This weekend, a friend of ours commented on the environmental impact of the Toyota Prius, in which the Prius compares unfavorably to the discontinued H2. We’ve heard this claim before, but didn’t know where those claims started, nor what they were really based on other than fingering the Prius’ larger battery as the culprit. It turns out, this myth was started by CNW Marketing Research, in a study that was thoroughly debunked several times since it made the rounds. Slate has a good article up from 2008 which challenges CNW’s claims:

[CNW] posits that the vast majority of a car’s cradle-to-grave energy gets expended during production. That assertion runs contrary to virtually every other analysis of vehicular life cycles, including those conducted by MIT and Argonne National Laboratory.

If you think about it, the Prius is just a smaller vehicle compared to something like the H2, and so should, accordingly, have a much smaller environmental footprint. The only differentiating factor is the hybrid engine, in which the core component, the battery, is capable of being the lone smoking gun. When it comes to the battery, nickel is the element cited as having the most negative environmental impact, but it would seem that the impact is not so great so as to offset the difference between the Prius and H2.

Another major part of the anti-Prius meme is that the car’s battery uses 32 pounds of nickel, mined in Sudbury, Ontario. The skeptical e-mails often state that Sudbury is an environmental wasteland that resembles “a surrealistic scene from the depths of hell.” That assertion might have been true about three decades ago, long before the Prius. Nickel mining is by no means a clean endeavor, but Sudbury’s conditions have improved in recent years. On top of that, all cars contain nickel in their frames—the Hummer’s frame, for example, has twice as much nickel as the Prius’.

Ultimately, claims that a ridiculously fuel-inefficient vehicle like the H2 has less of an environmental impact than Toyota’s hybrid flagship is just anti-Prius propaganda used to justify buying a vehicle that gets around 10 MPG. Meanwhile, in real-world conditions, our Prius doesn’t strain to get over 50 MPG in mixed driving conditions, with our best full-to-empty tank to date coming in at just under 58 MPG. That’s none too shabby. Still, it’s a shame that over three years later, the Prius vs. H2 myth is still out there.

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Last year, we talked about heat issues with the iPhone 3GS. That was before we got an iPhone 4, which may very well have better heat dissipation than the 3GS, but not by enough. One of the reasons we wanted a white iPhone 4 was because the surface would reflect more light and thus help, even if minimally, with internal heat buildup.

As far as motorcycling goes, the iPhone 4 isn’t much better in high-temperature environments than the 3GS was. We tend to use the iPhone 4 in a soft case attached to our motorcycle’s handlebars, where a silicone front allows us to control the phone even with our gloves on.¹ The problems remains, however, with heat building up in this case, even when the case is not fully zipped to allow some hot air to escape. We’re not convinced that even outside of a case, the iPhone wouldn’t overheat if it’s in direct view of the sun; even in the shade, the iPhone 4, in temperatures exceeding 90 degrees, gets quite hot under use, be that simply talking on the phone, or running an application making use of 3D graphics (like our GPS app).

Suffice to say, using the iPhone 4 as a year-round GPS device on a motorcycle still leaves much to be desired. We’ve explored several case alternatives, but as far as all-weather cases go, most have their issues:

• They don’t allow touch-screen access while the phone is inside.
• They have poor attachment points for use on a motorcycle.
• They tend to produce heat build-up.

A possible option is to forgo all-weather cases and use the iPhone 4 as a GPS device only when the weather is expected to be good, which means not going on trips requiring a GPS when even the slightest chance of rain is possible. We could then mount the iPhone 4 in a way that allows a good part of the iPhone 4 to be exposed to the environment, which should help with heat dissipation. Still, the iPhone 4 may still overheat when directly in the sun.

We’re considering the Mirage 2 windshield for our F800GS, which comes with a GPS-mounting panel. We could hack it up to mount the iPhone 4, and possibly even throw something together that would be water-resistant. The problem is putting something together that could be modified later for future iPhone models, so we don’t need to buy a whole new Mirage 2 platform when we upgrade our phone. Since the GPS panel on the Mirage 2 seems like it has some depth to it, we could potentially throw a cooling fan on the inside, to help cool the iPhone.

We’re still curious how others have mounted their iPhones to their motorcycles, and how well they worked in high-temperature (above 80 degrees fahrenheit).

