excellent analysis from Prince. but it would have been good to also note major differences, if any, between the 3G and 2G 2.0 software, beyond the obvious facts about GPS and EDGE.
I'm flattered at the detailed response. Obviously I'm not an iPhone owner - I'm just going by what I read here and what friends who have an iPhone tell me (they all own Blackberrys also - guess which one they keep in a drawer at home - the iPhone!). Bottom line - BB syncs with my employer's contacts/emails/calendar _effortlessly_. Not even effortlessly - it does it without ANY tweaking of settings or prompting or my having to think about it for even one second a month. And then, for these basic functions, it works without a hitch, despite what "General Smiley" says about it being sh*t. That's some useful sh*t! When the iPhone gets up to that basic level of competence, where it should be, I'll get one for all the fun toys and elegance it has that the BB doesn't. Although by then BB will have a completely renewed line of phones...
The new iPhone 3G software is great and all, but I just can't seem to get excited about any of it until I GET REMINDER BEEPS WHENEVER I'VE MISSED A CALL OR MESSAGE.
Really Apple, a smart phone is supposed to remind me about these things, not make me have to go ask every time I've stepped away from my phone. To some people a missed call means missed income, which is, like, a lot more important than being able to save a web page image.
You can mark messages as unread by opening the message on the phone, tapping details, and tapping mark as unread. I don't know of a way to flag a message.
Also, I would like the ability to selectively install language packages. These files may not be huge, but space is extremely scarce.
Phone.app doesn't show the difference btwn dialed numbers/received calls. No way to see the lenght of calls. Now way to delete numbers logged one by one.
What about different ways to forward calls to a number? On other phones there's a difference between unreachable/unavailable/busy/etc. It's just too simple on the iPhone...
I too found contacts horribly slow. I have about 300 contacts sync'd from zimbra (exchange). I would click on it and then it would stall for about 10 seconds.
A colleague got a new iPhone, I setup the zimbra sync and he had about 300 contacts also, but when I clicked contacts for his iPhone, it was immediately responsive (within 1 second).
After reflecting, I realized the only difference is that I had taken pictures with the iPhone camera and attached them to contacts in the addressbook.
After I deleted the pictures from contacts, re-sync'd, I then fully shut-off the iPhone, and restarted, and presto, contacts was fast!
I have no contact pictures, and 165 contacts of varying amount of information, usually just a phone number, maybe an address and email. What bugs me is that the app takes about five seconds from start up to actually responding to input, and it doesn't give any indication that it's processing, it just looks stalled. If it needs to process the data, fine, but it should at least use that spinning animation to indicate that.
Regarding the SMS deal, it has not been a problem, but I've only used that app to read messages that came in as the phone was going through stages of activation on the other end of the service. I'm not going to use SMS at all unless I have no other alternative, certainly not going send any. It's just a lousy old standard that's absurdly priced for what it does.
Is POP support any better in 2.0? In the old software, it has severe limitations.
1) There's no way to store a document of any size on your phone to consult. If I download an e-mailed spreadsheet or word doc onto my phone, then download the e-mail to my primary computer and delete it from the server, the attachment only stays on the phone for a day or two, then it disappears and Mail tries to download it from the server again.
2) My mailbox will only hold 50 e-mails. Beyond that, when new e-mails come in, the old ones get deleted.
It's just really clear that the app was designed with IMAP in mind, assuming that info would always be there on the mail server, available for refreshing. This makes using mail to store information (or even keeping up with your e-mail while on vacation) a less-than-ideal experience.
I'm also nonplussed at the continued lack of To Do support. To Dos are my single most important PDA application. I'm still carrying both a Palm and an iPhone, because I need the Palm's Tasks application. (Presumably a third-party app will fill this niche sooner or later, but I'm not upgrading to 2.0 until it's less buggy...)
So you glossed over the fact that contacts is now in its own separate app on the springboard.... but you never mentioned the significance of this.
One of the biggest gripes I had about the iPhone 1.0.x software was that you couldn't save a number while you were on the phone, or in a call.
