Saturday, June 5, 2010

[Apple Conquers South Korea] Also, it's time to sell your 3GS -- by Sunday

After several years of trying to protect the Korean market from the iPhone, the phone seems to have taken off. How do I know this? You know something has become huge if my aunt, who is the head Buddhist Monk at a temple in Seoul, Korea has purchased an iPhone. I also convinced my mother that it's time that she catches up with her friends and colleagues, who all have either an iPhone and Blackberry. I showed her the voice control features off the iPhone. For example, if you change the phone's voice command options to Korean, then you can literally say, "Call Mom" in Korean and then in Korean the iPhone says "Calling Mother" in Korean. Also, she liked the idea of being able to send and receive text messages in Korean and to other iPhone owners regardless of whether they are in South Korea or the United States as well as other features more commonly associated with smartphones.

Apparently, Apple has made it easy for me to show her how cool the iPhone is, but it was my job to show that she needed it. She agreed. She thinks it will be a good idea to bring both my younger brother and her  into an AT&T family plan. As a reward, I will be upgrading to the iPhone 4G.

Anyways, it seems to be the repeat of an innovative American company -- namely Microsoft -- turning the products of hi-tech Japanese companies into commodities (memory chips). By the way, I finally saw an iPad today at the Glendale Galleria  and, well, it looks pretty unbelievable. And, its sales also seem unbelievable considering that it seems like a very expensive toy.

But, the new iPhone is a different story. When I first got the iPhone it was nice in that I didn't have to carry around an iPod and a phone. It also functioned as my camera and a mini-computer in that I could browse the web and send e-mails without having to purchase a laptop, while having all the features of a traditional phone with the slick, cool Apple interface -- I can't stand the OS X when it comes to a using a computer though. So, the iPhone is something I've grown quite attached to and with a more powerful camera -- that has a flash and zoom feature -- and a better resolution, the iPhone 4G makes it a new must have for me. 

Used iPhone 3GSs seems to be going for $350-$400 on Craigslist at the moment, but I'd suggest selling it before Monday if you plan on upgrading to the iPhone 4G.

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