My first week with the Jesus Phone. While revolutionary, it isn’t exactly divine.
6 07 2007By Dana Brunetti
I’ll admit, I’m a bit of an Apple Fanboy and could not wait to get the iPhone. I’ll also admit that it is a revolutionary device and consumer electronics as we knew them now have a new bar to hit. And I’ll also admit that this device was probably rushed into customer’s hands without thoroughly thinking through all the aspects of its features and functions and therefore the iPhone does have some issues and is lacking some very basic things …. such as a To Do list.
It seemed that MSN recently had most of their homepage littered with links to articles bashing the iPhone and about the alternatives to it, but I would assume they would be biased, and like the Zune, want to see it miserably fail. Remember the Zune? It wasn’t that long ago. Many of these “What’s Wrong with the iPhone” lists are by Apple haters and consist of gripes focusing on what I think are silly issues like no downloadable ring tones or games. So what? Do you really need “Sexy Back” as your ring tone? And if you bought an iPhone already chances are you probably have a PS3, Xbox 360, and / or a Wii, so going from playing games on those consoles to a mobile seems a bit senseless. And if you really think you need games on your phone to pass your time, then you probably have too much time on your hands to begin with. OK, so it is not just a phone but also an entertainment device, so I guess if “Sexy Back” blasting out of your pocket to notify you of a call and playing and playing Brick Breaker are entertaining, then I’ll let you have that point, but I suggest watching a podcast or reading a blog with it instead for entertainment.
So, after the hype both good and bad and knee jerk reactions both good and bad, here are my “from the field” straight up reactions to the iPhone during week one. I don’t think I’m bashing the iPhone, but I’m definitely not holding any punches. I do this more out of love than hate and only because if these issues are resolved, then this device will be untouchable by other devices for a long while.
I got my 8 gig iPhone by having my assistant wait in line for 5 hours only to find out that Apple wasn’t going to face the same issue that Microsoft did with the Xbox 360 or that Nintendo did with the Wii, thus generating reported sales for Apple upward of 700,000 units and $200 million in the first week. To my chagrin my girlfriend walked right into an Apple store the next morning and bought one within 5 minutes. Also, she wasn’t forced to buy three accessories along with it as most that bought them at AT&T stores were. That takes me to problem #1…
THE AT&T MONOPOLY
Not that its just AT&T itself, as I believe all carriers have their issues and for every 1000 complaints about them, I’m sure there are 1000 for every other provider. The problem lies in giving one carrier a monopoly like this. It almost assures trouble and abuse by the carrier because if one wants an iPhone AT&T can treat you however they want and you the customer can’t tell them to stick it and go to another provider (well, that is at least until it is hacked and you’re able to unlock it).
It started the first day at AT&T with the mandatory purchase of 3 accessories to buy the iPhone. Then it continued when I ran into a activation glitch (I have a different billing zip code than the area code of the number I was transferring) which customer service had no clue how to fix, but thanks to reading online about others having this same issue I was able to sort out the problem on my own.
After I had my account set up with AT&T and went to cancel my T-Mobile account, I discovered on T-Mobile’s website that if you do a search for “how do I cancel my account” it gives a “no results found” response. Those poor other carriers and the mass exodus they must’ve experienced starting on June 29th. My girlfriend called to cancel her account and the customer service reps response was “let me guess, you got an iPhone?”
Then the problem with AT&T continued when I realized how bad their signal / reception was. I would literally leave the phone sitting in the same spot next to a window and watch the signal strength go from 5 bars of full service to 0 bars and no service from one minute to the next. Also, their EDGE data service is incredibly slow and out dated. (The iPhone’s WiFi though is a great feature and I am usually able to get on a nearby network when doing any data intensive web browsing or YouTube watching.)
The AT&T problem continued still when I went to return 2 of the 3 ‘required purchase’ accessories. The salesperson informed me that the case was returnable, but the 512MB Thumb Drive was not. When I pointed out it was unopened and still in its original packaging, he stated that Flash memory was non-returnable. I then pointed out that nowhere on the packaging nor in the fine print on the back of the receipt did it state this. He still said no, and I said get me the manager. The manager came out and quickly gave me the refund when I pointed this out to him and voiced my displeasure of the ‘required purchase’ when my girlfriend had walked into Apple and bought a iPhone with no other mandatory purchases.
