free) are basic and brief diversions while much musical fun can be had with Shaker and Mini Piano (also free).

The favourite here though has been SmackTalk ($AU1.19), a ridiculous application which records your voice then has an animated guinea pig, kitten, puppy and chihuahua ‘speak’ back to you in a high-pitched squeal. It is beyond amusing to watch a two-year-old argue with an animated chihuahua about going to bed.

Of course, there are way too many applications to review here. There’s quite a few for household budgeting for example, and for travel organisation and planning and even a few for breastfeeding and timing labour contractions!

The standard phone features – address book, SMS, calendar, calculator, camera etc are all slickly delivered. Internet browsing is a breeze and cleverly switches to wifi where available, sparing your mobile data allowance. Vodafone network coverage has been decent, only dropping out through tunnels and occasionally in lifts. Browsing speed over mobile internet is reasonable, but much faster when connected to wifi.

I am told you can set parental controls on each application or install another, family-friendly browser to use instead of Safari.

All in all, the iPhone 3GS, when combined with the seemingly infinite variety of apps available, is a remarkable family communication and entertainment device. The only problem being that you may not want to share it!

The iPhone 3G S 16GB is available free on Vodafone’s $69 iPhone Cap (24 months), which includes $400 value, unlimited free Vodafone-to-Vodafone calls during the evening and on weekends and 1GB of included data downloads. The iPhone 3G S 32GB is free on Vodafone’s $114 Cap (24 months), which includes unlimited calls and a massive 2GB data.

For the first time, Vodafone now also offers the iPhone to prepaid customers. The 8GB iPhone 3G is available for $759 up front, the 16GB iPhone 3G S for $929 up front and then 32GB iPhone 3G S for $1129 up front. Customers who purchase and register their Vodafone Prepaid iPhone and mobile number before 31 August, 2009 will receive a bonus $500 Flexible Credit ($100 bonus Flexible Credit on each of their next 5 Prepaid Recharges on $49, $79 or $149 Flexi-caps).

For pricing plans from other carriers, as well as more news and information about the iPhone, check out Gizmodo AU.