Do you fancy to have the iPhone 3GS functionality but are currently stuck with the iPhone 3G and are not planning to upgrade your current iPhone 3G in the near future?

Below are 3 Applications that can help transform your iPhone 3G to have features that are similar to the iPhone 3GS for FREE:-

This application “Say N Dial” has the similar functionality as the Voice Dial feature of the iPhone 3GS. Please take note that if you have many contacts of very similar names, this application may not work very well as it may tend to confuse itself with similar sounding names. So, do not be surprised if you ended up calling someone that you do not originally wanted to call using this app.

Ever wanted to have the Zoom and Flash functionality of the iPhone 3GS? This application is a great one to do just that. It allows you to capture images and will do a modification on the captured image to make it looks brighter. It also allows you to perform a zoom whenever you want to. This is certainly an application that i will recommend for those of you who do a lot of photo-taking using the iPhone.

The iPhone 3GS comes with the standard battery indicator on the top right corner of the phone. If you are using the iPhone 3G and would like to know the remaining battery life on your iPhone 3G, you may want to consider installing this app. It provides a good estimation of the remaining minutes that the iPhone can last if it is put on standby mode, talktime mode on 2G/3G network, internet browsing mode on EDGE/3G/Wifi as well as video or audio mode when using the iPod function.

Of course, these are not going to fully replace the iPhone 3GS functionality. It is however a good or reasonable compromise to enhance the iPhone 3G handset. Have fun testing out these functionalities and do drop us a comment if you have found better apps that can do the tricks.

The iPhone 3GS comes with a cool new feature called the VoiceOver. This feature is however not available on the iPhone 3G phones. VoiceOver speaks out what that is appearing on the iPhone screen so that users can listen what is on the screen without actually seeing it. The VoiceOver feature can even speak in many different languages as specified in the international settings.

VoiceOver will also tell you what elements are on the screen when you move your fingers across it. When an element is selected, VoiceOver will speak the name or provide the description of the item. If a text is selected, VoiceOver will read out the text. If the control button is selected and Speak Hint feature is turned on, VoiceOver will inform you the action of the item or give instructions for you to continue e.g. “Double tap to open” etc. VoiceOver also plays a sound whenever you change screen.

To get a better overview of what the VoiceOver feature can do, below is a good video which guides you on how to use this feature on the iPhone 3GS:-

With this new VoiceOver feature on the iPhone 3GS, it will be able to help a new group of people to make use of the iPhone 3GS – the visually impaired. This new feature enables the iPhone to be the “eye” phone for the visually impaired.

A lot of people has been asking the same question on which phone should i get; the iPhone 3GS or the Blackberry Storm? There are advantages and disadvantages of both the iPhone 3GS and the Blackberry Storm.

Wi-fi: One key difference is that the blackberry Storm model currently available in Malaysian market i.e. the 9500 Storm does not support wi-fi. If wi-fi is an absolute must for you, then you may want to go with the Blackberry BOLD or the iPhone 3GS. After using the Blackberry BOLD and iPhone 3G for sometime, i do realized that the ability to hook onto the wi-fi network is definitely an essential component for any smartphone.

Speaker and Multimedia: The quality of the speakers are quite impressive on both the iPhone 3GS as well as the Blackberry Storm. i would say that both are pretty close or if i have to vote for one, i will probably say that the Blackberry Storm is “a little” better in this area.

Camera: Pictures taken are pretty much similar under the same lighting conditions. In terms of resolution, the iPhone 3GS has a 3Megapixel camera vs the Blackberry Storm with 3.2Megapixel camera. Both have zoom capabilities. For the video camera, i will have to say that the iPhone 3GS is “a little” better compared to the Blackberry Storm.

Emails and calendaring: This has always been the stronghold of the Blackberry and my vote will go to the Blackberry Storm(for BES) although the iPhone 3GS is catching up with the OS3.0 release and is getting closer. So, if you are going to use a company server(Blackberry Enterprise Server), the Blackberry Storm will be your choice device. If you are using the email for personal access eg gmail, yahoo, pop3 or imap, i don’t think there is much difference between the two. i personally find setting up and configuring the emails on the iPhone to be easier compared to setting up the BIS(Blackberry Internet Service) on the Blackberry devices.

Internet Browsing: i personally prefer the internet browsing experience on the iPhone 3GS much better compared to the Blackberry Storm because of the better sensitivity of the touch screen as well as the ability to “pinch” to zoom.

Cost of ownership: The retail price for both the Blackberry Storm and the iPhone 3GS 16GB are pretty close at the time of this posting. Both devices are in the range of RM2,400-RM2,500(without any contractual subsidy).  So, in terms of device pricing(at the time of this posting), they are about the same. Monthly usage cost on the iPhone will be a little lower because there is no additional licensing fees(for BIS or BES which is applicable for the Blackberry) that is applicable for the iPhone.

Applications: This is the stronghold of the iPhone 3GS where there are more than 60,000 applications that are downloadable from the Apple AppsStore. This will be the key differentiator that separates a device from being just another device to an awesome multi-purpose gadget. Blackberry is  just starting to develop more applications on their devices and it will take a long time for them to catch up(if they ever will) to iPhone.

Below is a video on the comparison of the iPhone 3GS vs the Blackberry Storm. This is quite a good and fair comparison in terms of speed and functionality of both devices. What this video does not show are the difference in the applications that are available on both of these devices. Check it out!  :-)

So, which device do you think is the overall winner? In my personal opinion, the iPhone 3GS will get my vote on this simply because it meets my requirement for emails and calendaring and it provides a much better internet browsing experience as well as the wide range of applications which are downloadable from the Apple AppStore. This is what really makes the iPhone 3GS stand out from the rest of the pack and is often labelled as a “cool” and “sexy” gadget!.  :-)