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The announcement of the 2012 Volkswagen Beetle has a lot of people excited, though to be fair, most of those people are probably ex-hippies and the same folks who got excited when the “new” Beetle was offered in 1998. When that happened, it wasn’t long before the retro bug was deemed a girly car, which is partly why concept cars like the 2005 Beetle Ragster were lusted over. VW touted the simplicity of the new Beetle’s three-arch design, but masculine it was not. The 2012 version of the Beetle was finally redesigned with more machismo, taking on a more aggressive look for the militant hippy population¹.

What’s missing is all-wheel-drive (AWD) and variable suspension, like the 2000 Beetle Dune concept. Also, a beefier engine than the 200-horsepower TSI option the new Beetle will get. Then, VW might have a compelling, aesthetic answer to the Subaru WRX, Mitsubishi Lancer, or dare we say, the VW R32. But rather, VW is positioning the 2012 Beetle as a GTI variant.

Luca De Meo, the Volkswagen director of marketing, boasted of the car’s XDS traction control system, available on the top-end TSI model. “It makes it sporty like the Herbie in the movie,” he said, referring to the original Beetle’s star turn in a series of campy films. He called the TSI, with its 2-liter, 200-horsepower turbocharged engine, “a GTI that is different, for the ‘I have a Mac’ person.” (When asked later to clarify the association, he explained that he was referencing the I.B.M. person/Mac person advertisements.)

VW hasn’t had any difficulty attracting Mac fans. In fact, if any car company can be said to parallel Apple’s aesthetic and attitude, it’s VW. That’s why R32 owners get a VW instead of a Subaru or Mitsubishi, and explains why VW was rumoured to be working with Apple on a computerized, in-dash automotive interface (and perhaps why the Bulli concept includes an iPad to control certain components). Maybe De Meo didn’t mean to be literal, and meant that the 2012 Beetle was a more polished alternative to the GTI, but then why not offer an R-series Beetle aside the upcoming R32 successor? Sounds to us like De Meo just doesn’t know what he’s talking about, and made a poor appeal to emotion. Why else effectively call your flagship compact “shitty in comparison?”

The 2012 Beetle is definitely an improvement over the last-generation Beetle, both in terms of looks and performance, but VW could have gone further. If VW really doesn’t want to release a variant that competes directly with the R32, then bring back the rear-mounted engine and rear-wheel drive, and sell the vehicle as an alternative to the reborn muscle-car fad². As it stands, the 2012 Beetle is only going to cannibalize Rabbit and GTI sales, and offer a reason not to get a Mini S. That’s not good enough.

But then again, neither is the Bulli, which is VW’s answer to bringing back the Microbus. Unlike the earlier 2001 Microbus concept, the Bulli is more like a Scion xD with VW styling. But the styling isn’t quite right, resulting in a much more angular appearance, and too-short a storage space to make the Bulli much more than a commuter vehicle. The electric powertrain is nice, and we can see VW hedging their bets on this and not offering a gasoline version, but we’d much rather have a more practical and faithful rendering of the Microbus if production becomes imminent. You can keep the iPad interface, though, VW.

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Our 2010 Prius has an annoying problem, and it’s all about the EV. It’s nice to cruise around a parking lot without using gas, but the EV speed limit is inconsistent. Not only can you not cruise around at-will until the battery is depleted (the EV mode shuts off if you accelerate or move too fast), but the EV speed limit varies too. After turning the Prius on, EV mode is capped at 10 MPH, but after the system warms up, it generally lets us cruise around at up to 25 MPH (though it kicked us out at 20 MPH on more than one occasion). There are two major issues with this.

1. The driver has no idea what the speed cutoff is at any given time. Sure, she can estimate based on how long the car has been on, but there really should be some sort of visual notification. Knowing if the cutoff is 20 or 25 MPH, for example, will certainly affect acceleration decisions. Plus, weather affects the EV speed limit; in colder temperatures, the system may never warm up to the point of letting you drive up to 25 MPH in EV mode. Apparently, hot temperatures also have an adverse affect on the system.

