In a word: yes.

Features aside, which those of us stuck with older iPhones won’t be able to use (No compass? What will I do when I’m lost hiking on the Great Wall?), the new operating system has made some serious performance gains in the web browsing arena. The graphic going around the intarwebs right now:

Even on the same old iPhone 3G, browsing performance is massively improved. Hopefully there are other performance improvements in the OS, such as app launch times or general lagginess you tend to see.

I absolutely love how these results are still all an order of magnitude slower than a reasonably low-end mac laptop. 15-45s vs … 1.3s. Excellent.

In normal times, buying a new computer is a rather fun experience. In addition to the endorphin rush caused by plonking down a huge wad of cash for such a small – but often 好看 (that’s Chinese for good looking) – piece of hardware, you get to take it home and play with it and discover all the new and fun things that are different about the new toy. Even if it’s still running Microsoft Windows, your new vendor has probably come up with some new set of stuff to include with the machine. Or, far more common with me, my last attempt to finally come up with the “ultimate organisation of my hard disk™” was a miserable failure, and I’m excited about trying out something new.

So, imagine my disappointment when I recently upgraded my 15” Powerbook G4 to a shiny new 15” Macbook Pro.