Assessing the 2007 and 2008 iPhone models was an excruciating experience. You were torn in half—between your heart and your head. Your emotions were swept away by everything Apple does so well: beauty, polish, elegance, simplicity and the thrill of interaction. Meanwhile, your brain kept waving its little hand in the back of the classroom. “But the camera’s terrible!� it would say. “It can’t record video! There’s no voice dialling! No copy and paste! The iPhone can’t even send picture messages—even starter phones can do that!� But 21 million iPhone sales later, it’s become clear that the heart usually manages to shut the head up.

With its new iPhone 3G S, Apple is finally throwing your head a crumb. After two years, the iPhone’s designers have finally gotten over whatever weird objections they had to providing those basic functions. Better yet, Apple intends to give many of those features, and dozens more, to everyone who has ever bought an iPhone.

If you do buy the iPhone 3G S, you get twice the storage—16GB—for the same price as before. Pay a bit more and you can even buy a 32GB model.

Last year’s model, the iPhone 3G, will still be available. But do find a way to afford the new one. It looks identical to last year’s iPhone, but its faster circuitry makes a huge difference—remember, the S stands for speed.

The built-in 3MP camera is much better, too. The camera still tends to blur moving subjects, and even still lifes aren’t as crisp as from an actual camera. But the colour and clarity are definitely improved, especially in low light. The new autofocus feature lets you tap the screen preview at the spot where you want the exposure, white balance and focus to be calculated.

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