EMAIL / MESSAGING
One of the biggest issues I have being a former Blackberry user is the lack of Push email except for Yahoo Mail, but it has no IMAP and doesn’t work with Yahoo business mail. If it can be done with Yahoo Mail, then it surely can be done in other ways as well and Apple or somebody like GMail should jump on this, as this is a big reason business people will shy away from the iPhone.
A work around for the lack of Push email would be to forward your email to a @yahoo.com account that is Push with the iPhone, but you are unable to set your return address to display your desired email, therefore any messages you reply to will have the @yahoo.com address displayed, therefore unprofessional for business use and kinda senseless when you have your own domain with email and are using a $600 device. Nothing like trying to close a major deal and replying from a @yahoo email address. An easy fix would be to add the ability to add a “Reply From” option in the Yahoo Mail set up process or Advanced settings giving you the ability to ‘mask’ the fact that your email is going through a @yahoo address. Right now that all appears to be locked down. Hopefully this option will not even be needed if we get a Blackberry style IMAP system from Apple’s .Mac or some place like Gmail that not only does push email, but also keeps all the email on your laptop, desktops and iPhone in sync.
Other email and messaging issues:
- When sending SMS messages, if the message doesn’t go through, you must
manually resend as opposed to automatically attempting to resend on its own. Many times when I am sending SMS messages is when I’m on the run and don’t have time to monitor that it even went much less have to manually attempt its delivery again. And it is bound to happen that I will text and think it was delivered only to discover later that it is still sitting there unsent, and with no alert! This feature should be set it and forget it, and if after multiple automatic tries at resending, there should at least be a alert or notification that it didn’t send. - The screen that lists all of your email accounts should give you the ability to sort them in the order you want, but instead it simply lists the accounts in the order they were created. The only option to get them in the order that you want is to delete the accounts and set them back up in the order that you want them displayed.
- You should be able to go right to your email messages rather than a screen listing each account and then it’s folders for all, then the inbox. This results in having to click multiple times to check a mailbox’s messages especially if you were in another mailbox on the last session and are returning to check another mailbox in which you then have to back out in the same amount of steps and then go back into the other account in the same lengthy process.
- The settings for email accounts should be customizable for each individual account rather than for ‘all or none’ as it is now. Many may want the amount of time to check for new messages set at different increments for each account. As well, the email signature for your business account may be one of the required long legal ones, but you may not want that on your personal email, but too bad, you can only set up one signature that is then set for all. This could easily be fixed by putting these options in the advanced menu of each individual account set up rather than in the general email settings that cover all accounts.
- The Mail needs better message management, such as a “sort by” function, ability to mark messages read or unread from the preview screen, the ability to flag messages, select more than one message for deleting, filing, marking read, etc.
There is no visual notification of new email when the screen is off (i.e. a flashing light) nor an icon or indicator when you’re at the lock screen. To see if you have new mail (if you didn’t hear the non customizable alert) you have to unlock the screen, enter your pass code (if you have one set, and you should) and then look at the number in the red circle on the Mail icon. This red circle and number should also be in the menu bar on the top of the lock screen by the signal strength and time.Speaking of the red circle on the mail icon, if you have more than one email account set up, you don’t really know which account has the new email as it tallies them all together. And if you don’t remember how many unread / new messages were in each account then you must go into each account, again requiring multiple taps each way - Account name > Inbox > messages and then the reverse to back out and repeat for next account until you figure out which account has the new message. If you’re like me and have multiple accounts set up, then hunting for that new message can be a pain as it is more time consuming and frustrating than it may sound.
- You cannot save or transfer photos to the phone from received emails. My girlfriend sent me a picture to use as my desktop only for me to discover that I could only view it in the email message and not do anything else with it other than forward it on to another email address. The same goes for other files such as Word Documents and PDF’s. We need the option to save files from emails.
