Video: Josh, Jimmy Fallon, and the iPhone 3 Ga-Speed
By Thomas Ricker 
posted June 18th 2009 1:42AM
posted June 18th 2009 1:42AM
posted June 18th 2009 1:42AM
A look back on popular stories from today in a specific year.
Now that we've thrown 'em off the trail, use the form below to get in touch with the people at Engadget. Please fill in all of the required fields because they're required.
Why didn't he show the voice control? I thought that was really cool :P
Apple Fanboy:(
wow, can't believe i watched this- usually never do
i guess it's pretty cool if you're getting invited to late night... even if it's only because you're a dork!
Why are you people so hateful!!!!
Josh, nice to see you on the show. Thanks for the post.
Apple spending some dough on promotion there.
Video skit would have been more believable (and funnier) if violence was more believable.
In other news:
chrome trim (??)
non-removable storage
non-removable battery
...on a phone in 2009?
Regards,
International Viewer
Let me get this straight, you're COMPLAINING about the iPhone because apple improved it's features?
If the Palm Pre was never announced, would you be calling the 3Gs such a crapgadget? I don't think so. You might not like it, but with nothing to compare it to...
Anyway, the iPhone has clear dominance over the Pre. The only things the Pre has on the iPhone are it's physical keyboard and multitasking, and I can live with a virtual one. In fact, I'm so used to it that it feels weird to type on a real one. And possibly the removable battery, which I can live without.
And earlier I saw comments saying things like (after listing features of the iPhone and Pre): "Half the things on that list just came out yesterday".
And if they did? No one cares when they came out. We're talking about right now. Don't compare the Pre to what the iPhone used to be able to do. It doesn't make sense, no way no how.
Ok, we'll compare them after 2 years then, when the Pre has multi teleportation and tractor beams and the iPhone just gets multitasking.
be more funny
WOW!!!! a compass! i bet that if any other phone had this "GREAT" feature all you Apple-Fans would trash the phone. this phone is finally capable to do things that other phones have been doing for almost the last yr!!!!!! all in all this phone is very lame!!
THAT'S A VERY INTERESTING TIE!!!!!!!!!!!!
You guys were missing the Nilay effect. Next time you should bring him for the laugh track, just like on your podcast.
stop complaing about the iphones features. sure its adding features which should have been included in the first phone but you have to remember... IT HAS A COMPASS!!!!! no when your out lost in the woods you can pull out your phone and find your way home, now tell me that this isn't way more usefull than that outdated gps that you have. (did anybody have the slightest problem with the speed of the 3g)
MOTOROLA RAZR ROX!!!
Why are people on here such dicks?
Anyway, great job Josh. Hope they ask you back again. I noticed Jimmy said 'resident' tech guru.. so that's a good thing right?
Keep on rockin' Josh.
I have this recorded in HD via ATSC OTA. Will watch it after work today. Way to go "J Top"!!
@robb
Let me fix that comment for you:
"Stupid TV! Be more funny!" Homer Simpson.
Are you saying theres a new iphone out?????!!!!!
The first appearance with the Pre was funner.
So what's the verdict with the iPhone 3GS. Have any of you guys received your new phone? Is it worth the upgrade from 3G.
what's a skyblaze gonna do????
(http://www.engadget.com/2009/06/17/palm-responds-to-itunes-pre-statement-defiant-and-unfazed/)
Murmermer is mighty sloppy in his critique:
8 GB memory limit - I don't need more than this on my iPhone
No true apps - only webapps (so weak) - Pre is 1 week old. Windows Mobile has many more apps than iPhone
No voice and data at the same time (because of Sprint CDMA network) - Good point
No voice dialing - I don't use this
No video recording - I don't use this
No voice memos - Evernote does this on the Pre...AND backs up these recordings. Native iPhone app is useless.
No movie rentals (over the air or otherwise) - Who does this?
No visual Voicemail - Great point. I love this on the iPhone
No TV show purchases - ie no chance for (insert company) to screw its users by selling them things they already get for free.
No audiobook purchasing - Audible works on old Palms. Pre app is coming.
No true app store (so few apps, it's literally one App Page) - B.S. Perhaps Pre apps won't have draconian hurdles to jump.
No console-quality games (like Resident Evil, Metal Gear, 1000's of others for iPhone) - Phone is 1 week old, but probably won't catch up.
No Peer to Peer games (the ability to play Texas Holdem with some stranger on the subway) - Peer to Peer is not even something Apple brags about, but is a concept that Microsoft critics laughed at..
No VoiceOver (the iPhone can read any screen to you, just like a Mac) - How annoying is that?