"Hey there, What's Bob's number?" oh ok, well let me go open a note, click new, type it in using the small number keys above the letters... then go back.. end the call.. go back into notes... REMEMBER THE NUMBER (since i cant copy and paste it.. and Notes.app doesn't parse out phone#s) and then go back AGAIN into the phone app and dial it!!!!
NOW.. i have the -- dare I call it -- "luxury" of being able to add someone to my contacts while simultaneously on a phonecall. This, IMHO, is huge. No matter how laggy the contact list is. Though 2.0.1 seems a bit better with this, and with battery life. (at least it seems like it so far)
I really enjoy these (relatively) unbiased and detailed looks into the iPhone world. Even from a mac-slanted source, they seem, for the most part, spot on.
The thing I think that a lot of people tend to forget, is that so many times we each evaluate the iPhone based on the tech-savvy, über-pseudo-geek people that we all are. The simple fact that we read this site, and took the time to create a login to make posts, makes us a part of this crowd. Simply put, this phone is targeted at both us, AND all those at the other end of the tech-spectrum - Our parents, aunts, friends, and others who could care less about how many megapixels the camera has.
Those individuals - like the poster who went on the rant about comparing the blackberry pearl to the iphone (as described in this article) - always make me laugh, because they're the people who really just don't quite get it. The freakin' SMS app doesn't really take 30 secs to load (ok, maybe that happened once to the guy who wrote the article) it may take 5 at most, but its usually instant. And what about the fact that iPhone does actually do a real backup (albeit, for some reason, a super long one) every so often, so if something happens to your phone you pick right back up where you left off. (that includes, texts, recent calls, settings, ringtones, alarms, images, passwords, everything.)I I'm unaware of any other phone that does this. Let us not confuse a simple 'sync' (which usually takes all of about 15 seconds at most for me with my iphone) with a full backup (which is what the article was talking about taking forever), because then your arguments fails to hold water!
Ok, I digress...
What I really mean to convey is that i think Apple is right on the money, for the most part, with what they are doing with the iPhone. It's not without its flaws, and glaringly absent features... but the funny thing is that even with all these missing features, and "problems" and shortcomings, it still remains almost impossible to walk into any apple or att store and just buy the phone - ALMOST A MONTH AFTER RELEASE. Obviously someone isn't paying attn. to all the whining going on throughout the blogosphere. Nope, in fact, the other 99% of people that aren't out on a message board or forum somewhere are out scheming about how they're going to get their hands on "the hottest thing out right now" (<-- I seriously overheard someone call it that the other day). No one calls it the "iwishithada3.2megapixelandA2DP-Phone 3G. Because when it all boils down to it... the question many people ask themselves is: How can i get a reasonably priced device that is convenient, does all the stuff i need it to do, does it well, and doesn't completely SUCK BALLS, is fun to use, and allows me to carry less stuff around with me?
Comments
Really Apple, a smart phone is supposed to remind me about these things, not make me have to go ask every time I've stepped away from my phone. To some people a missed call means missed income, which is, like, a lot more important than being able to save a web page image.
Also, I would like the ability to selectively install language packages. These files may not be huge, but space is extremely scarce.
I too found contacts horribly slow. I have about 300 contacts sync'd from zimbra (exchange). I would click on it and then it would stall for about 10 seconds.
A colleague got a new iPhone, I setup the zimbra sync and he had about 300 contacts also, but when I clicked contacts for his iPhone, it was immediately responsive (within 1 second).
After reflecting, I realized the only difference is that I had taken pictures with the iPhone camera and attached them to contacts in the addressbook.
After I deleted the pictures from contacts, re-sync'd, I then fully shut-off the iPhone, and restarted, and presto, contacts was fast!
I have no contact pictures, and 165 contacts of varying amount of information, usually just a phone number, maybe an address and email. What bugs me is that the app takes about five seconds from start up to actually responding to input, and it doesn't give any indication that it's processing, it just looks stalled. If it needs to process the data, fine, but it should at least use that spinning animation to indicate that.
Regarding the SMS deal, it has not been a problem, but I've only used that app to read messages that came in as the phone was going through stages of activation on the other end of the service. I'm not going to use SMS at all unless I have no other alternative, certainly not going send any. It's just a lousy old standard that's absurdly priced for what it does.
