iPhone: Review I
Posted Jul 2, 04:55 PM in Apple by Scott Conley
Well, here are my thoughts on the iPhone after 48 hours of ownership. And here’s my first iPhone photograph:
My Phirst iPhone Photo
Things they got right
- Can I rave enough about the multiple party conferencing? You can add three or more, making a genuine conference call without a bridge line.
- The display is phenomenal. In sunlight, it’s visible. In ordinary light, it’s knock-down brilliant. Video, etc is unbelievably nice.
- The magnifying glass is a nice feature. Even offset to account for your enormous finger.
- ‘Flicking’ and the scrolling-too-far metaphors in general are excellent and intuitive.
- The decision to put YouTube into its own interface.
- The iTunes-driven interface. Pulling updates (monthly?? Please?) will be seamless and an enormous advantage for Apple in the marketplace.
Things they got wrong
- Keyboard really is awful. No question about it. Works well enough in ‘conversational’ contexts, like SMS and email, but in ‘literal’ contexts like Address Book entries and other form-based behaviors, it’s index-finger-or-bust. There’s a lot of configuration to start out with, so we’ll see where we’re at once the config work levels off. Would it have killed them to allow any application to run in landscape mode (like a Sidekick)- the wider keyboard is a huge difference, and the phone is easier to hold this way, as well.
- Caps Lock is lost when going to the numbers/specials keys and back.
- No excuse really for no speed dial. Favorites is not enough. Some kind of finger-scribble on the home page would be interesting.
- Speakerphone speaker is too close to mic. Echo is common for other party.
- Copy and paste? Does not exist.
Opportunities missed
- Should have included that double-space-equals-period from RIM’s OS.
- Lots of opportunities for efficiency/workflow improvements.
- Contacts are only available through the ‘phone’ path.
- Delete key? Not even a shift-backspace?
- No Bluetooth sync is devastatingly disappointing to a guy who’s been waiting for the Apple Experience in phone ownership.
- Mail inboxes don’t aggregate into a single ‘new mail’ view. This is a big deal if you have four email addresses for various work and play interests.
- Could have used maybe one or two more physical buttons, perhaps around the perimeter or next to the home button. The ability to map these keys to some favorite functions or speed-dial would be a giant efficiency step.
- Improved integration with Yahoo’s push email service. Jobs himself touted this aspect in the keynote, and it’s been totally glossed over in the setup and documentation, by both Apple and Yahoo. Anybody doing email, however, is going to be hungry for this feature to save some battery down the road.
- The Mail client is a half-step too lightweight. There are no configuration options for ‘reply-to’ or other address masking, which would allow stronger use of the Yahoo! mail services. The whole ‘backfill-with-old-messages’ behavior is annoying.
Bottom line
It’s not everything I would have hoped, but it’s so easy to point out what is missing and gloss over the achievement here. It’s a gorgeous device with a phenomenal featureset: iPod, internet and phone. As a very experienced BlackBerry customer, I am definitely chafing under iPhone’s various (inefficient) workflow metaphors. However, I am willing to embrace Apple’s market agility and place some good faith into waiting for them to aggressively respond to the consumers via software patches to the phone. I am honestly excited to be part of this living platform and cant’ wait to see where this user community has gone in the next 12-24 months!
Apple has put up an iPhone feedback link – give them a peek and let them know what you think too.
UPDATE My man Ian put his last iPhone story up on the Globe and Mail’s website. I think I’m portrayed well, but it’s hard to say. I can’t decide if he’s subtly poking fun at me for all those “Canadian” cracks I put on him!
Ian Brown and I share burger secrets.
Rate this article:
(3 ratings)
Add your two bits?
Bits
Ian
Tuesday, July 03 2007
Tuesday, July 03 2007
What Alex said.
But if I need to clarify: you’re one of the most articulate software engineers I ever met. And a very generous guy, with a funny blog that deserves more readers. I wasn’t making fun of you in the least.
I can beat your burger, however.
On a related note, what makes you rare among tech analysts—and I’m not a tech writer, as anyone can see, so this is just an average person’s observation—is that you don’t suffer from personality-curdling vindictiveness and self-righteousness. I’ve been amazed by the number of calls I’ve had from anti-Apple types just villifying me for saying anything good about the iPhone. (And I’ve been writing about the iPhone frenzy, not about the iPhone itself).
In fact, another madman just left me a message on my (non-i)phone: “Heeey, Ian, like, you should find another line of work, man, because the N95 does everything the iPhone does, and did it sooner, and by writing about things you don’t know about you just give your paper a worse repuation,” blah blah ungrammatical blah.
Never mind I didn’t compare the iPhone to anything, and was writing about the hoopla, not the phone, and even found fault with it; it doesn’t matter.
How did this happen, that people came to be so attached this or that technology that it turns them into haters and narrow-minded fools? It’s no better (and certainly no more enlightening) than the extreme right-left crap you hear on Limbaugh or Imus, or the extreme no-go hatred between Islam and the West. Less important, yes, but no different in tone.
Really, I’m interested: how did that come about? Is it just a stunted adult version of the old 7th grade I’m-smarter-than-you trap? If so, it’s time to get a therapist.
Anyway, Conley, you aren’t like that, and I appreciated it.
Warren
Sunday, July 08 2007
Sunday, July 08 2007
Hi
Nice, balanced review … as far as it goes. But for a genuine user of the phone functions isn’t there an issue with a non-user-replaceable battery? Sure, (most) ipod-ers could live without the little music box for a few days while, but not their mobile phone! And with ipod & phone functions happening throughout the day, presumably wear & tear on the battery is greatly increased, so it’s more likely to go pffft than the venerable ipod.
Also, with an 8GB max, it’s surely not something to replace your ipod, just your nano. And while the screen is clearly fabulous, you aren’t going to be watching too many vid on it with that capacity!
Having said that, the iphone is clearly a thing of beauty and I’ll happily take one… at maybe v2.0. Or possibly the iphone nano stage!