No native in-car integration (iPhone has this with dozens of cars) - but it CAN integrate. No "integration" is worse than the iPhone/Prius BT connection.
No podcasts - COMPLETE B.S. The way iTunes handles podcasts is maddeningly awful. Let me mount iPhone as a drive, already!
Pre screen is too small - 27% larger.
Crippled copy/paste (for example - you can't cut or copy a webpage or any part of it)
No universal search (crippled - no e-mail search) - Most power Gmail users still use the "weak" Gmail web app.
Tiny keyboard (iPhone landscape and portrait keyboards are bigger than Pre's real keyboard) - but it REAL. iPhone keyboard is the worst I've ever encountered. Massive FAIL.
No auto wi-fi login (just jumps on any open network and remembers them all) - Can't get iPhone to connect in about half of public wifi places.
No 7.2 Mbps network speed - so AT&T is wonderful now? I thought even Apple hated AT&T
No AT&T free hotspots (thousands of them) - Plenty of free wifi hotspots, though.
No free Starbucks hotspots (tens of thousands) - This is really the same as the previous entry. No cheating.
No Find My Phone feature - Feature only works if a: battery has a charge, b: airplane mode isn't on, c: SIMM card is in, right?
Can't function as a Remote for the household stereo (Great for parties, especially with the iTunes DJ feature where people can
request songs). Terrible remote. Rhapsody and Zune store are millions time better than expensive/illegal iTunes library
Weak battery life - iPhone's battery is a complete joke and has no room to criticize.
More expensive than iPhone - Have you looked at the 2-year costs of the iPhone vs. 2-year costs of Pre?
Very scratchable screen - I had a Treo for 3 years and never scratched my screen
No oleophobic protective screen - same as previous entry, no cheating.
No native media player (Apple can break iTunes compatibility at any time and I don't want to take that chance) - Thank GOD! iTunes is awful.
No Voice Commands (control music playing by saying "Depeche Mode" for example) - I never use hands-free voice commands in my car.
No Compass - I have a $3 compass in my junk drawer that I have never used. This is a joke feature.
No multiple and customizable home screens like iPhone (Pre only has one home screen) - Not a problem, really.
No Parental Controls - These really don't work on the iPhone, so I wouldn't add this weakly executed feature from the iPhone
No Video Editing - Don't capture video, so I don't need "editing" (this isn't true "editing", anyway -just clipping)
No onboard Ringtone Creation - Oh please. Ringtones are for people who aren't productive enough.
No 5 person conference calls - I've never done a 3-person conference call on the iPhone, much less 5.
No Webclips - are you talking about copy/paste? We'll see if this feature is even very usable.
I haven't played with the Pre, but I hope that it has an answer to these iPHONE PROBLEMS:
Marriage to iTunes, a clunky, slow, and trojan horse riddle application (no, for the 25th time, I don't want to download Safari)
No subscription music service
No mounting as a local drive
No backup of Notes
No apparent backup of voice memos (haven't played with this yet)
No Task List manager
Very slow sync
Terrible battery life
OS instability (iPhone crashes way more than my computer)
Difficulty and unpredictability of app store policies
Absurdly expensive music and video purchases
Overly complicated method to enable Airplane mode and change screen brightness.
Difficulty connecting to public wifi spots, and adapting to 3G/WiFi connection changes
Lack of Video out for HD playback on HDTVs.
Lack of Flash video and audio playback
Bad camera with no flash bulb (haven't played with 3GS, obviously)
No expandable memory
Non-replaceable battery.
Poor podcast retrieval client on the go.
Lockdown of GPS features from 3rd party apps
Poor, slow support from Apple stores
Weak side rocker switch for silent/ring
Poor durability (screens that crack due to overly-thin phone's flexibility)
The iPhone is a very good device, but the problems above make posters like those mentioned above look like lemmings.
What if...and trust me, this is a BIG what if...what if they made a phone that literally had everything people have been clamoring for? Take the Best of Pre, iPhone, BB, and Gphone and put it all into one awesome phone. Would people pay the price?
what? no awkward display of manly respect.
Dana - your bullshit assessment is just that - bullshit. Most of the counterpoints you made were saddled with the additional "because I don't use it" excuse, which is completely irrelevant. Since most people do want those features, your opinion about them is entirely useless. And it doesn't change the fact that those things are things that the iPhone does or has, and the Pre doesn't, which was specifically what this discussion has been about.
