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Alec’s iPhone experience
Alec Saunders has a terrific post: iPhone: Brilliant. Frustrating. Alec has pretty much echoed my sentiments described at iPhone - Look but don’t touch and summarized beautifully with “I want to love this phone - it’s that good” but in the end he can’t due to its limitations, saying “The iPhone has the most potential to change the mobile phone industry of any device out there today, but it’s not the best phone … yet.”
Alec and I are in almost 100% alignment, but here are a few details I can challenge.
The network. [The Edge network is] so slow as to be unusable outside WiFi hotspots.
One man’s “useless” is another’s “adequate”. Edge is indeed slow. But it’s not useless on the iPhone. At least it provides a functional connection out of the box, in almost any area. The slow speed constrains what it can be used for, but it does work and permits on-the-go Internet access when there is nothing else available, for travel, news, and even Youtube movies, if you have some patience. Don’t forget that there is still a significant population of Internet users on dial-up and Edge is about the same performance, and somehow those users still find the Internet useful.
Stability. My other two favorite phones (BlackBerry 8300 and Nokia N95) crash, probably once a day.
Unrelated to the iPhone, but my N95 used to crash frequently. However, with software version V 20.0.015 and disabling a certain app (that shall remain nameless - you know who you are), the phone now essentially never crashes - it may still do so, but it’s infrequent enough that I can’t even remember the last time it crashed.
The browser. It’s a desktop class browser. Websites that don’t render correctly on any other mobile device work fine here
The exception is flash sites - The iPhone does not support flash in any way, shape, or form. Some say flash support is coming soon while others say it will never happen.
I’d also add a section on Fragility. This is probably one of the biggest reasons why I cannot make iPhone my primary mobile phone. It is simply too difficult to protect, and putting it in a large protective case sort of defeats the purpose of it being so light and thin.
Many people would also consider battery life an issue and in this regard, iPhone beats the N95 hands down.
Summary
As I state above, I think Alec highlights some key points, which I’d summarize as follows:
- So-called “Smart Phones” like the Nokia N95 have better hardware specs, but the iPhone does a much better job of making these features accessible to us mere mortals.
- Blackberry is still the number one device for extreme mobile email, bar none.
The iPhone is an incredible achievement for a first attempt at a mobile phone, but still has a way to go to be “the best ever”.
iPhone SDK, not quite
I have not had time yet to figure out whether Apple’s direction with the iPhone SDK is a good or bad thing. Apple will be taking the approach that they will be the only way to distribute apps, the gatekeeper. That sounds bad, but I’m told by people I trust that the process will be reasonable, better than the situation we have for distribution of freeware with Symbian Signed for Nokia phones.
The SDK is available now, in beta, but not for writing apps that actually run on the phone, if I understand correctly, but just for building apps and testing them (on a Mac, I believe). So they didn’t really make their promised February 2008 for release, but at least there is progress.
I’ll be spending some time with it and I’ll be particularly interested in comparing the software distribution options for iPhone vs. Symbian/Nokia. Could it be that we are actually headed toward a situation where the only open platform is Windows Mobile? How ironic would that be?
iPhone SDK promised date approaching
As many may recall, Steve Jobs had announced in October that Apple would be releasing its much-anticipated iPhone SDK (Software Developers Kit) before the end of February - I’m certainly not going to let them forget it.
Rumors are flying as the final days wind down. Some say it will happen next week - others say it will be delayed. One has to hope that Apple doesn’t follow in Nokia’s Symbian Signed disastrous ways. if they do, I guess we all have to become Windows Mobile developers or wait for Android.
PhoneGnome for iPhone and stats released
PhoneGnome launched iPhoneGnome, for using PhoneGnome on your Apple iPhone. The dialer leverages technology from friend Marcelo Rodriguez’s RingFree project, another very cool free service that also lets you use PhoneGnome on your iPhone.
PhoneGnome also put out some interesting stats on real-world usage by PhoneGnome users, showing a steady increase in on-net (pure IP to IP) calls. While two-thirds of minutes are still destined for a PSTN user, only a quarter of those are using the traditional carrier (the rest being delivered via VOIP services). Almost one-third of minutes are terminating to an IP end-point. Whether that means a 33% decrease in revenue for the telephony industry or whether it means people are just calling more, is not clear.
First experience with iPhone is totally lame
So I broke down and decided to get an iPhone to do some development (hopefully) with it. People have told me there were month-to-month options for AT&T service, but this is NOT TRUE. You have to commit to a 2 year plan. The best deal we could find was to add the iPhone to an existing account. We had to bump the service (increase of $20) and add the iPhone data service (another $20). That’s a $40 increase to our bill for a few more minutes and the data plan. Okay. A $960 commitment, but I can live with that (I guess). Then of course I wanted the $299 4GB phone (that they still advertise prominently in the store) but it’s not available anymore - so I have buy the $399 8GB version. Okay, so now we’re talking $1,400 but fine.
So the guy at the AT&T store sets all this up and takes our money. Supposedly pre-approving all the AT&T service changes. All I have to do is go to iTunes and it will all be great.
Except I open iTunes and NONE of the options that we already supposedly setup at the AT&T store while we waited were there in the iTunes activation. Instead it’s $40 more per month than we were quoted (adding another $960 to the total commitment/cost, bringing me to $2,400 or so now). Oh, this iPhone thing is a great experience so far.
