With all the talk of processing power and graphics accelerators in the new iPhone 3G S, people seem to be forgetting one of the phone's best features: iPod-quality music playback.  In truth, Apple has fitted both the new handset and its new OS with a few small updates to its media capabilities too.

Voice Commands. In the iPhone 3G S, you can now enter playlist commands by speaking them directly into your handset, ordering it to load up particular songs, albums or ones similar to what you currently have playing.  If you enjoy listening to music on your phone while doing other things (like driving or jogging) or just aren't interested in fiddling with the touchscreen, you can skip the whole finger motions and just voice your commands into the device.

Shake To Shuffle. Like the 4GB iPod Nano, the new 3G S allows you to shake your handset (as if saying, "What the hell are you playing?") in case you want to listen to a different song than the one currently on.  Just make sure to hold it firmly while you're rattling, lest you drop and damage your brand-spanking-new phone.

Better Search. With the 3.0 software, you can now conduct searches for new tunes either from the iPod portion of the handset or via the new Spotlight feature.  Once the search find its, just tap the ditty and let it play on.

Parental Controls. If you let your kids use your iPhone (or, worse, if they have their own), the OS now comes with a facility to disallow downloads of explicit and mature content from the iTunes Store.

While those changes aren't necessarily game-changing, they do offer a little more flexibility for those upgrading to the new iPhone 3G S.  What features would you like to see the iPhone's music facility to feature that is not yet there now?

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On the surface, the iPhone 3G S offers little separation from its previous iteration.  Opting to not fix something that isn't broken, Apple chose to update the new iPhone with a dose of performance upgrades, instead of cosmetic touches.  In fact, other than a very slight difference in weight and a new screen coating, there's really nothing to tell both versions apart.  For the most part, it's a difficult phone to review because it doesn't blow us away with features the way other new releases do.  Instead, it offers its improvements in less-superficial terms.

Inside, the changes become a little more pronounced, with a faster CPU, larger RAM, bigger storage, a new internal compass and an improved camera module.  Adding even more weight to the update is the release of iPhone OS 3.0, which coincides directly with the new handset's arrival.

S stands for speed and the 3G S lives up to the claim.  Every single software we tried, from native apps to downloaded games, ran faster when put through a side-by-side test.  The boot-up alone should clue you in as the 3G S starts up almost twice as fast as the older model.  If you think that kind of speed is not that big of an issue with your old iPhone, try to imagine the difference between using the same software on a three year old computer and a brand new one - the experience mirrors that.

Camera gets a much needed boost on this iteration, getting a bump up to 3 megapixels, with video recording and autofocus ("Tap to Focus").  Photo quality, as you can imagine, is considerably better than the 3G.  It doesn't offer that much difference from other camera phones, though, in that there's some occasional blurriness, along with less-than-desirable quality during indoor shots.  Apart from the VGA video capture (which is also decent), the phone comes with a pretty good editing application.  It's probably one of the most intuitive and useful video editors that I've seen bundled with a phone.

All the rest of the promised features - from stereo Bluetooth to voice dialing to landscape keyboard - are here, with the exception of MMS and tethering, although both are just temporary setbacks due to problems on AT&T's end.  As you well know, the phone also comes with a built-in magnetometer (which should pave the way for some cool compass-based apps, like in Android) and a beefed-up graphics processor.    One huge surprise out of all this, is that the iPhone 3G S actually fosters improved battery life compared to the 3G.  We totally thought it was a dubious claim on Apple's part, but our results seem to mirror the same conclusion.

On the connectivity end, however, we didn't notice any difference in both data and browser speeds.  It's obviously because AT&T is still in the process of upgrading their network.  We'll be sure to check back in once that 7.2Mbps HSPA implementation is rolled out later this year.  As a phone, call quality is on par with the 3G, although not as good as the original iPhone (which, in comparison, easily offered the best voice reception).

Overall, the iPhone 3G S is just as anticipated, with Apple living up to its promise in a better software and faster hardware performance.  Let's hope AT&T does so too and provides those much-delayed features soon.

Phone ReviewsiPhone 3G S Review: A Faster, More Powerful Handset In The Same Familiar Package
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On the surface, the iPhone 3G S offers...

Still not convinced of the iPhone 3G S as a serious gaming platform?  According to at least one game developer, it's time you change your mind.

Michael Schade, head of mobile game developer Fishlabs, says the OpenGL ES 2.0 support available on the iPhone 3G S pushes the machine's 3D graphics capabilities past that of the PSP.  That's right - it's equipped to handle better visuals than Sony's dedicated handheld console (not to mention a faster 600MHz processor compared to the PSP Go's 412MHz), essentially living up to developer expectations of a competent gaming phone.

Of course, being "equipped" doesn't equal being ready.  According to Id Software's John Carmack, the 3G S definitely has the potential, although the feature is not yet ready for primetime.  The well-known creator of "Doom" and "Quake" was quick to point out that there are software inefficiencies that may defer taking full advantage of the hardware's strengths, at least for the time being.   In fact, Carmack refused to take advantage of the new feature with the upcoming Doom Resurrection for the iPhone, which is still based on OpenGL ES 1.1.

In his interview with Pocket Gamer, Schade stressed that apps working with 2.0 technology will need to be designed from scratch, making it a costly outlay for game studios.   Add in the fact that the older iPhone 3G cannot play the same games (even at lower settings) and you've got a very risky investment.  With the hardware available and plenty of 3G S units expected to fly off the shelves, however, it's not too far-fetched to imagine companies taking more kindly to investing development dollars to turn out the highest-end graphics they can produce.

Looking into the future, I can't imagine the iPhone (with the 3G S and future iterations) not owning a bigger slice of the handheld gaming pie.  Apple already has the distribution infrastructure and an ever-growing consumer base; if they can figure out a better way to get the word out on iPhone games, my money is on the likelihood that it's a done deal, give or take a couple of years.  Are Nintendo and Sony really just going to take that lying down?

Photo Credit: iPhone Spies

Product recommendation site Billshrink wrote up a chart (reproduced below) comparing the merits of three of the most popular handsets in the market right now, namely the iPhone 3G S, the Android G1 and the Palm Pre.   Pitting the critical features of each phone, along with their associated costs, it serves as a useful reference for individuals still on the fence about which smartphone to give their next two years of mobile use to.

Storage capacity sees the 16GB iPhone 3G S taking a considerable upside (especially considering there's a 32GB option for just another $100), against the Pre's 8GB and the G1's 1GB (with expansion capabilities).  All three devices slot in near-evenly on 3G talk time, camera hardware, connectivity and GPS.  Things, of course, begin to vary once you realize that only the 3G S has access to tens of thousands of apps at the moment, though the other two devices certainly have the infrastructure in place to handle the same.

The chart, of course, is more about each phone's financial implications to consumers than anything.  As such, while it shows the upfront cost for each handset, it highlights the oft-overlooked cost of ownership, based on both the initial cash outlay and the two-year service they are tied to.  Surprisingly, the Pre came out the better purchase on that last criteria, coming out $1,200 and $750 cheaper than the 3G S and the G1, respectively.

While the chart is helpful, there are, of course, more things that should factor into your eventual choice.  It doesn't, for instance, take into account the fact that the Pre is essentially a first-generation technology and is expected to come with all the headaches associated with such.  At any rate, it's an interesting reference for those trying to make one of the most difficult choices they'll face this year: iPhone 3G S or Palm Pre?

Photo Credit: BillShrink