To clarify ansy's post, the only iPhone that was released with iOS 4.0 installed by default is the iPhone 4.0. The only way to perform an OS upgrade with the iPhone is to do a device sync. If iOS 3.0 has been mostly eliminated, that means that the iPhone 4 must command at least 50% of the iPhone market -- probably much more. Given the amount of iPhone 3GSs that I regularly see, this seems a little far-fetched to me. Thus, someone's information is wrong somewhere.

Among my users, the iPhone 4 accounts for 61% of all iPhone devices active in the last 30 days. iPhone 3gs is 31%.

That's fair -- my anecdotal evidence isn't very scientific.

It's 50% of phones which end up at a Genius Bar. I'm pretty sure the ones that never see a Genius bar have higher rates of syncing.

My dad has never synced, his only use for the iPhone is as a phone, he doesn't want music on it, and doesn't care about software upgrades.

Is there a better offering on the market for someone (such as your dad), who only wants a phone? Surely there must be...

Price didn't matter to him, so he picked the phone that he liked the most, the same way you might buy a rolex because you like it, not because it offers better features than a $10 watch.

If reports around here are any indication, though, a $150 Nokia phone will work better (e.g., better sound quality) for making phone calls than an iPhone.

I've not heard complaints from iPhone-using friends about that, all complaints are about aspects that my father won't use, so when he asked my advice I didn't steer him away from it, and he hasn't had any issues with it.

And again, it comes down to "what would be better, a nice looking rolex or a military grade watch that guarantees to keep time a fraction of a second better than the rolex" - if he doesn't need the product that's technically best in the aspects he cares about, and doesn't care whether he spends $70 or $700, why not get the shiniest one that he'll enjoy the most.

But it's not marketed anywhere near as well - certainly it's not seen as the cool thing to have.

I used to work in AppleCare; the number of people who told me they bought iPhones because their friends told them to, but who were surprised there was an app store, or a music playing app, was amazing.

That would certainly have been the case with the first couple of iPhones, but the iPhone 4 has rather good calling quality.

Good to know.

I'm trying to understand why you would think that it doesn't make sense, and how you think that iOS 3 being replaced serves to contradict it.

The observable in the first link is about people who bring their phone into the genius bar and need the phone to be replaced. It doesn't say anything about what version they had when they came in, or what version they had when they left.

It also says nothing about whether the users even use their phones as iPods - or whether, if they do, they had an existing collection of music before they got the phone. (One can, after all, buy new music over the air).

So could you elaborate?

Perhaps the Genius Bar will upgrade/update your phone for you? I know they do similar things for non-techsavvy customers on OSX.