2. The residential speed limit in the United States is typically set at 25 MPH. If that’s the speed you have to stay under in order to avoid being kicked out of EV mode, then you’re typically traveling around 22 or 23 MPH. In low-traffic areas, maybe that’s not a concern, but anyplace there are more cars on the road, it means that the practical driving speed is somewhere between 30 and 35 MPH. If Toyota raised the EV speed limit by even five MPH, it would mean that a Prius could comfortably drive in residential areas at around 27 or 28 MPH, and that means you’d no longer be that Prius-driving-asshole-going-below-the-speed-limit.

In a weird Toyota Prius testing ground, we suppose it’s possible that Toyota engineers decided it would be better to limit acceleration and speed in EV mode in order to conserve the battery better, under the assumption that this would mean more mileage per gallon of gas. In practice, however, the math doesn’t work out like this, because a typical Prius owner is not in bumper-to-bumper traffic all day. This means that for most Prius owners, the battery rarely gets low (or even half-empty), so there’s excess juice that could be tapped. We would rather see additional battery energy used for slightly better acceleration (hey, EVs are supposed to have higher low-end torque) and a higher speed cap. This would let the Prius keep up with other cars when leaving stop lights, without transitioning to the gas engine for acceleration. Further, it would mean being able to stay in EV mode longer when traffic crawls at a slightly faster pace. (In our experience, being able to drive in EV mode at 30 MPH would mean staying in EV mode about twice as often.)

Toyota engineers take note: the Prius hybrid system needs tweaking in EV mode. Better yet, add a “advanced” customization menu for owners and let them tweak the EV cutoff within a reasonable range. If the battery never gets low, it’s not being used efficiently.

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The 2010 Toyota Prius IV isn’t the type of automobile that car aficionados lust after. Rather, it’s the type of car that those who only want to get from Point A to Point B will love because it’s fuel efficient and reminiscent of a luxury sedan. That’s not to say that it is a luxury vehicle, because it’s not, but the Prius IV has a number of comfort features that aim to impress: heated leather seats, good sound system, rear-view camera, sun roof, and vent-powering solar panel.

(Let’s clarify for a moment: we’re talking about the Prius IV, not the more basic I, II, or III packages. The differences between these may be slight, but to be fair, it’s the IV and V that are reminiscent of a luxury car, whereas the other packages can be significantly more spartan.)

It’s a hybrid.

For us, coming off a Volkswagen R32, the difference in performance is significant. The trade-off is obvious, however: a more quiet ride, with twice the mileage per tank and half the price. That trade-off may not be appealing if you’re prone to aggressive driving with open stretches, but in metropolitan areas where traffic patterns are dense, with fun escapes from this traffic being rare, then having a car without much oomph isn’t a huge issue, as long as basic driver comfort is met. And here, the Prius IV delivers fairly well.

And let’s be honest, that twice-the-distance-half-the-price thing is pretty awesome. With basic unleaded gas (87), we’re talking $25 for a fill-up, which gets us over 500 miles of range. Considering that the only other car to do that is the now-discontinued and very compact original Honda Insight, the Prius naturally wins the MPG race, and does so packing more people/stuff.

When we first looked at the 2010 Prius, the salesperson was keen on pointing out that the car had three driving modes. One was the “EV” mode, for forcing the car to run only on the battery. “Eco” mode was next, for focusing on best gas mileage. Third was “power” mode, for getting more juice to the wheels. Let’s be fair, though: in real-world use, you’re only going to use the second mode most of the time, because power mode doesn’t really add that much spin to your wheels, and EV mode shuts itself off when you go beyond a certain speed/acceleration, or if the air conditioner is up in high gear. So really, EV mode may be fine for just cruising around the parking lot, and maybe you’ll push the power mode button when trapped between two trailers on the freeway, but slowing down to a snail’s pace or putting the petal to the metal as it were accomplishes both of these things as well; eco-mode will automatically draw power only from the battery at low speeds, and provide more juice from the engine when needed. Perhaps giving consumers the perception of micromanagement is helping sales, but these options feel almost silly to us.

We assume that for power-management purposes, Toyota pulled the daytime running lights from the Prius, despite the fact that models such as the Matrix come standard with this feature: it’s a safety feature, after all. We can’t imagine that the power draw is that big of an issue, especially since the car will never be sucking battery juice exclusively when not cruising a parking lot. The mystery continues when you forget to leave the Prius’ lights on when the car is off, because unlike most other cars on the market now, the Prius doesn’t complain with an audible beep – the lights just stay on.

