Oh, how the lot of a technology journo has changed. There was a time when a product launch meant going to a bar, drinking a beer and picking up a press release, then forgetting about it until magazine deadline three weeks later. These days, you gotta do the full 360-degree treatment.
Sure, it’s hard work – but it’s much more exciting this way. You learn to interpret events as they take place, then add layer-upon-layer of analysis until you have a lasagne of gadgety truth, which you can serve up hot to an eager audience.
The iPhone 3G S box
Take the Apple iPhone 3G S. After months of rumours, I went over to San Francisco for the announcement last week (still in the middle of writing my epic Nokia N97 review). I tweeted my predictions, liveblogged the Phil Schiller keynote, photographed it, videod it, played with the phone while the news team back in the UK wrote up the iPhone news stories, wrote a first impressions blog, edited and uploaded a ‘live from the keynote’ video. And then jumped back on the plane.
Back in Blighty, I managed to get hold of an iPhone 3G S, took some unboxing shots (they weren’t used in the Stuff.tv unboxing but you can see them below), then reviewed it for Stuff magazine, then reviewed in a different way for Stuff.tv. I wrote a piece about the 10 key features of the iPhone 3.0 software for the magazine, and adapted it into a iPhone 3.0 software review for the website. I filmed a hands-on video of the 3G S for stuff.tv, and scripted a video review of the iPhone 3.0 software.
And it doesn’t stop there. There’s a smartphone supertest in the works, to add a layer of meaty comparison to this Apple lasagne, and the inevitable avalanche of app reviews on Stuff’s iPhone blog.
And next week… HTC’s next-gen Android phone. An update on the Nokia N97. Maybe some news of the incoming Palm Pre.
Even though the pace of gadget releases has slowed down as the economy splutters, the stories you can tell about the best of them continue to improve. And as software becomes as exciting as hardware, things are only going to get more interesting. Hard work, but rewarding. And a lot of fun, too.
Mind you, sometimes I just yearn for a beer and a press release.
Slowly does it
Apple iPhone 3G S with charger, headphones, compass app
Looks identical to the 3G - but here's proof that it's a 32GB iPhone 3G S