- It would also be nice to be able to select which address you would like to have an email sent from, or even see which one you are sending from. A nice feature when you have multiple business accounts and personal accounts on the same device, to help prevent any mix ups and replies going to the wrong accounts inbox.
KEYPAD / SCREEN
Another big concern that people seem to be having is with the keyboard. I was at first a little clumsy with it as well, but got the hang of it once I learned to “trust” it and type away without worrying about mistakes or missed keys as the predictive text does do a extraordinary job and I am now faster on it than I was on my Blackberry. In fact, most of this the text for this post was typed on the iPhone. However typing with one hand (and many of the iPhone functions) becomes much more difficult, if not near impossible compared to the Blackberry or Treo.
Also, the magnifying lens that pops up to aide in moving the cursor around is neat, but I think that a scroll ball or wheel would be much more effective and can be operated single handedly. Speaking of, what is the secret to getting the magnifying lens to pop up to move the cursor? Most of the time I end up moving the screen up and down and having to peck and tap until it finally shows up. Is there a particular method for getting it to more easily pop up such as a double tap or tap and hold? If so, I haven’t figured it out.
More Keypad / Screen issues
- The keypad letters should change from lower case to upper case on the “keys” to distinguish from when you have caps on or not. Being that it is not a physical keyboard and it is on screen and in the software I would imagine that this as much else I list here will be implemented in future updates.
- There needs to be an easier way to make a period. The easiest way would be by having one added automatically after the space bar is tapped twice, or by putting a period key on the main keyboard screen.
- The pass code lock only gives the options to lock immediately or after 1 minute rather than being adjustable or even giving more presets such as 5, 15, 30 minutes, and 1, 2, 6, or 12 hours.
- To view videos, phone must be turned to the left (counter clockwise), however the hard / physical buttons for the volume are on the bottom thus pushing the button left turns the volume up and vice versa, but the indicator on the screen is moving in the opposite direction. An easy fix for this would be to simply require the phone to be turned to the right (clockwise) for viewing videos thus putting the buttons at the top and correcting the orientation.
While I’m on it, all apps should rotate to wide screen when the phone is rotated.
PHONE
Answering calls when the screen is locked (which is most of the time), there is only one option presented which is “slide to answer” and no decline option, however there is a ‘Decline’ when the screen is not locked, which a less amount of the time. This can cause for some embarrassing situations for when you cannot take a call nor let it continue to ring. I have learned to hit the sleep button at the top of the phone and that stops the ringing, but does not decline the call.
There is no ‘cancel’ or ‘ignore’ on the voicemail notification on the lock screen when a new voicemail comes in. Could be a problem if the message comes in from someone you don’t want others seeing.
The contacts should be able to be accessed on it’s own outside of the phone program and with the ability to search for a contact using the keypad. Having thousands or even hundreds of contacts makes the cool scrolling feature not so cool when you have to scroll and scroll to get it. You can tap the letter on the right of the screen to get to that area, but even in then you have to scroll and scroll if you have a lot of contacts. Simply typing the first few letters (as in the mail program) would be ideal.
BATTERY
The battery life is not as bad as most expected, but the fact that the battery is internal and not removable is a bummer and sucks that like a iPod the iPhone must be sent in for service for battery issues rather than being able to simply change it out. I have noticed that actual talk time seriously sucks down the battery and it seems that the battery hangs around full to 3/4 but then drops off rather quickly once it gets below the 3/4 - 1/2 range.
I’ve been spoiled by the Blackberry ability quickly charge and long battery life. Anyone who has one can appreciate their battery life, but even more so their batteries ability to quickly charge. The iPhone however doesn’t share that luxury of a quick ‘fill up’ on the run with a short charge and getting a large boost in battery.
Also the cable for syncing and charging needs to be longer. It’s fine for an iPod, but not for something you may want to email or talk on while charging while using the wall charger. Most other phone chargers cables are long enough to accomplish this.
OTHER ISSUES
- There is no To do app, therefore your iCal To Do lists don’t sync from your computer to your iPhone to take with you so you can get things done on your To Do list. Even the iPod has a To Do list!
- There is no ability to select text or cut and paste in any app. Come on, even in version 1.0 this should be a no brainer!