A cool family car.

The Prius IV is now considered an intermediate sized-car, up from the “compact” footprint that hybrids were previously known for. With four doors and adequate cabin room to fill the back seats, the Prius can make for a good family car, whether that means you have kids or just a backseat-filling dog. The rear seats fold down completely, and by “completely” we mean that they don’t angle upwards towards the front of the cabin, so sliding furniture or boxes or whatever else in is easy. There’s also no drop behind a lip when the trunk is open, again making for easy loading and unloading of whatever you plan to haul around. This is a solid hatch-back feature, and it’s a wonder that other car companies haven’t come around to this, as it really complements the already-spacious interior.

Locks on the Prius IV are keyless, as is starting the engine. There’s a key-fab that’s proximity-based, so as long as the fab is on your person, you can lock and unlock doors just by touching the car’s door handle(s). It’s a nice feature with a physical override in the event that you key-fab’s battery dies, and the effect of keyless entry is another space-age touch that makes the Prius cool.

Inside, the Prius doesn’t disappoint aesthetically – the dash is full of sexy, mesmerizing LCDs, letting you see where the car’s power is currently coming from (battery or engine), and not even displaying things such as RPMs, as most people could care less about this in the first place. This is indicative of the Prius’ market: not gear-heads, but people who appreciate a clean interface and straightforward usability. Were it not for the lack of little touches here or there, the Prius could almost be considered the Macintosh of cars.

Unfortunately, as space-age looking as the interior is, it’s not perfectly polished: the leather trim is minimal beyond the seats, with much of the dash and doors trimmed in a hard, patterned plastic. It doesn’t look bad, but it doesn’t look as clean as leather either, and while likely more durable in the long run, it doesn’t feel particularly robust when giving some areas a slight push and not feeling much resistance.

The car’s climate controls are nice, but aimed at the front seats. Rear passengers have it tough during very hot or very cold weather, because there are no rear vents – not even under the seats. Even our R32 which had little space in the back seats had vents beneath the front seats and at the rear of the center console. That the Prius, which is a larger car aimed more at a family market doesn’t have this, is almost ludicrous. “But WyldKard, we’ve had cars for decades without rear vents, and our rear passengers have made out just fine. ” We’ve made out fine without power steering for decades too, but that doesn’t mean modern cars should shirk this feature today.

The nav-stereo.

The stereo with built-in navigation is pretty good considering just how poor most stock navigation systems are. The downside is that a number of features are disabled when the car is in motion, such as entering an address or manipulating bluetooth controls for wirelessly connecting to, say, an iPhone. The nice thing is that none of these features require add-ons, which was the case with our R32 and bluetooth telephony. It’s pretty stupid for a car manufacturer to disable features temporarily under the guise of safety, however, when real-world use cases mean that a passenger should be able to use the navigation equipment when the car is in motion. In this sense, it’s rather sad that the car detects the presence of a passenger for the purpose of enabling the passenger airbag, but that this same detection mechanism isn’t used to unlock navigation controls.

The stereo itself is good – not as good sounding as the premium system that came stock in our previous 2005 Ford Mustang GT, but with adequate base nonetheless. Control-wise, the Prius IV’s stereo is fantastic, and truly shows how much better touch-screen interfaces are than the pitiful controls on our R32 were. Surely, it’s no iOS interface still, but it’s better than much of the competition.

Speaking of iOS, the Prius IV’s stereo connects to iOS devices via A2DP, letting you listen to any audio from an iOS device (not just from the iPod app), as well as letting you make and receive calls using the car’s speaker system. Thus far, no one we’ve talked to in this manner even knew we were calling from the car, and assumed we were using our Jawbone headset or stock iOS hardware. So good and convenient are these calls, that we haven’t recharged our bluetooth headset since setting the car’s bluetooth connection up.

Unfortunately, while the bluetooth connectivity is solid 80% of the time, there’s the occasional glitch. Normally, as soon as we turn the car on, bluetooth connectivity is achieved and playback from whatever audio app we used last resumes, be it from the iPod app or Pandora. Every once in awhile, however, we have to run through a couple menus to get bluetooth to work properly, and while even rarer, there are times that bluetooth playback of our music suddenly stops, and we have to disconnect the device manually and reconnect it using the car’s stereo interface (when the car is stopped). We don’t know where the problem lies, as it may be an issue with Apple’s bluetooth implementation or Toyota’s, but it’s annoying either way. Fortunately, the only time we regularly have to touch the car’s bluetooth settings is when ours was not the last device used, such as if our significant other used the Prius with her iPhone. In those cases, when we start the car up, we have to tell it to look for our iPhone instead, but then we’re off five seconds later with streaming audio goodness.