1) There's no way to store a document of any size on your phone to consult. If I download an e-mailed spreadsheet or word doc onto my phone, then download the e-mail to my primary computer and delete it from the server, the attachment only stays on the phone for a day or two, then it disappears and Mail tries to download it from the server again.
2) My mailbox will only hold 50 e-mails. Beyond that, when new e-mails come in, the old ones get deleted.
It's just really clear that the app was designed with IMAP in mind, assuming that info would always be there on the mail server, available for refreshing. This makes using mail to store information (or even keeping up with your e-mail while on vacation) a less-than-ideal experience.
I'm also nonplussed at the continued lack of To Do support. To Dos are my single most important PDA application. I'm still carrying both a Palm and an iPhone, because I need the Palm's Tasks application. (Presumably a third-party app will fill this niche sooner or later, but I'm not upgrading to 2.0 until it's less buggy...)
Incidentally, the iPhone 2.01 update is now available for download. Perhaps that will correct some of the issues mentioned.
Thanks for the heads up. You've beaten every tech RSS feed I monitor.
edit: I have an issue with my RSS app not updating.
One of the biggest gripes I had about the iPhone 1.0.x software was that you couldn't save a number while you were on the phone, or in a call.
"Hey there, What's Bob's number?" oh ok, well let me go open a note, click new, type it in using the small number keys above the letters... then go back.. end the call.. go back into notes... REMEMBER THE NUMBER (since i cant copy and paste it.. and Notes.app doesn't parse out phone#s) and then go back AGAIN into the phone app and dial it!!!!
NOW.. i have the -- dare I call it -- "luxury" of being able to add someone to my contacts while simultaneously on a phonecall. This, IMHO, is huge. No matter how laggy the contact list is. Though 2.0.1 seems a bit better with this, and with battery life. (at least it seems like it so far)
The thing I think that a lot of people tend to forget, is that so many times we each evaluate the iPhone based on the tech-savvy, über-pseudo-geek people that we all are. The simple fact that we read this site, and took the time to create a login to make posts, makes us a part of this crowd. Simply put, this phone is targeted at both us, AND all those at the other end of the tech-spectrum - Our parents, aunts, friends, and others who could care less about how many megapixels the camera has.
Those individuals - like the poster who went on the rant about comparing the blackberry pearl to the iphone (as described in this article) - always make me laugh, because they're the people who really just don't quite get it. The freakin' SMS app doesn't really take 30 secs to load (ok, maybe that happened once to the guy who wrote the article) it may take 5 at most, but its usually instant. And what about the fact that iPhone does actually do a real backup (albeit, for some reason, a super long one) every so often, so if something happens to your phone you pick right back up where you left off. (that includes, texts, recent calls, settings, ringtones, alarms, images, passwords, everything.)I I'm unaware of any other phone that does this. Let us not confuse a simple 'sync' (which usually takes all of about 15 seconds at most for me with my iphone) with a full backup (which is what the article was talking about taking forever), because then your arguments fails to hold water!
Ok, I digress...
What I really mean to convey is that i think Apple is right on the money, for the most part, with what they are doing with the iPhone. It's not without its flaws, and glaringly absent features... but the funny thing is that even with all these missing features, and "problems" and shortcomings, it still remains almost impossible to walk into any apple or att store and just buy the phone - ALMOST A MONTH AFTER RELEASE. Obviously someone isn't paying attn. to all the whining going on throughout the blogosphere. Nope, in fact, the other 99% of people that aren't out on a message board or forum somewhere are out scheming about how they're going to get their hands on "the hottest thing out right now" (<-- I seriously overheard someone call it that the other day). No one calls it the "iwishithada3.2megapixelandA2DP-Phone 3G. Because when it all boils down to it... the question many people ask themselves is: How can i get a reasonably priced device that is convenient, does all the stuff i need it to do, does it well, and doesn't completely SUCK BALLS, is fun to use, and allows me to carry less stuff around with me?
And at this point, all signs point to the iPhone.