With all the hullabaloo about the second-gen iPhone 3G, and the insane amount of press coverage Apple is getting nowadays, I thought I’d release my own statement about why I could care less about the iPhone, along with a couple reasons why I’d love to have one.
10. Mobile Browsing & Location-Aware Apps are handy, but way overblown.
Yes, it’s neat to get on Facebook, MySpace, Jott, Remember the Milk, Digg, Slashdot, Fandango, and the like from your iPhone; but given the price-tag it’s easier just to plan ahead. The world existed before mobile web. Yes, you’re more productive. But I find it freeing to map out things ahead of time and come prepared for things.
9. Small Hard Drive Size
Yes, I realize I’m committing blasphemy here, but even though Solid State Drives are awesome, they’re just too small for the price point. If I’m supposed to put movies and videos and my entire music collection in just 8 or 16 gigs, I’m going to need to do some media dieting.
8. Early Adopters Tax
See my post about the Early Adopters Tax over at Tech Jaws. Those who felt the pain on July 11th or those who saw the iPhone price drop dramatically after they’d already shelled out $600 for a first-gen know exactly what I’m talking about.
7. The Best Features Still Require Jail Breaking Your iPhone
While Apple has done the right thing, so to speak, by releasing the Apps store for the iPhone and iPod Touch, that still limits you to their selection of Apple-approved apps. It wouldn’t be that bad if they’d just get on the ball with partnerships for more popular applications previously jail-broken.
6. More Google Love Needed
We’ve got love from Google for both maps and triangulation with faux-GPS (new models have true GPS I believe), but what about an iPhone version of Google Earth or Google Docs? What about Picasa integration? I will admit, GTalk is nice to have though.
5. Carrier Exclusivity
It’s been said that AT&T is subsidizing the costs of the newer iPhone models by raising the data plan required with activation. But what about other carriers and customers locked into contracts with other companies? Exclusivity for a while is one thing, but I don’t want to pay a cancellation fee to switch to inferior service coverage (in my area, at least, Verizon is king of the air) and then shell out another $300 to purchase the iPhone.
4. My 5th Gen Video iPod and LG VX9900 Still Work Fine
You may not have an iPod or any sort of mp3 player yet, and maybe your cell phone sucks. I just paid a lot of money a year or so ago for my cell phone, and a lot more for my iPod when I purchased my Mac Mini two years ago. They both work fine, and in a pinch my cell phone plays mp3s off the MicroSD card. I don’t need the two combined, because I hardly ever need both at the same time. Plus, the iPhone doesn’t fit my current accessories, so I’d need to get all new accessories. That’s what they count on for profits.
3. The Competition is Heating Up
A number of newer features such as Exchange integration are making the iPhone hot for business people, but honestly, there’s a slew of other phones that have been doing Exchange (yes, non-Blackberries) for longer and do it better.
The Samsung Instinct looks pretty slick, has a pretty touch-screen interface, and is getting rave reviews all around. Verizon has their new mirror-front phone that’s so reflective and shiny it’s sure to distract the A.D.D. gadget-hunters for the next few months.
2. The Gyroscope
One of the neat features about the iPhone and iPod Touch are their ability to sense which way you have them turned, and rotate the screen accordingly. This is due to a gyroscope inside the device. What it doesn’t do is recognize properly when you lean it straight forward parallel to the ground, and turn it left or right. Which means if your screen is rotated one way and you want it the other, it has no idea until you turn it straight up again. This bothers people who hold their phones at a right-angle to their bodies when dialing or doing anything else versus holding the phone out in front of them upright.
1. Battery Life
So, you can flip your phone back into 2G mode if you’d like to conserve some energy, only turning it on if you need it. But let’s face it, a few hours of talk time before dying is not going to cut it. It’s the same thing that’s happening with laptop battery life these days. It seems the more advanced we try to make devices the worse the power management gets. At this rate, you’ll have to start charging your phone twice a day instead of once every 3-4 days like it used to be.
Over all, I’d say the iPhone is still a great phone, but possibly not the best bang for your buck. A purchase like the iPhone is more about gadget-lust and aesthetics than a practical and useful tool. Not to mention letting it out in public is likely to get you mugged if you live in any sort of non-rural city.
I give Apple applause, however, for the improvements made in the second edition, including the flush earphone jack that no longer requires an adapter piece or special Apple iBuds. 3G is definitely a plus and I’m sure a welcome addition to the featureset for recent customers. And style enthusiasts surely appreciate the choice between black and white casings.
The iPhone – love it? Hate it? Let me know in the comments.
I have a PPC (VX6700) and I think it’s WAY better than the iPhone. There are a million apps for the windows mobile based device, so I like the flexibility and options available. Also it wasn’t to tough to figure out how to create my own custom ROM so if I need a hard reset, all my favorite apps (and contacts) are still there!! While it doesn’t have much internal memory I can keep 3 SD cards behind the battery door and one in the phone – that’s 8 gigs + every sort of program I could ever want. Maybe if Apple makes their source open, and looses the AT&T exclusivity I’ll consider getting the I phone. I too am on Verizon and love ’em…
Your a complete moron. Your so punk rock for not buying into the trend. You’ve really proven how unnecessary you are to the advancement of humanity.