Mandatory conclusion paragraph.

We didn’t get a chance to play around with previous Prius incarnations, but judging the car on it’s 2010 build, the Prius IV is every bit as comfortable as other “premium” cars in its price range. What you give up is base performance, but most families don’t care about raw performance as much as safety anyway. What they care about is getting from one place to another, and these days, doing it as cheaply as possible. Raw fuel savings may not be spectacular compared to a cheaper, non-hybrid car that’s still considered fuel efficient, but the Prius epitomizes fuel efficiency in a package that greenies can put on a pedestal for not supporting terrorism and being slightly more earth-friendly.

While the Prius still takes top honors among “alternate fuel vehicles,” we realize that’s partially because the respective roster is so thin right now. As this roster grows, the Prius will have to keep getting better, not just in respect to its hybrid engine, but in terms of features and polish as well. Right now, the Prius IV is slightly above middle-ground when it comes to in-car comfort, meaning that Toyota has a solid platform for building more budget-oriented vehicles, or more premium models. Whether the Prius maintains its position as Toyota’s flagship standard for hybrids remains to be seen, but with only a little more polish, we easily see it holding its ground for the immediate future, especially if other titans like Honda aren’t able to quickly capitalize on hybrid technology (e.g. the Insight’s sad resurrection).

Oh, also, the Prius’ brakes seem to work fine, in case you were wondering.

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When the mp3 was created, it didn’t take long before people wanted a way to play these digital music files in vehicles. Juggling cassettes and compact discs was cumbersome, and “skipping” discs were exceptionally annoying. The mp3 was a perfect solution for audible, mobile content, but the adoption of this format has hardly been seamless.

Around the year 2000, we rocked a hacked Netpliance i-Opener, which we hooked up to our car via auxiliary input, if not through a cassette adapter. The whole point was playing mp3s via Winamp, but our solution required a sizeable footprint near the dash, and didn’t work out long-term. We sported an another auxiliary-in solution with our first mp3 player, the Creative Jukebox. The solution remained poor, and even though a later car of ours sported the ability to play mp3s via compact disc, the interface for this implementation remained poor, just as it still is in most disc-based mp3 solutions today.

Even when we picked up a Volkswagen R32 in 2007 and had a built-in iPod interface, we weren’t happy – the console-based solution meant that we had no access to the actual iPod controls, and instead had to use the poor deck-based interface of the stock audio system. Even in 2007, some developers still refused to show full song identifiers on LCD screens, let alone a truly integrated iPod solution. At least the system functioned with our 2G iPhone, but upon upgrading to a 3GS iPhone, the iPod interface stopped working as a charger. Worse yet, audio through the iPod interface would only work via the main music app, which meant that apps like Pandora wouldn’t push audio through the car’s speakers. So we were back to using a basic aux-in solution.

Some people maintain that given how poor most car stereos are with handling mp3s, that we should continue relying on disc-based solutions. But why rely on an older technology that didn’t even work well at its peak, when adequate technology for a solid digital music experience exists today?

The turn-around for us was playing with a stock Toyota sound system in a 2010 Prius. Between an aftermarket ProClip mount and power cable, and A2DP bluetooth audio, the ability to listen to our digital audio on our iPhone via the vehicle sound-system is nearly flawless; as soon as we start the car up, the Prius finds our iPhone and immediately begins playing from where it left off, not only via the iPod app, but via Pandora as well.

Why rely on an aftermarket iPod interface when the one on your iPhone works fantastic as-is? With the various mounting options ProClip offers, for nearly every modern vehicle out there, the only obstacle is a sound-deck sporting bluetooth audio. That’s a pretty cheap requirement for production, too, so it’s nearly inexcusable for audio decks not to incorporate this feature for all but the most bare-bones of systems. Props to Toyota for figuring this out.