- Speaking of no brainers, did I mention there isn’t a To Do list?
- When a Note is deleted there in no way to undelete or retrieve it from trash. So delete that thesis with caution.
- I didn’t expect it, but it would be nice to have the ability to view flash sites and files as well as QuickTime files embedded into sites and received in email, although one report says it’s coming soon.
- A big problem that the iPod also has that the iPhone shares is that you are unable to sync between more than one computer. It would be great if I could keep my iTunes, iPhoto, and other media in sync on my home iMac, Mac Book, & work G5 via my iPhone (or even an iPod, or a beefier .Mac).
- Hopefully we will also soon see an iPhone ready iTunes store or app with the ability to download content directly to the iPhone.
- The Bluetooth on the phone works great for headsets, but that’s it. You cannot use it to connect to a computer for syncing or to play audio for music and movies through a set of wireless headphones.
- There is only one hard / physical button at the bottom of the phone, yet plenty of unused real estate for a few more. Next gen iPhones will hopefully utilize this unused space and give us buttons that can be customized for the apps we want them for. Also, a scroll wheel or ball should be considered to assist in one hand operation.
Also, I recommend buying the Incase protective cover. It fits like a glove and not only protects the phone, but also makes it easier to grip while typing and helps prevent it from sliding around inside your car. However it does make it slightly harder to take in and out of your pocket, yet that can be considered a benefit by helping prevent accidental loss or pick pockets, however can be a pain when urgently trying to answer a call (at least it won’t be adding to the embarrassment by blaring “Sexy Back”). The cases come in a variety of colors which help if your office or house has more than one iPhone to prevent from accidentally picking up and taking off with the wrong phone (and I’m speaking from experience having had Blackberry Pearls at both the office and home and having mine taken by mistake). The case doesn’t add much size to the device either making it barely noticeable. Actually apple should consider making the next gen iPhones with a rubberized casing for both protection and grip without the added size a case brings (although not much size added in this care – no pun intended).
CONCLUSION
All that griping said, I will be sticking with the iPhone as a replacement for my Blackberry as the one thing any iPhone hater needs to remember, it is more about the software in this device than its hardware, and it is currently only version 1.0. Most of the complaints above and beyond can easily be fixed with simple software updates, including giving us the ability have “Sexy Back” as a ring tone.
To Do List for iPhone:
http://www.tadalist.com/
http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/502-ta-da-list-for-iphone
Regarding Flash, this phone does AJAX (the browser technologies used by most web 2.0 sites), instead of requiring a proprietary plug-in. And this phone does H.264, an open and widely available video codec, as opposed to Flash which uses a proprietary video codec (On2 VP6).
It’d be nice if Apple sticks to open web standards and open codecs. Probably won’t, but it’d be nice. It’s a pleasure not seeing Flash ads, and video picture quality in H.264 is like a breath of fresh air.
Cap key glows in uppercase mode
Silence a call
Press the Sleep/Wake button once, or either of the volume buttons.
Decline a call
Do one of the following:
Press the Sleep/Wake button twice quickly.
Press and hold the mic button on the headset for about two seconds, then let go. When you let go, two low beeps confirm that the call was declined.
Tap Decline. Decline appears only when you’re using iPhone.
Thanks for the article. I really appreciated the information. Apple needs to pick up the ball and play on this.
If you hit the sleep button twice in succession when a call is coming in, it will decline the call. This was talked about in the tutorial videos Apple released, and is also covered on page 27 of the users guide.
Double click the sleep button to decline a call when locked.
It’s really sad what’s happend to websites. We see one paragraph,
and then a *LINK* to read the rest. Why? Then we see a page. Then
a *LINK* to read the rest. Why? Then another page. Then another
*LINK*. (with really LONG load times) Why? This is totally unnecessary.
It’s just text. My browser has scroll bars! I once saw another
browser that also had scroll bars!
And check spelling PLEEEZE.
Eh..sounds like version 2.0 is where it’ll be at!
Oh boy…..I only had to read the 1st 4 paragraphs of the AT&T experience to realize that you and I are probably going to have the same experience with the iPhone and AT&T’s horrible service.
