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.

Better yet, the 3G S now captures video. It’s the real deal: sharp, smooth, 30 frames a second. Once again, it is not quite what you’d get from a proper digital camera or a Flip camcorder—it tends to “blow out� the bright areas—but it’s darned close. You can’t beat the capacity, either; in theory, the 32GB iPhone can capture 17 hours of video. With a fingertip, you can trim the ends of a captured video and then upload it to YouTube, right from the phone.

The new voice-control feature may be the most useful change of all. Hold down the iPhone’s Home button for a moment, say “Call mom’s cell� and it places your call, crisply and accurately. This feature goes a long way toward addressing what’s always been the iPhone’s weakest feature: the number of steps required to place a call. The iPhone also recognises spoken iPod commands like “Play songs by Abba� or “What song is this?�

The new Compass program looks like a classier version of a Cub Scout compass—great when you emerge, disoriented, from the subway. The iPhone 3G S also gains what Apple calls an oleophobic screen. It may sound like an irrational fear of yodelers, but in fact, it’s a coating that lets you wipe away fingerprints with a single rub on your clothes. It really works to keep the iPhone looking new longer. Maybe fewer people will now bury the iPhone’s gorgeous, slim shape in a homely, bulky case.

Finally, the iPhone 3G S harbours a better, beefier battery, thereby confronting another chronic complaint. It gives you about 25 per cent more life a charge (five hours talk time or 30 hours of music), enough to last at least a day of moderate use.

In short, the substantially improved, still elegant iPhone 3G S makes it dangerously easy for your heart and your head to agree.