Tony Bradley on why the iPhone 3GS is Apples “secret weapon”:

The iPhone 3GS will still have iOS 5 once it ships on Wednesday. It will still have iMessage, and access to iCloud. It will have Twitter integration, reminders, and notifications. It will have AirPlay, and—perhaps most importantly—it will have access to the 500,000-plus apps and games available from the Apple App Store.

There are a lot of reasons that someone in the market for a free smartphone will eagerly embrace the iPhone 3GS.

I don’t think Apple ever releases model-specific breakdowns, but I would be very curious to see what the breakdown between 3GS, 4, and 4S sales are in a year from now. Also it will be interesting to see how how the 3GS fares in future NPD Mobile Phone Track reports.

The Free 3GS