It is so bad, especially the part about the signal going all over the place, that I am seriously wondering if I should keep the phone. As great as the iPhone is, it’s of no value when calls drop and it takes 30-60 seconds to get a signal back. (I called AT&T…their solution? Turn the phone on and off. My brother’s solution, who is clearly considerably smarter than they are? Turn on airport mode and turn it off again)
Another explanation that AT&T offered me as to why my calls drop so much in New York is that there are TOO MANY TOWERS and that the phone drops when handing off from one tower to the other. While that might be a technically correct answer, it really doesn’t solve my problems of dropped calls.
Sometimes I feel like the iPhone is a Porsche without gas. And sometimes I feel like throwing the phone, a feeling I haven’t had since I last had AT&T circa 1997.
Bhavesh
a pretty good list. a few responses:
- for a temporary solution to the To Do list, use Tada list.
- to decline a call while locked, hit the sleep button twice
- an easier way to type a period or comma (or anything from the numeric keyboard) is a “soft-period” where you touch and hold the numberic keyboard key and without lifting your finger, slide over to the period. when you lift up, you return to the alphabet keyboard.
here is my own gripe list (from my similarly-themed blog).
Double press the sleep button to send a call right to voice mail. RTFM.
A rumored upgrade will fix some of these issues.
Double-tapping the sleep button will decline the call.
While the phone is locked you can double tap the sleep button to decline a call.
Thanks for the review. This is by far the most complete review I’ve seen. I think the primary reason people are miffed by the lack of music ringtones is that it’s practically unheard of in a cell phone sold today. This is even more true given the fact that it’s marketed as an ipod + smartphone. I agree that it’s likely to be fixed in a future software revision, but this is something that should have been ready day one. It seems the iphone can do everything the ipod can do, except for play games. Since it can play both videos, and music purchased from itunes, it should also at the very least play games. Again, this is also something cell phone users have grown accustomed to.
I liked your review. If apple listens to all the bloggers like yourself, the iphone will indeed become the device that it truley should be. Also, your pun at the end of you article is ruined by a typo.
You said earlier that there’s no point in having “Sexy Back” really playing out of your Iphone, and to playing video games on it, yet what’s the point of accessing the internet in hot spots and looking at a tiny little touch screen when you could just take your computer? *shrugs* SOmetimes technology is so silly.
I want increased storage. How am I supposed to fit my music collection, plus movies and photos into 8 gb? That’s at least ten times too small. I want a hard disk and I don’t care how much battery power it consumes either.
If you hit the sleep button twice when there is an incoming call, the first one mutes the ringer and the second one sends it to voicemail.
Lot’s of your complaints are understandable but at the same time irrevelant. None of the issues hinder the performance of the phone..only the customization of it…more or less cosmetics. However, some of your arguments are well said. I thing to point out though is Yahoo! Business mail is quite easily accessable through the iPhone. I have set up numerouss businessmen’s iPhone who have Yahoo Business email accounts…and when they send mail it has the correct address attached to the email. One last commnet, if you have gone through the entire setup of mail you will find that IMAP is available and works great. There might be a little bit of pilot error that needs to be factored in at times.
You point out the problem with the ‘.’ on the keyboard. There is a nifty shortcut that was pointed out by someone else.
For either the “.123″ or “ABC” key (to bring in the alternative keyboard). If ALL you want is ONE character from that alternative keyboard do this: Click AND HOLD the “.123″ or “ABC” key… the other keyboard appears… WHILE HOLDING slide your finger to the desired key. Release your finger and you will get your key AND the original keyboard will return.
Nifty, and not in the manual (that I could find). Makes all those one-time alternative keys a single keypush, not 3.
i mostly agree with everything you said. just an fyi- you can decline a call when the screen is locked by double clicking on the sleep button…
sensible, well-balanced review. Nice one
Uhh, double tap the sleep button and it declines. Manuals are good things if you want to write an article :-).