STOP USING THE WORD “gigs”
It is gig. There is no ‘s’.
Fin.
@Pez, Jewsus: Man, you guys are so cool, coming to a blog to be pretentious douchebags. If you don’t have anything pertinent to say, don’t say anything at all.
I agree with some of these but not with others. Speaking as an iPhone user myself who didn’t want to jailbreak my phone, getting the app store was fabulous and some of the games are really slick, way better than anything any other actual phones people are using can render that I know of. The iPhone has full OpenGL support with graphics somewhere between the Wii and the DS.
Early adopters tax is a non-issue I think since that is true for any tech product so I don’t hold it against the iPhone or begrudge Apple for making the devices more affordable. The hard drive sizes are a bit small but without paying a lot more for the device I don’t think we’ll see any improvement in those sizes for at least another year or so when they will probably release 16GB / 32GB models. I don’t have more than about 2GB of music myself, so the 8GB size of my iPhone’s hard drive is a non-issue.
Also saying you have no need to have the devices combined is something I thought until I got an iPhone. Having your phone and your ipod at all times is great and saves room in my pocket. Also, ALL of your iPod 5th gen accessories will work just fine with an iPhone so you really don’t have to re-buy everything.
Overall i’m extremely pleased with the device because every other phone that tries to “look cool” and do the Apple thing has failed at it. The new LG and Samsung flashy phones have crappy interfaces and generally fail at being iClones.
The biggest claim to fame for this addition of the iPhone is it’s 3G. Big deal, My 8525 has has 3G for years. iPhone is just like other Apple products, you have to have the latest OS and anything less is outdated. 10.4 users are screwed for most 10.5 stuff, at least my PC will run anything dating back to Windows 98. Can’t run software anywhere near that old on a Mac…
I used to like Apple….now I can’t stand them. They are getting to greedy. I can’t stand the combination of MP3 player and phone, keep it separate. I hope this trend/phase ends soon.
It’s not fitted with a gyroscope lol. That’s a completely different thing. It’s called an accelerometer 🙂
@Squeaky: Well, look at that – you’re right! Maybe another version will use a gyro instead of an accelerometer.
“Early Adopter Tax” has just been repaid with interest by the latest software upgrade, nobody promised iPhone v.1 buyers that they would get 3rd party applications, now they got that and much more, a truly feature and value adding upgrade.
Very few phones actually get better as they get older, so that is pretty amazing feat.
Here’s my feeling on your points:
10. You are paying for the convenience of having those location aware services. Sure you could do without but its a great feature. Location aware photos’ maps, tweets, notes…Why wait till you get home or have to plan ahead?
9. 16GB is a pretty decent size. What other phones have more space than that? iPods and media players yes but not phones. It means you can’t carry entire media collections around but its still a decent amount of space. Plus with apps like Pandora and last.fm its like having an extended media catalog over your 3G connection.
8. This is a fact for gadgets, get used to it or don’t buy it. It’s not iPhone specific.
7. I agree there are some apps that require jail-breaking but I don’t think you can consider them the best features. And if you really think they are the best features then just jailbreak it. It’s still easy to do.
6. I am sure this is coming. Google knows it has a large userbase with iPhones.
5. If you don’t like AT&T then yes that’s a downside. If you dont mind AT&T its great. I had a first gen iPhone that I can upgrade to a 3G with no penalty.
4. For me having one do-it-all device is great. I travel and having just one device makes it all easier. Plus in the long run you don’t need multiple accessories, just one set as you only have one device.
3. I have played with a bunch of other phones and for me none of them match the iPhone. It is a matter of personal opinion and that’s great that we have so many options. I do agree though that there are better phones for business use. I probably wouldn’t go with an iPhohe for a corporate environment. Blackberry has the goods in that department and the experience.
2. Never had an issue with mine. It works flawlessly.
1. I charge my battery every couple of days. Sometimes each night if I have a heavy use travel day, but I have never had to charge it more than once a day even with my most heavy usage.
I don’t think its just about gadget-lust. It is great at almost everything it does and has become the one thing I could truly no longer do without.
Once upon a time there lived a man that never had an iPhone………….and he lived happily ever after.
It’s all a bunch of hype… As with most of Apple’s products, the “little guys” will come out with products that are SO much better… But no one will buy them because “OMG APLE IZ LIEK SO AWSUM!!!!11″… Pure hype
iphone 3g is nice but its not worth the contract / plan price or the unlocked version. A couple of days ago i was at a wholesale store here in Broadway (manhattan, ny) and i saw this guy buy 5 unlocked phone 3g’s for $1200 a phone. Its amazing how much people are willing to pay for this phone. Apple / AT&T have really built up a nice hype around this thing.
Hahaha you moron its an accelerometer not a gyroscope, those are the spinning things that don’t fall down until they run out of speed. Rants are always shittier if the person doesn’t know what they’re talking about
@Moron: Someone 7 posts before you already pointed that out, and I admitted I made a mistake in terms.
Congratulations, you’ve just won teh internetz!
i love my iphone but the battery life really is terrible.
I still have my QTEC 9100 and will only change for the new HTC Touch Pro… Loads of apps, included full qwerty keyboard and a lot more functionality… Including Video Call!!!
Joao´s last blog post..Lost Friend
i hate the iphone already i love my sidekick lx <3