Time for me to drop the bomb on everyone with a little bit of real information about the iPod. The hypes exploding, fanboys and big name reviewers are giving apple the all around handjob on the iPhone since the review models have been going around and NDA’s are starting to lift.
Well let me just say it right now, I’m not going to lay down for apple, not because I don’t like apple because I’m sitting on a frigging macbook right now (albeit using Windows Live Writer via Parallels since theirs no MAC competitor worthy that I have found)
Well here I go, and let me try to be a bit thorough on these as well so people don’t take anything out of context. First of all as everyone knows he iPhone is NOT nextgen when it comes to its connectivity sporting EDGE and WIFI, no, not 802.11n or 3G, theirs nothing nextgen in the world about wifi and EDGE. Even Sprint doesn’t think edge is good, I mean they’ve got a 3G network, so the only group to blame is Apple for this idiotic move.
From early reviews, the virtual keyboard is horrible for the first few days but eventually you get used to it, but still remains to be a no go as far as thumb typing goes, no you’re still going to need to use the index finger to use it properly. Theirs a bit of irony when it comes to the whole iPhone as a music phone. Why? Well lets go over some things here, if you buy the 4gb iPhone your stuck with 4gb, because the iPhone doesn’t have any expansion slots, no MiniSD nothing on top of that the 4gb iPhone isn’t 4gb why you ask? Simple the OSX installation takes up 700mb of the drive! On top of that one of the big things people yelled at Microsoft for was having WIFI and connectivity in the Zune without being able to download songs from the device… Well it appears to have remained true for the iPhone as well because their is NO DIRECT ITUNES ACCESS, not via EDGE and not via WIFI.
But is that the worst thing when it comes to the IPHONE as a music phone? Nope actually theirs something so embarrassing that i fear to even say it! NO … I REPEAT NO SONGS AS RINGTONES! No I’m not talking the inability to use paid for AAC tracks, no not even a simple MP3 as a ringtone! Even my 120$ razr does that! How can apple sell a Music Phone that doesn’t embrace music? On top of that the cutting edge iPhone also lacks A2DP so sorry guys, apparently Apple doesn’t want to give up those little white headphone cords just yet, especially since the headphone jack has been reported to need an adapter for anything beyond the stock headphones.
For those iPod owners you’ll be less than happy to discover that the iPhone did inherit something from the iPod but its not something good in my opinion, non-removable battery! Dear god every other phone and device has one, but no not the iPhone/iPod god forbid! And yes to me it matters, I’ve had battery’s die on me left and right in devices the last thing i need is one locked inside my phone! Especially with apple confirming that the battery will max out at about 300-400 charges, im sorry but that doesn’t sound like a lot to me, especially considering estimates like this especially about batterys are normally over estimated. Ya you can send the phone in to get the battery replaced for a fee but why not just make it user changeable!
Next while youtube is available to iPhone users, its via a widget that from early reviews is only useful over the close range wifi, because the damn non-3g wireless connection is so horrid that EDGE basically makes the youtube feature unusable while on the road. But to make things even a little funnier is the fact that people didn’t seem to realize why YouTube in the iPhone wasn’t a “no duh” considering the great browser the iphone comes with… The reason is the SAFARI browser for the iPhone has NO FLASH SUPPORT, so the regular youtube wouldn’t have worked LOL!
Now let me get this out off my chest real quick, yes the iPhone has DOC and EXCEL and PDF support… but only for VIEWING, no editing or creation is possible. But some idiot told me yah but just use an online document editor, and since the iPhone doesn’t have any games (dear god even my frigging 30$ old nokia came with some games!) that I could go online and play… NO I CAN’T BECAUSE FLASH ISNT SUPPORTED, so their goes 99% of the webbased games! So no, online apps especially over EDGE does not forgive the iPhone for not having a native application.
Hell even if I do lower my standards to using an online document editor, the biggest mistake ever was the fact that the iPhone has no way to cut, copy or paste text! Yes you heard me right, so even if you do end up loading google docs to modify that word document you better not need to move any text around because your sh*t out of luck.
So while your out on the road not-youtubing, and not editing documents, why not snap a few pictures with the built in 2MP camera? Well Apparently according to Pogue over at the NYT, while the iPhone looks great in slow scenes, that have ample lighting, as soon as the light isn’t so ample, or theirs fast moving anything, it blurs the image and becomes farely useless. Ya the large screen makes the nice bright pictures look great but it just amplifies the fact that the darker images look less than great. Ok you know what, fine no phone really has a “great” camera, but with all the hype i was definitly expecting a better low light capable lens. But you know what i find utterly embarassing when it comes to this wonderful camera and the fact that the phone has 4/8gb of memory and a huge viewfinder lcd? The IPHONE DOES NOT RECORD VIDEO! Yes Apple loves youtube, yes apple made a widget for it and got them to port videos to H264, but did apple enable video recording or video -> youtube sharing? Nope NONE!
While I’m on the topic of the browser, let me just do some corrections to some other reviews that say that the iPhone’s browser is cutting edge and theirs nothing like it available anywhere… WRONG, Microsoft’s DEEPFISH browser that is almost identical works wonderfully and even works on non-touchscreen phones. Then theirs the new Opera MINI that also works on touch and non touchscreen smart phones, both are available now and will work on any smart phone. So calling the iPhone’s browser groundbreaking is a bit much, yes its the first phone to ship with it, but the software for every other phone is available out their for free download and has been (DeepFish is over a year old).
Is the iPhone sexy? Yes, does it appear to work pretty good as an iPod video replacement, yes, is it a groundbreaking earth shattering device work in excess of 600$ and a 2 year contract… HELL NO! Most phones that are over 500$ are business centric phones, that can run every application known to man and have software designed to do just about anything they could ever want to do. As I’ve pointed out above Apple left some serious holes in their newly launched phone. What’s upsetting to me is that most reviewers aren’t even touching on the problems their too busy praising how pretty the phone is, and how unique the interface is… I’m sorry but to me the interface or at least the home screen looks a lot like a blackberry with the aqua bubble effected square icons.
Hell most reviewers aren’t even mentioning the fact that the iPhone has NO INSTANT MESSAGING, no MMS Picture messaging, no voice recording, no voice recognition or dialing… I mean these are stock features on just about every phone, not to even recap all the other stuff I mentioned before! As a phone itself its not earth shattering either, with testers reporting moderate to good quality sound, and many noting that they’ve heard many phones with better voice quality. (Then again maybe that’s just because their stuck on AT&T? LOL)
So lets just say I’m a little less impressed by the iPhone than some of my fellow bloggers, and I’m not going to be camping waiting for a PHONE! Why? Because, it’s a PHONE!!! And on top of that with all the little screw ups, mainly locking it to a 2 year contract at AT&T and not including 3G support, the fact is the Meizu M8 looks like what the iPhone should have been, now theirs a phone I might stand in line for considering it’s specs and the fact its 12gb model is going to be less than a 4gb iPhone even with an iPhone contract discount!
Source: InHouse (Other Reviews: WSJ NYT USAToday NewsWeek)
PS: STOP CALLING THE DA*N IPHONE A HANDHELD COMPUTER! It can’t run custom applications, theirs no SDK’s, theirs no Instant Messaging, No Gaming, No Document editing, SO ITS NOT A COMPUTER, hell to some extent it barely falls under the term “Smart Phone”