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We didn’t give much thought to iPhones overheating last summer, when reports were going around about iPhones shutting down after a certain internal heat threshold was met. But that’s because we never encountered this behavior, since we evidently didn’t put our iPhone through these types of paces. Things took a turn when we began using our iPhone 3GS as a daily GPS device.

The problem.

In the car, while we’ve experienced exceptional heat emanating from our iPhone 3GS, we still haven’t witnessed the device overheating and shutting down the active program. We guess that’s because of where we mounted the iPhone; it sits right in front of a vent. During summer months on the east coast, we usually run with the air conditioner on, so the iPhone isn’t at the same temperature as the outside world. Since it sits so close to a vent, it’s also getting the benefit of air flow, which isn’t the situation in our second use case.

On a motorcycle, our iPhone is more exposed to the elements, or at least the heat. This is doubly-problematic because air flow is effectively neutralized since a motorcycle-mounted iPhone is generally enclosed for protection, so the iPhone doesn’t benefit from the motorcycle’s movement. On hot days, this means that whatever case the iPhone is in acts like a greenhouse. Eventually, east coast summers with temperatures in the 80s will shut down any iPhone mounted to a motorcycle, making navigation-by-iPhone impossible.

Possible solutions?

Moving the iPhone to an unenclosed case, snapped into some sort of mount, may be a part-time solution. Mounts like this exist, but their protection is questionable; do you really trust a mount where the iPhone “snaps in” and “snaps out” by pressing a plastic tab? With the vibrations common on motorcycles (not to mention bumps from off-road riding), it becomes a huge question as to whether such a mount won’t suddenly pop an attached iPhone off mid-ride.

A better mount system might still work here, but an off-the-shelf solution doesn’t seem to exist. Touratech makes decent aluminum mounts for other GPS devices, but not for the iPhone (probably because the iPhone isn’t water-tight).

Relocating the iPhone’s mounting location may be possible with the proper hardware. For example, if the iPhone could be mounted in a position that offers more shade, where it’s not always getting direct sun, perhaps it would last longer before shutting down. Still, this likely wouldn’t fix the problem entirely, and GPS coverage may be hit too.

Another solution may be to simply keep the iPhone in a vented pocket, so it’s not getting sun and benefits from airflow directed against the rider. Unfortunately, this means the rider only has access to audible cues, can’t see the map, and needs to pull the iPhone out whenever the navigation software needs to be accessed.

In the end, no obvious solution exists if one wants to use iPhone-based navigation year-round on a motorcycle (at least in areas where it gets hot).

The 4G iPhone.

The latest iPhone, releasing later this week, uses the A4 processor, which we know to be faster than previous iPhone processors. This new iPhone should also sport better power efficiency, which may imply cooler operation. However, we couldn’t find any claims as to how much cooler the 4G iPhone runs compared to the 3GS. For us, this becomes a major factor in whether or not we upgrade, because if this new iPhone can handle higher heat environments, then it immediately challenges other GPS units for motorcycle use; potentially, with an aluminum case, heat dissipation may be easier for this latest iPhone.

For those early adopters, drop us a line to let us know if the 4G iPhone seems to run cooler than the 3G or 3GS.

Update (06/23/2010): TiPb is proposing that [Apple may have down-clocked](http://www.tipb.com/2010/06/23/iphone-4-teardown-apple-a4-1ghz/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed: TheIphoneBlog (TiPb: iPhone, iPad, iPod)&utm_content=Google Reader) the A4 processor in the 4G iPhone in order to get better battery life and “lower the thermal impact.” This would mean that the new iPhone has more RAM than the 3GS, but a slower processor, explaining why the iPad may still be faster than the 4G iPhone. This still begs the question as to how much cooler the 4G iPhone would run than the 3GS, however.

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The Ford Ka is a sub-compact, reminiscent of Asia’s offerings for the American small-car market. Yet while Ford is an American automotive company, the Ka won’t be coming to U.S. shores, as Ford CEO Alan Mulally recently noted.

Our view is that Fiesta is about the smallest vehicle that we think will be a real success in the United States.

Ford’s stance on the Ka-in-the-U.S. must be because no one else thinks sub-compacts have a fighting chance in the U.S. either. Mibz: reported on a comment that George Pipas, who spoke to the Automotive Press Association in Detroit, made on the issue:

By 2013, Pipas predicted that compact cars, subcompact cars and crossover vehicles built off small-car platforms will account for 36% of total new-vehicle sales in the United States.

