First iPhone Review ... Unholy Smackdown!

[oalvarez]

WIRELESS
IPhone sets new bar
WSJ columnist Walt Mossberg calls Apple's new phone a beautiful and "breakthrough" handheld computer that has some flaws.
• Read Mossberg's review of Apple iPhone

what is it that Palm doesn't understand?

[bruckwine]

May I be devils advocate? All the reviews that will be out before June 29th will obviously be from those whom Apple picked to give them the more favourable reviews in advance (and thus propel the hype)....a better, more balanced review would probably be out next week (or month) from somewhere like pcworld or such. On the other hand the predictions of others might be as biased in not giving vredit where it is due esp w/o an iPhone of their own to test. Hence taking it all with a grain of salt until you can do-it-yourself.

[surur]

So, in short, it does some of what other smartphones can do beautifully, and may do the web even better, but lacks basics such as the ability to use other sim cards overseas, it cant record video, you cant save attachments, its only 2G, some features are cumbersome and slow to access, and you will have to wait for Apple to fix them, as there's no third party solution available. Rumours (by Archie) of a software upgradeable 3G radio were false, and it wont necessarily work with your Ipod accessories.

There was also no mention made of Zirconia.

Surur

[bruckwine]

David Pogue's over at NYT is a bit more balanced I feel if still leaning towards it:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/27/te...l?pagewanted=2

[surur]

But otherwise, you have to use AT&T’s ancient EDGE cellular network, which is excruciatingly slow. The New York Times’s home page takes 55 seconds to appear; Amazon.com, 100 seconds; Yahoo, two minutes. You almost ache for a dial-up modem.

Wow!

Surur

[Malatesta]

Well, guess I was right about the browser speeds over Edge, via Pogue:

The New York Times’s home page takes 55 seconds to appear; Amazon.com, 100 seconds; Yahoo, two minutes.

Damn, Surur beat me!

That's a long time and you haven't even clicked a link yet to go further into the site. No surprise though.

[surur]

Originally Posted by Malatesta

Well, guess I was right about the browser speeds over Edge, via Pogue:

That's a long time and you haven't even clicked a link yet to go further into the site. No surprise though.

Its scary actually, and the reason why we have mobile friendly sites in the first place. Apple's strategy is like an underwater bicycle - slow and unnecessary.

I like 2 quotes from MacRumors:

Well I guess people will have to turn off the images when browsing on Edge and find a wifi hotspot to use the device to it's full.

and

Well, if the iPhone is able to multitask like it looks like it can, then EDGE won't be TOO bad. Just start loading a webpage, hit the 'home' button, and then go do something else for a while.

This from a phone 5 years ahead of everyone else? Load a web page and go make a cup of tea?

Surur

[surur]

It gets better:

- No voice recognition or voice dialing

Surur

[Malatesta]

Some things are baffling like:

- no voice dial
- no 3g/mobile browsing option
- no GPS
- no search contacts/smarter way to dial
- no IM/MMS/Video/Zoom (even digital?)/Flash
- no mp3 or iTunes ringtones
- no select/copy/paste
- no doc editing

But, OTOH, I can bet that they have some large upgrades coming along in the next few months that will add or improve those functions--afterall, besides the 3g/GPS factor, all else could be implemented and I bet they will. Google is obviously getting very cozy with Apple and the iPhone.

The dialing thing is weird as it was Job's contention that everyone uses the "recently called list" to dial and "how dumb". Yet, the iPhone doesn't seem to really address this with just as many steps, if not more, to dial a number. That is a bit confusing as surely they could have come up with something more elegant?

[surur]

The elegance is in the swishing UI elements, not the efficiency of the interface. Its style over substance.

Surur