I quoted the wrong text.. I meant to quote:
For the record when you want Apple to add a feature, DO NOT make a big public posting about it. Issuing a public challenge to Apple to say, make a conventional two button mouse is exactly the wrong way to go , as you can see from the Mighty Mouse, which is quite unconventional, to the frustration of some (although I like it — can’t do without side scrolling in Photoshop once I got used to it). Instead of throwing down a gauntlet for Apple to ignore, instead make an accurate, reasonable bug report/feature request using the Apple Bug Reporter, accessible at https://bugreport.apple.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/RadarWeb.woa . (”Developer” account required, but I suspect that anyone who has an Apple ID can log in.) I’ve found the engineers to be extremely good at listening to my reasonable, well-explained bug reports and feature requests, and I believe this is the best route for others to use, too, although I’m not sure how iPhone-oriented this site is, as it may be geared towards OS X/Mac/iApp related content, judging from the menus. Case in point. I pointed out one of the most frustrating Finder issues (for me) in OS X, mainly that you can resize icons but they’re still the same distance apart, meaning that you can’t really fit more icons in a small window. I explained to the engineers, who are likely not OS 8/9 folks, how good the “stipple icons” and icon width options were in OS 8/9, and why we needed it in OS X (some screens are still quite small and it’s frustrating not having control over how your files are displayed). Well, OS 10.4 will have this feature, and I’m proud to have been the one who (almost certainly) got their attention on the issue. I mean, a couple of times Apple engineers called my *house* because they needed more information on some of the bug reports I’ve made. (I also believe I’m responsible for explaining to the Apple Store Japan just why it was unacceptable that they sell all Powerbooks with those wretched JIS keyboards and getting them to offer alternate keyboard options, back when they first launched their direct sales in Japan.)
Well said man.
i’d also add the ability to tether to a laptop to get it online via bluetooth - or hell even the ipod cable. i used to use that a lot with my 8525. oh, and syncing to a bluetooth GPS receiver would be sweet, also.
Whiner.
have your forwarded these comments to apple R&D yet for firmware updates for the iPhone and future models?
A very thoughtful and well-written article. Even while being written by a self-professed fanboy, this struck me as very unbiased. It’s nice to see someone with a level head talking about the iPhone for a change.
Hit the sleep button twice. As per the manual (you DID read the manual first, right?), hit it once to silence the ringer, twice to punt the call to voicemail.
You said that it doesn’t have IMAP? It does. I IMAP on my iPhone. It’s how I connect to my Fastmail account.
It drives me bananas when someone tells me that I shouldn’t complain about a device because it doesn’t have that functionality. What if I want custom ringtones. I mean every phone since 2000 has custom ringtones. HELLO APPLE, this is 2007 custom ringtones are an expected feature to a phone. What about games? I mean I remember playing games on my phone in 1997, ten freaking years ago. WTF Apple? I paid $600 for this I don’t have games to play on my phone?? I was REALLY REALLY looking forward to the iPhone, but I am so disappointed by this device. I really hope they whip out an update for this thing fast.
To get the mignifier and cursor all you have to do is press and hold the screen near the text that you want to edit.
If you get an incoming call while the phone is locked, pressing the sleep button once silences it, and pressing it again sends it to voice mail.
Well put! You’ve hit it right on with many of the deficiencies I’ve noticed using my iPhone as well. Hopefully we’ll see an update in a few weeks to start down the road of fine tuning this excellent device.
You CAN sync with multiple computers. Though I don’t know if you can sync with a Mac and a PC.
http://westonshead.blogspot.com/2007/07/iphone-sync-with-multiple-computers.html
I could care less about games and custom ringtones as I never used them on my old phones. But the SMS app could use some help:
Tap and hold on a message to bring up a menu with Resend, Forward, and Delete options. I resend the same messages a lot and it’s a pain to retype them daily. I’d also like to be able to delete one or more messages without having to wipe out the whole conversation for that contact.
custom ringtones are tacky.
i’m a product pro for at&t (product pro = specialist position for iphone created by at&t).