So wait, it’s just Ford who’s out-of-touch with what consumers want? You mean, they don’t all want Mustangs? But Ford is making billions, aren’t they?

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What’s most interesting about the iPhone feature chart posted earlier today by The iPhone Blog isn’t the evolution of the iPhone since 2007, but that the chart makes the 3GS stand out over the other models by its evolutionary leap. That’s not to say that we think the 3G S is hugely innovative, but that it’s more innovative compared to the 3G than the 3G was to the 2G iPhone. This is particularly noticeable when we begin factoring in not only the iPhone’s 3.0 OS, but the availability of jailbreak-enabled applications: with MMS, tethering, and video recording all features enabled after a jailbreak, the 2G iPhone and iPhone 3G have few differences (albeit the major one: 3G network speed).

While AT&T’s 3G network was bumpy at best when the iPhone 3G was released, it’s much more stable one year later, and we can say with glee that our network experience on the 3G S has been fantastic, to the point where we’d certainly feel weighed down by the 2G iPhone’s EDGE limitation. We’ve even forgotten a couple times when we were on our home broadband network – that’s how fast our 3G connection has been: little noticeable difference between it and wi-fi.

So sure, the 3G S sports more unique features than the 3G did compared to its own predecessor, but how earth-shattering are these new features? Beyond testing video recording, we don’t anticipate using the upgraded camera for video outside of a few special circumstance (which could change, perhaps). Still images, however, especially improved thanks to a tappable auto-focus, have suddenly made the camera far more useful, to the point where we’ll likely retire our Pentax Optio S for everything except macro photography. The 3GS’ compass is a novelty item in itself (the app), but its integration with other apps is what will make it killer. Already, we’ve found our Google Maps experience greatly improved, and once we start seeing great turn-by-turn apps available, and the use of the compass in other apps (e.g. Geocaching), the presence of the digital compass will truly shine.

As far as voice control goes, we haven’t used the application outside a quick test run, which proved fruitless; we’d prefer to see functionality akin to Google Search, such that we can perform web searches straight from the voice control app. With its primary focus on telephone calling, the voice control app doesn’t do anything we couldn’t with apps from Installer.app back in 2007, though perhaps we’ll utilize it more with the iPod once we have more hands-on experience with it. The Nike integration is another nice feature, and we’ll probably whip out our ailing Nike transmitter to give it a spin, but that means we’ll have to find a new armband or other method of bringing the iPhone along on a run. Really, it was the iPod Nano’s size that made it ideal for this purpose, while the iPhone is a bit clunky here.

Our biggest complaint about the iPhone 3G S is battery life. Indeed, being attached to a 3G signal must burn energy like no one’s business, because we’re constantly running low. We’re starting to think that heavy use of the GPS is another contributing factor, but it’s hard to rule this out until we start using the Geocaching app in offline mode, when we’re not relying on the network to continuously retrieve information on nearby caches. For most days of use, our 2G iPhone was happy enough with a night-time charge while we were sleeping, and it would rarely be dead by the time we laid our head to rest. The iPhone 3GS, however, uses significantly more battery life just in standby mode, to the point where we’re actually considering turning it off when we’re at work and not using it. This despite Apple’s claim that the 3G S sports longer battery life the the 3G. No wonder so many of 3G-toting fools were turning 3G off for routine travel.

We were right about leaving our jailbroken 2G iPhone behind, however. SBSettings was an invaluable tool, and with the speed and extra RAM of the 3G S’ hardware, Backgrounder would be ever more useful now than it was before. These two apps alone would be killer additions to a future iPhone OS update, but as it’s unlikely we’ll ever see anything like them made official, we’re eagerly looking forward to the eventual iPhone 3G S jalbreak solution.

It looks like we can’t expect major improvements from year-to-year, but enough has happened over two years that we can expect to want another upgrade come 2011. That said, we can certainly see why some people are clamoring to get ahold of Apple’s latest and greatest phone, even if they did buy last year’s version. As far as a phone and ultra-compact web browser go, the 3G S’ specs didn’t wet our appetite all that much, but a number of lesser features added up in this case, putting our tech desire over the edge. Heck, if we didn’t already want to replace our Garmin 60CS and Optio S, maybe we would’ve held onto the 2G iPhone for another year, but in our case, consolidating three devices into one is more than worth it, especially since it’s a device always nearby.

