1. It’s Certainly Faster in Many Ways

While the new CPU chip isn’t faster per se, it does seem to run more efficient. Applications seem to load up a tad faster.

The 3G network speed is certainly very nice, especially when you are trying to look up something really fast on the web such as a report you are supposed to have read and will be discussing in 5 minutes and you’re not a computer to pull it up. The only draw back is the lack of full 3G coverage. For the most part, in the San Francisco area, I’ve been able to get 3G, but there are a few places where the phone reverts to Edge network.

The GPS with the 3G rocks by-the-way! As my co-worker put it:

When you’re driving 70 MPH, watch the blue dot really jam it.

It’s accurate, very precise, and definitely very usable as a GPS. I find it very useful when navigating San Francisco on foot.

[rating:4]

2. The Battery Life Sucks

I swear to God, I fully charged the iPhone 3G the night before and after an eight hour work shift, my phone is telling me there is only 10% battery life left and that I should charge it soon. There is no difference in my usage of the 3G versus the original other than I have 3G enabled all the time even when I’m connected on Wi-Fi. I wouldn’t expect the 3G connection to drain the battery if I’m on Wi-Fi, but it looks like it does.

The majority of the time my phone is receiving email for both my MobileMe and GMail accounts. I don’t really watch any videos and I play games on the iPhone sparingly when I’m bored (which isn’t too often). I surf the web with the iPhone when I’m not at my laptop and need to look up anything. I only listen to music when I’m commuting on BART, a total of 30-40 minutes round trip. I make and receive calls maybe a total of 30 minutes, sometimes 45 minutes a day.

On my old iPhone, I could do all the same things that only be down to a quarter or half the battery by the end of the work day.

[rating:2]

3. The iPhone 3G Takes Shape

I’m still not 100% sure whether or not I like the new “plastic” back plate. It’s supposed to be more durable than the previous gen iPhone’s metal back plate and doesn’t block wireless frequencies like metal do. It feels a little slippery than the metal back plate, but handles in your hand much better because of the hump in the middle (to accommodate the new battery, supposedly). I find the back gets very greasy looking (and I don’t have greasy hands mind you) very quickly. I’m sure putting on one of those silicon condoms will solve the issue, but I think it takes away from the sexiness of the iPhone 3G. I personally do like the black back rather than the 3/4 metal with black back plate on the first gen. There is also a white back version if you purchase the 16GB model, I personally like the sleek black look.

Also, shamefully, the new iPhone 3G doesn’t quite fit in the Louis Vuitton iPhone case (if you wear it in, it will). And also, in case you are wonder, yes, the iPhone 3G is technically thinner than the iPhone but only when you compare the outer sides, the hump in the middle makes the iPhone 3G ever so slightly taller than the iPhone.

Also because of the redesigned back, the headphone jack is not as recessed versus the previous generation. I guess enough people were complaining about how they had to buy new sets or modify existing sets of ear phones, headphones because the jack won’t fully connect.

4. The Software Doesn’t Run Any Better

I thought the iPhone Software version 2.0 would run better on the iPhone 3G, but it doesn’t. Things still crash the same and on some things, it’s just as buggy. Waiting for an update to fix all this. I think the 2.0 software update messed up a majority of Yahoo/SBCGlobal.net/ATT.net users getting and sending their emails. I have an AT&T email account that I use GMail to retrieve any and all emails sent to it and I fetch GMail on my phone along with my MobileMe email account. My wife, on the other hand, has AT&T also that she gets directly on her phone. When I first upgraded her to the new 2.0 software, her phone could no longer send or receive AT&T emails. After a couple frustrating days, I managed to make it work again.

[rating:2]

Conclusion

The iPhone 3G is certainly a nice follow up to the iPhone; I like it. There are quite a number of improvements such as actual GPS, 3G, a speaker that actually works good (louder and not so staticy), easier to grip. It would be nice if Apple spent some time now improving upon the software so it doesn’t crash as often; perhaps integrate cut & paste, and a few other features many people have been asking for. Also, not as important, but I noticed Apple cut back on cost a bit by no longer including a dock. I thought the included dock was a nice touch, now it’s a $29 option at the Apple Store.