My wife kept a cool head and found online (not readily available in the official AT&T or Apple materials) an 800# we could call for “manual iPhone provisioning” - this was obviously an offshore call center - but after explaining the situation, the rep. supposedly made the adjustments to the account so that we will get the plan we ordered at the AT&T store. I guess we’ll find out when the first bill comes.
Not the kind of thing I expect from an Apple product.
Apple’s iPhone hacker dilema
Everyone has heard about Apple’s threats regarding unlocked iPhones. On Monday, Apple issued this statement “unauthorized iPhone unlocking programs available on the Internet cause irreparable damage to the iPhone’s software which will likely result in the modified iPhone becoming permanently inoperable when a future Apple-supplied iPhone software update is installed.”
I’m sure this will scare off some people that had considered unlocking their phone. In my case, I have to admit that I was thinking about getting an iPhone now that they can be unlocked, but I’ve put that on hold for now.
It will be very interesting to see if Apple really even continues to pursue this tactic. On the one hand, they must have At&T/Cingular breathing down their neck about it, buton the other hand, just as Microsoft benefited tremendously from all the illegal copies of Windows flying about, one part of Apple must want to encourage the hacking.
It’s not a matter of what can Apple do, contractually, or legally. It’s a matter of what will the costs be if they burn too many people, or the wrong people, and really do cause iPhones to become “permanently inoperable” and refuse to fix them. Apple depends on their standing and reputation. Once they stop being “cool” they will have a hard time getting new customers on product features alone.
N95 vs. iPhone
I have tried to be fair in my appraisals of the N95. I have given the phone some strong praise (including calling it “addicting”) but I realize I have been critical at times as well.
The iPhone certainly has been receiving all the buzz of late, but it looks like we are beginning to see the euphoria waning a bit and people coming down to earth. Amy Tiemann expresses some buyers remorse in her article “My summer fling with iPhone”
Apple convinced me that the iPhone was the next quantum leap in the digital lifestyle.
Well, now that iPhone and I have been together for a couple of months, I wish I could kick it to the curb like a summer fling. Unfortunately, we’re bonded together by a two-year contract.
Martin Varsavsky says his iPhone was stolen and he’s not getting another one and provides a long list of reasons why.
I don’t have an iPhone. I offered to accept one, but none was forthcoming. 
Therefore, I can’t speak with first-hand experience, so correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe below is a short list of a few important things I can do on my N95 that I could not do with an iPhone.
- GPS. The N95 knows where I am, shows my location on a live street map, and offers real-time voice guided navigation.
- Shoot video. There’s irony in how much Apple brags about video and the iPhone, but while one can watch videos made by others with the iPhone, they can’t make videos of their own with it. At least they can watch the videos I shoot on my N95!
- Shoot real photos.The N95 shoots pictures that are comparable to modern digital cameras at 5.5 megapixels, certainly photo-quality, even for printing.
- Comfortably carry it in my pocket. The fragility of the iPhone is a major design flaw. The N95 is pretty rugged while still being light and small enough to survive my pocket.
- Download applications. I can install applications, both Symbian and Java (like PhoneGnome Mobile) on the N95.
- VoIP over Wifi. While the SIP capabilities on the N95 may not be perfect, at least it has them, including being configurable for any SIP provider.
And, one of the biggest differences of course is, with the N95 I can use any SIM card from any provider. I am not locked to a specific plan or carrier. This is an immediate show stopper for me when it comes to the iPhone — I’m never going back to a locked phone again. Consider the situation of international travel use where I can pop in a different SIM for different countries (really the only way to get decent rates abroad).
With a few of the harsh things I’ve said about the N95, it’s easy to lose site of how cool and powerful it really is. I do hope some of the iPhone user-interface simplicity and design rubs off on Nokia and the Symbian OS though (and other cell phones for that matter).
Don’t kid yourself. Apple’s iPhone strategy is an iTunes strategy
A lot of us would kill for the master hyping ability of Apple and Steve Jobs. What they achived with the iPhone is nothing short of incredible. And perhaps some of us are just being a little jealous when we write posts like those of Richard Stastny and Michael Robertson. For the most part, I agree with their posts, and I encourage you to check them out.
There is one thing that stood out for me in the comparison table by Michael Robertson between the Nokia E61 and iPhone:
I highlighted the one (and only) place where iPhone is totally unique: iTunes. Michael notes that Nokia is the world’s largest phone maker, selling more than twice as many phones as their nearest competitor, but none of them offer syncing with iTiunes — and they likely never will. This point gets lost in a bullet-point “features list” like the one above.There is no other phone today that will work with iTunes and this is the only thing that makes this phone stand out, really. The rest is fluff and window dressing, including the touchscreen. Someone can copy everything else about this phone, and as Michael’s chart shows, there are already phones that do more than the iPhone, in all other respects.
Personally, the fact that the wi-fi is crippled is a huge black eye for Apple and something that simply outrages me. It’s the kind of thing we expect from AT&T, but for Apple to be all over that is just painful. And it is a very slippery slope. But I digress.
The point is, everything about Apple’s iPhone strategy is really an iTunes strategy, to make iTunes central to one’s life experience. Will it work, given all the downsides and limitations of the iPhone product? Time will tell.
They want people’s attention, the way Google and Microsoft want our attention. That’s what iPhone is really about.