With turn-by-turn GPS soon-to-be-realized, the next big trick will be identifying the best ways to mount the iPhone 3G S on our vehicles without spending an inordinate amount of money. Some thoughts:

1. While we already have a GPS in our Volkswagen R32, the GPS software (and interface) is simply miserable. So, we’d like to mount the iPhone in an easy-to-reach location. The trick here is figuring out wiring, With the 2G iPhone, we used the car’s integrated iPod interface, which tucked the iPhone away in the center console. The iPhone 3G/S runs at a different voltage, so the old charger won’t work. Audio alone isn’t an option given the battery life and we need to see the iPhone’s screen now, so we can either find an adapter/cable for the dock, else get a (likely cheaper) cigarette lighter adapter, and then run a second cable (for audio) to the glove box which contains an aux-in port for the stereo. This is a messier solution (since it requires two cables), but potentially frees up the console for our iPod Nano, which we can use for backup music (it’s not like the older Nano will have a decent resale rate these days anyway). We’ll have to check with other VW owners to see what their solutions will be.

2. Our BMW 1200GS motorcycle is currently fitted with a RAM and Touratech mount that holds our Garmin 60CS. The power adapter is hard-wired into the 1200GS’ system. We may try to avoid the headache of doing the same thing with the iPhone, and instead simply find an iPhone power cable with a socket adapter. The next step would be to either modify the RAM mount to somehow hold the iPhone (perhaps by attaching a cradle of some sort), else get a new mounting system entirely. Also, whatever we do, we nee to find a way to keep the iPhone dry, either by finding a water-proof mount, or ghetto-rigging a water-proof armband to attach to our mount. The final step will be to attach something to the index finger on our glove to work the touch-screen. Obviously, this motorcycle scenario will be the most difficult to deal with. Again, a motorcycle user group may be a good source of ideas.

3. With a bicycle coming our way soon, we’d like to find a mount that we can use with the iPhone here, too. If the mount/cradle for this can also be used in one of the aforementioned scenarios also, that would be fantastic, but we don’t have high hopes. Any bicycle mounts worth recommending?

Worth mentioning about the 3GS (and perhaps the iPhone 3.0 software in general) is that the extensibility of the iPhone is furthered. No longer do we own an iPhone simply because it’s a great smartphone, we now own an iPhone because it’s a solid GPS too (okay, so we’re jumping the gun a bit because great turn-by-turn apps are still weeks away). In other words, the iPhone 3G S is changing our daily habits compared to how we lived with the 2G iPhone, and that’s notable. Had we purchased the iPhone 3G last year, we wouldn’t have changed our habits in any significant way. The effect of the conglomeration of iPhone OS 3.0, and the new hardware in the 3G S, is what makes the latest iPhone a wonder-toy.

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As fans of machines, we’re inevitable drawn to vehicular transportation, which is why we were crazy enough to buy a 25-year old DeLorean despite already owning two other vehicles. (We won’t chalk the DeLorean up as anti-green though – we’re reusing old stuff!) We also used to own a 2005 Ford Mustang GT, which was one of the most enjoyable rides we’ve ever had. In short, we have nothing against American-made cars (well, some of them), and are actually quite fond of Detroit’s history as the automotive capital of the world.

That said, with American car companies losing money left and right, we don’t agree with bailing the guys at Ford and GM out, not because we don’t appreciate their contributions to the industry, but because we won’t agree with bailing out businesses that seemed to make decisions aimed at purposely going under. For example, with Ford’s steady decline and the obvious rise in green consciousness (what with the Toyota Prius’ great sales), Ford still won’t bring their 65 MPG diesel wonder to the States. Nevermind that Ford’s home base is the United States – Ford America President Mike Fields stated simply, “We just don’t think North and South America would buy that many diesel cars.”

If American car manufacturers don’t want to get on the green bandwagon, they deserve to be doomed.

At the very least, if Ford and GM can’t muster the innovation to compete with Japan on the basic consumer level, then they should ditch that part of their business and instead focus purely on their commercial (truck) and luxury/sports (Mustang, Corvette) offerings. But don’t beg for bailout funds – where is your sense of pride?

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