i was very excited when i heard the job description, and did as much research as i could. like everyone else, i thought it had everything. i found different when customers interrogated me at launch and throughout week 1. i didn’t even receive official training! i could handle most questions, but many customers caught the points you mentioned here immediately. i’m very disappointed in both apple and at&t. the fact that activation took place at home made our reps happy due to less work, but it ended up being more of a hastle for everyone. i’m sure many activation problems could have been avoided or solved upon purchase if it had been left in the hands of at&t employees. i’m so fed up with it that i offer to help customers setup their iphones free of charge after work.
also, you may have been better off visiting another at&t store. my store had no mandatory accessory purchases… at least not to my knowledge. i only demoed the phone to waiting customers, so i could be wrong.
though i’m disappointed currently, i’m sure apple will fix some of the software problems in the next few updates and some of their hardware problems with gen2. unfortunately, i have no information about any updates. better luck next time.
You’re the first reviewer I’ve noticed that mentioned the lack of a To-Do list. I went to the AT&T store to buy one but when I gave it a really serious looking over I couldn’t believe there wasn’t a real to-do list on there. Jeebus. Here’s a couple of things I use my PDA for (a lot)… to-do list and a password safe. (notepad is a poor substitute for a real to-do list… and Ta-Da is online… I’m not using an online app for something that fundamental) To think I’d be giving up those 2 apps to get a really, really pretty phone… I just couldn’t do it.
[…] What sucks about the iPhone […]
Great Report… It’s like I wrote it myself…
You hit the nail right on the head
Did you notice the Alarm clock has a bug where you can’t turn it off? The mail support is subpar i agree… I have an interesting workaround… going to try yahoo been using gmail…
I have to say that the AT&T thing is what killed my iPhone purchase. In my area the AT&T (former Cingular) coverage is pathetic…no let me put that as PATHETIC. If Verizon could sell me an iPhone I would have had one day one, and I am absolutely NOT an Apple fanboy. I am predominantly a Microsoft guy, but this appears to be an awesome device and that is what really matters to me - not who made it.
On the push mail front - my thinking is that the iPhone is not supposed to be a smartphone for business users. If it IS supposed to be for business users then the lack of push email is a deal killer when almost every other smartphone has a way to do this (not just crackberries).
I think Apple’s thought was that this would be a smartphone for everyone else. In that case it isn’t a killer to not have push email; the other functions trump that for a personal, non-business device.
The true KILLER APP for the iPhone has yet to appear, or even be much discussed. In view of its microphone and included OS X, isn’t it obvious that this would be DICTATION software, like iListen perhaps, that would permit a user to dictate an outgoing Email, or dictate a text file into a simple word processor, perhaps like TextEdit, that could later be printed, etc.
Now THAT would boost the usefulness of the iPhone enormously, no?
I agree with about half of what you say, and disagree with the other half. Most of your comments on ringtones, to do lists, and email account preferences effecting all accounts instead of just one were quite well noted. However I completely disagree about more buttons, this would be foolish. Also though it may not be ideal, I think it is perfectly fine that email accounts are un-orderable. Also, some good suggestions about adding a period with 2 spaces. Cut and paste, brilliant, saving attachments, brilliant. I have wanted to save pictures or word docs to the phone for easy sync later. Instead I am forced to forward the message to another email account, or remember a website for the next time I am at a computer. Would it be so hard to add a download folder? Even if the files were unreadable by the phone, it would save some time.
All in all, the best and most honest assessment of the iPhone I have read to date. Well done.
Thanks for the insights!
Your friends over @ http://www.asktheadmin.com
Correct if I’m wrong, but it seems to me Yahoo! only checks forwarded email
from an outside account when you click on ‘download email from other accounts’ using the web interface, thus making PUSH that more tricky.
[…] if your iPhone has a dead pixel? Dr. Macenstein is here to help. The iPhone is great and all, but this guy says it can be better. iPhone […]
You’re wrong about your MSN assumptions. They didn’t have a bunch of articles slamming it, in fact one praised it.
IIRC you can answer the phone without sliding to answer. Just hold it up to your ear and the proximity sensor should trigger the call.
Note: I haven’t tried this yet, because I’m still getting used to the non-visible features (like power tap to silence, double tap to sent to voicemail).