Like the 8GB limit, you're saying the original observation was "sloppy" because YOU don't need more than 8GBs? Are you really stupid enough to believe that nobody actually wants 32GBs of storage? And the same goes for every other answer you had that involved you saying "I don't need this". Nobody cares what you need, and the fact is that the iPhone does it and the Pre doesn't. Period, end of discussion, you lose.
Your "problem list" is even worse. Do you even know what a trojan horse is? I'm guessing not, based on your description of iTunes. No mounting of a local drive because it syncs through iTunes, nobody cares if you don't like iTunes. It does sync Notes, so you're wrong about that too. No task list manager - because you're only running one app at a time. Are you really that dense? Sync isn't slow at all, and the battery life is 1.5x - 2x better than the Pre's battery life.
My iPhone hasn't crashed in... I don't even remember the last time it crashed, so you're wrong about instability, "if "absurdly expensive" to you means $.99 per track then I guess you're right, but then every other online music sales service is also "absurdly expensive". Oh and I love this: To you it's "overly complicated" to turn on Airplane mode. To the rest of us, you go into general preferences and flip the switch. But I guess you're kind of a simpleton who gets confused by different kinds of cheese. Seriously, it's THE FIRST OPTION at the top of the page when you go into preferences. LOL.
If by "difficulty" connecting to hot spots you mean "does it automatically and quickly", then yeah. If not, then you probably don't know what "difficulty" means. Oh and lack of Flash is actually a good thing, since Flash sucks. The iPhone has its own APIs for streaming audio and video which is mostly what Flash is used for, so there's no need for it. The 3GS camera is actually very good, so it's not an iPhone Problem as you call it.
And you're complaining about expandable memory? After telling us you will never ever need more than 8GB of storage? Well which is it? Make up your mind and get back to me. The battery life is MUCH better than the Pre so you don't need to swap batteries out constantly. That's kind of the point. Um, and what lockdown are you talking about? TomTom is making an app using the GPS, I don't even know what you're having a problem with. You "weak switch" and "slow support" complaints are incredibly stupid, and my 1st gen iPhone begs to differ with your assessment of durability since it doesn't have any problems and it's almost 2 years old.
So in a nutshell you're wrong about every single complaint you have about the iPhone. I hope that helps.
Can't geeks just dress properly? Tennis shoes? WTF?
I think Josh is Jimmy Fallon's first ever repeat guest
The new iPhone. "It isn't worse". Real high standard you set there for the review eh Josh?
I know I was harsh on the presentation but I have some real questions. What about an indepth behind the scenes what goes on behind the scenes at the show. A you arrive- whats it like - whats unique, what happens, timetable of events, after you go on camera what happens. DO you meet the other guests..Use some of the tech to show us the Late Show people who only watch dont see.
Nice, 5 minutes only to say, S stands for Speed.
didn't show the compass, the voice commands.
Now because is faster you can record video and edit from a 3.12MP sensor??? and now you can copy paste?
The iphone is a great PMP that have calling features. Please don't call it a phone.
For those who says that if you can't afford an iphone, don't be invidious. I have to say... I give faster $600 for an SonyEricsson non smartphone than any price for the Iphone. 1st of all i hate Itunes.
Iphone complaints aside... why didn't you talk about the stuff that would be more interesting to the every day person? I didn't hear anything about the new coating on the screen, and the 3mp camera was totally downplayed.
But more importantly... why waste such a segment on this phone? If engadget is getting limited exposure on this show do you REALLY want to be out there looking like a run-of-the-mill fanboy-esque website? I think if Joshua was demoing some other gadgetry, a different phone that isn't in SO many pockets already, or something else, this segment would have been much more interesting.
To all the hate fanbois: chill
Love the comments that refer to Apple as a "marketing machine" as if it's a bad thing. The comparison would be that your beloved (insert your favorite phone manufacturer here) has no marketing department or never tries to market heir products. The only problem competitors marketing departments have is that they have no apple products to market.
To those who harp on about statistics or numbers related to performance of a device....you're the people who don't get it. Numbers matter to a relatively small percentage of the population. Audio purists found that out in the 70's. Audiophiles were alarmed that the population kept buying "inferior" audio equipment. They just couldn't figure it out. To put the audio argument in terms of the iPhone debate: The people who bought inferior audio equipment obviously don't know how to listen to music or don't enjoy their music as much as the audiophile....preposterous. Turns out that manufacturers want to sell their products. It also turns out that touting the numbers is a less effective marketing tool than developing a phone that captures the imagination. The bottom line is MOST PEOPLE simply don't care. If I'm the CEO of a phone manufacturer, I desperately want to cash in on what apple is doing but without apple products the effort falls flat. Whatever the reasons, justified by nerds/numbers guys/anal retentives or not, the iPhone is popular and that is exactly what every phone manufacturer wants for their products.
