[Dyvim]

Nice writeup, Vince.
Everyone's been saying that this upgrade is much smaller than last year's upgrade from the original to the 3G, but I disagree. While the software upgrade from OS 1 to OS 2 was indeed much bigger than this year's move from OS 2 to OS 3, on the hardware side I feel like this year was a much more substantial upgrade.

iPhone 3G got
1. new case- this doesn't matter much to me.
2. 3G- while nice, folks in EDGE-land don't care and it came at the price of a $15/mo. bump for unlimited data + 200 texts.
3. GPS- ok this was big, but not as big as it could have been if turn-by-turn navigation had been allowed.
4. Slight improvement in audio quality

iPhone 3GS got
1. Faster processor
2. Better graphics chip
3. Double the RAM- this is actually huge because this probably represents a 5-10x increase in "free" memory when you factor out all the things that are constantly using memory (phone, messaging, email, alerts, iPod, etc.)
4. better camera with auto-focus
5. video recording
6. compass (by itself is minor but the killer feature here for me is the orient to heading feature now in Maps and also what 3rd party apps will be able to do with it)
7. Voice Control
8. Nike+ support
9. HSDPA 7.2Mbps (even if it's meaningless in the US for now, at least it's a spec bump)
10. BT 2.1 + EDR (up from BT 2.0) not sure what this gets you, but again at least it's a bump
11. Better battery life across the board except 3G talk/browsing time
12. Oleophobic screen coating
13. Storage up to 32 GB

Ok, none of these were biggies like 3G over EDGE and adding GPS, but there were so many smaller improvements and spec bumps that in my opinion they add up to more. There's a reason I waited 2 months before getting a 3G (and would have waited a bit longer except I fell in love with the GPS in Maps after some hands on time and real world use on a friend's phone) but pre-ordered the 3GS to be delivered on launch day.

I was pretty disappointed that the 3G processor and memory were exactly the same as the original. 128 MB RAM was fine for iPhone OS 1.0 which carefully controlled the user experience and forbid 3rd party apps, but OS 2.0 clearly asked for more memory. I also felt that the iPhone 3G should have contained the 533 MHz processor that the iPod Touch 2G sported a mere 2 months later. Better late than never, those much needed improvements are here now.

I would have upgraded for reason #13 alone, but reasons 1-5 + 13 make it a big step up for me. (I'm ignoring OS 3.0 which is also nice because that is not a differentiating factor between devices.)