The battery life is something that should probably be addressed also. I do realize that if you are surfing at 3G, it takes quite a bit of power for the antenna, but it’s a feature that I’m paying an additional $10 a month for, so I intent to use it every chance I get. The iPhone 3G is a Swiss Army Knife of technology so it sucks when the battery runs out and you’re stuck with an expensive paper weight.

One thing that my co-worker, who has an iPhone 3G, is that the 3G seems to interfere with the cellular signal. He notices that his signal bars will be erratic, but when he disables 3G, it maintains solid 5 bars whereas the previous iPhone never had signal issues. Interesting.

So how can you add videos to your website? Easy, go to YouTube or some other popular video site, upload your videos, copy and paste the special code into your website and done. Easy. But what about the video itself? That’s certainly more challenging. If this is your company website, you want to put your best foot forward don’t you? First impressions are everything, aren’t they? And the website is quickly becoming that first impression. So you want to make a strong impact and convey professionalism. Sure, you can go to the local Best Buy or Fry’s Electronics and pick up a cheap camcorder, record yourself, and then post it up. But is it professional looking and sounding? Does it convey a clear and strong message?

I’m not saying a professional and creative video can’t be made with simple consumer level tools. Having the best and the greatest equipment doesn’t equal an excellent end result and in many cases, having more professional level equipment can actually result in poorer results in the wrong hands. What you really need is the creative spark and that’s where Chicago Video Production‘s Richter Studios comes in.

They are a full on studio that can create interactive and presentational videos for use on the web, in the board room, or a presentation for a potential vendor, promotional DVD to send out to prospective clients, training videos, and much more.

Website Design

RichterStudios.com home page

When you first visit RichterStudios.com, you’ll notice that they opt for a simple and elegant design, which is good. You would expect normally expect a video production company to have all sorts of videos on the front page, after all if you are a video production company, it’s best to showcase what you’re supposedly good at. But it’s actually good for Richter Studios not to plaster their front page with videos. It takes longer to watch something than to read something, but somethings are best demonstrated rather than described.

Navigation is excellent. It’s clearly defined so that visitors do not have to search endlessly to navigate. That’s definitely always a big plus. Also there isn’t too many sub navigation fields, which is good also, it’s best to keep things as simple as possible to make navigating painless.

I like the use of colors, vibrant, but not overpowering. Having a good amount of white space is good because it tends to increase readability, but I think RichterStudios.com may just have a bit too much of white space so there a lot of “empty” areas.

A sample of an interactive video

The site also uses a lot of large graphics, which does impact load times, but spices up the website. I definitely do like the clever contact page. I love how each page has a magazine like layout. It’s quite refreshing and not something you see everyday in web pages. I also love how they prominently portrayal their employees in each portion of their website. It has a much more personal feel that using stock photography.

I also checked the code and it’s surprisingly clean and well laid out. There are comments to indicate what portion of code is what. The only complaints I have is that the alt tags on the images could be a little more descriptive for screen readers and there are some presentational tags that are depreciated such as the use of <b> rather than <strong>.

Services

From what I can tell from browsing through their website is that they offer a very professional and high quality service. The Flash videos are very nicely designed and I especially like the interactive videos (see here for a video demo). As far as I can tell, Richter Studios treats each project uniquely. Here’s what they have to say about pricing:

Fee is negotiated on a per project assignment or through an Enterprise Rollout arrangement.

Richter Studios create videos for three primary purposes: web, videos, and interactive videos. Web videos are created and optimized for websites. The videos services can be for anything, from presentation DVDs to be sent to potential customers, buyers, or investor tools. The interactive videos are like applications, and for the most part they are. You click on a button and it illicits a response, thus being interactive.

Conclusion

I can definitely see that Richter Studios is very successful. With clients such as Snap-on tools, CDW, Dairy Management and many more, it’s hard to argue with results like that. At the same time I’m sure their services are not cheap, but quality products and services usually aren’t. Richter Studios is definitely the Louis Vuitton of the video production industry.