It really must burn your butts even more to meticulously point out the weaknesses in the iPhone only to realize it's just outsold your precious Pre/HTC/et al. This idea that iPhone users have "inferior" reasons for purchasing the iPhone is patently absurd and completely misses the point of manufactering anything.
come on guys, stop ranting about Jimmy Fallon. He'll get better.
Look at Conan. I watched his first few shows last week, and man, he was much worse than Fallon. So, he is off to a good start, not polished, but good enough.
He has different comedy style, and appeals to more geeky, tech audience (and yes, Jimmy Fallon is a geek, I met him couple of times when I was in New York, more like video gamer geek)
Anyway, I have both iPhone 3G and Palm Pre, therefore, canceling each other out. Now, I'm off to the Apple store and wait in line to buy someone a surprise birthday gift.
please fire this talentless, unfunny, hack host!!! jesus christ he is so god damn unwatchable. He failed at movies, he failed in SNL where they tried to make him the next sandler and he fails in late night. who is he going to interview next? his door man? what a waste of money for NBC. Watching people jump out of buildings on 9/11 would get more laughs than this shit host! Please die Jimmy Fallon you are a disease in the late night world and a virus in the tech community! we hate you! die!
This guy sucks (the host). He's not even funny. How dare you call him Jimmy! The other Jimmy, the one that is actually hilarious, Jimmy Kimmel, is the only one that you may refer to as Jimmy. Don't pretend that this guy is the only guy named Jimmy on network TV. The other Jimmy, Jimmy Kimmel, gets better ratings, is actually funny, and has an adorable pet mexican named Guillermo (http://twitter.com/IAMGUILLERMO).
wow!!! now the iphone can record record video with a 3mp camera (a phone thats ten years old can do better), still no mms how can u release a phone without it a ten year old phone can do that too, everything "new" about it is old and has been around for years on even the worst of phones!!! Androids eat apples for breakfast, get android not a stupid iphone that everyone already has!!!
People,
Why is it that when we choose a product, certain people find the overwhelming need to badmouth the competing product? Just because I own a certain pair of jeans, I don't feel like I have to crap on the brand I didn't choose. I own an iPhone, I love it. But I don't feel the need to create massive lists and comparison charts to prove my purchase was the right one; it was the right one for ME. I'm not going to pretend to tell YOU what to buy, or what fits YOUR needs. And I certainly won't condemn or vilify your choice. If a Motorola flip phone from 1997 fits your needs and you love it...great.
The reason we each have our own brains is to make our own choices.
But I do feel the need to make one observation: Jimmy Fallon is just not that funny.
i've never been much for the iPhone bashing, fanboy-accusing posts you frequently see on here. i am a big fan of both Engadget and the iPhone. however, i DON'T see how Engadget can continue to deny that they're in the tank for Apple, when their editor just did a comercial for the iPhone on Jimmy Fallon. it even ended with the obligatory "Where can I get this amazing product?!?" line from Fallon. pretty lame...
For some reason, the embedded video doesn't work for me.
Neither one appears to be working right now...
Who's the ugly unfunny ho mo with the beard?
NBC sucks, we can't see the video outside US. Figures... it's owned by Microsoft.
was that filmed before a live studio audience? Hard to tell with how bad the jokes bombed.
listen everyone. the pre is a nice phone. No doubt about that. However it doesn't matter how you look at it. the iPhone is superior in all departments. I'm all set with multitasking. Yeah it works well, but as for batter life not so much. Lithium batteries have a 400 charge life span. Once you start to hit say 250 charges the battery life is noticeably worse. The multitasking will show its true colors and people will start to complain. People who are less tech savvy will like the Pre. People who respect the quality of Apple products and the fact that they design the hardware and develop the software makes it much nicer. You give someone the choice of an iphone 3gs and Palm Pre for free, and free monthly service, I guarantee the iphone would be chose 9 outta 10 times.
As for the 3gs. Here's how to get one and make money on it at the same time.
SELL YOUR CURRENT IPHONE 3G FOR $300. BUY THE IPHONE 3GS USING BING.COM AND CLICKING ON THE ATTWIRELESS AND GET $140 BACK. (that's if you can't upgrade for the $199). YOU PROFIT IS $40 AND YOU HAVE A NEW IPHONE 3GS.
THATS WHAT I DID. WOHOO
I didn't realize technology was such a holy war.
Anywho, I have had my 3GS since launch and I'm enjoying it. Great functionality and speed.
joshua topolksy probably added and kept this video as a feature himself.