Apple’s Mail.app has never really supported your mail needs. I probably have over 20 addresses (I make new addresses when I need them if I’m concerned it might go to a spammer), and I really hate that Mail has never supported return addresses that aren’t fully configured accounts.
But it doesn’t, because it’s a home based OS foremost, and ease of use (if you can’t set up a full account, it must not be a valid return address) comes first. This is fine, since Apple probably rightly assumed several years ago when Mail.app came out that power/business users would already have another Mail client they preferred.
iPhone Mail is even moreso set up for home grade mail. It makes each account it’s own directory tree, rather than combining into Inbox, and uses the return address associated with whatever mail account tree you’ve navigated into.
But what I want to know is why you have more than one account on your iPhone?
My college (now alumni), my gmail, my ISP, my contracting company, and my client company mail accounts all forward to my real email address (this also let’s my server spam filter whatever gets past other accounts spam filters). Then rules sort this mail into smarter IMAP folders (several addresses go into a single WORK folder, personal addresses stay in the Inbox). My iPhone connects via IMAP and gets my personal and work addresses, and is set up with a generic return address that is ok to use for both work and personal if I need to send mail from the iPhone.
Yes, there are two major issues with this set up:
1) I rely on my desktop running Mail.app 24/7 to presort incoming mail from various accounts into the correct IMAP folders, if you can’t do this, you’ll have to manually sort your inbox. If mail servers allowed user rules, this would be much better.
2) My iPhone return address can only be one address. Annoying, but with Safari, I can always log in to webmail (I run a OS X mailserver at home to give me control of spam filtering and unlimited mail accounts) if I really need to change the return address. If you don’t have webmail access to your forwarded accounts, you’ll have a harder time changing return addresses when necessary (like unsubscribing via email).
Hopefully, Apple sees that they have created a need to now enhance Mail.app to allow you to have a pop up list of return addresses separate from your mail accounts so you can included aliases and forwarded accounts and this should solve most problems (server side user settable mailbox rules would make it perfect, but that’s not something Apple has control over). There wans’t the need before, because you had a choice of mail clients… iPhone is the first time Apple has to give you the needed features, rather than giving you a basic home use client to get you started until you found a better 3rd party client.
But in your case, I still don’t see why you’d need to have multiple mail accounts to check, I’ve found all my accounts of various sorts allow forwarding (work lets me forward a copy), and I forward to the IMAP account I have the best control over. I highly recommend it.
[]But in your case, I still don’t see why you’d need to have multiple mail accounts to check, I’ve found all my accounts of various sorts allow forwarding (work lets me forward a copy), and I forward to the IMAP account I have the best control over. I highly recommend it.[]
I have various email accounts for personal and business that I don’t necessarily want to use for one another nor have them all replying with one address, and as I state in the post, the iPhone will not allow you to select which email you want display as the “reply to” as you can such is with Gmail or even Apple Mail. Therefore the multiple accounts on the iPhone are required to accomplish this.
I’m waiting for the true killer-app on iPhone, Skype! We all still have to remember that this is a version 1.0 product, it can only get better from here.
Very good review - I also gave myself a week to feel out the Iphone. Now I am hooked on it.
First thing that I noticed - from ATT - is that my first bill was prorated from the 29th to their billing cycle which began on the 2nd- incurring 5 dollars more - but I didn’t see any roll-over prorated minutes.
One thing people should realize is the IPhone is a totally ‘different’ kind of cell phone - and comparing it to other phones is kind of mute. Once you get ‘use’ to the function of the IPhone - its easiest cell I ever used. I can answer phone - (unlock - answer - chat - hang up) with one hand now.
Great phone al in all.
[]I have various email accounts for personal and business that I don’t necessarily want to use for one another… []Why not? If it’s good enough for the RNC and the gov to use personal accounts for official business… jeessuzzzz… just saying
Now a whole bunch of whiners have joined together- come on, I still think it is a wonderful little device. I am not a business user, so yahoo mail is fine. Haven’t needed cut and paste so fa in this past month of using it.
But thanks for the slide trick for inserting “.” & “,” it is great!
I can’t add your feed to Feedburner. How I do this?
How much does it cost to deploy a banner on your blog?
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