On seeing iPhones in other people’s hands…
…they’re very pretty and cool, but…
I’m starting to see and hear the type of real reviews of the iPhone (*) that I was hoping would emerge. Dave Winer’s is great: iPhone, month 1 (Scripting News). It confirms many of my assumptions about living with an iPhone.
If I were looking for a new iPod and mobile video device, the iPhone would be cool (albeit overpriced). As a cellphone, the fact that it is locked to Cingular / the new AT&T is a huge minus in my book (as a former Cingular customer who was never overly satisfied with anything they offered). The lack of 3G connectivity is absolutely mind-boggling to me. Why would you offer a device that is primarily amazing as a revolutionary web device, but offer no really strong mobile connectivity? I mean, if I’m near a Wi-Fi connection, I’m usually near my laptop or desktop computer. When I would need the iPhone to be great is when I’m not near that access. From what I’ve seen, in those situations, the EDGE connectivity on the iPhone is much too slow when compared to my Helio. Sure, the Helio Ocean doesn’t offer the full-mobile web, but when you’re mobile, it’s the information that matters more than the appearance, and the Helio gets that information to me much faster than the iPhone.
That being said, I think Conrad Quilty-Harper is correct in saying that the Google Maps is the “killer app” of the iPhone. Of course, the iPhone doesn’t have GPS so you have to know where you are when you use it, but thanks to no need to access the GPS, it loads fast, quickly serves up maps of locations, and quickly offers phone numbers.
That’s great, but I’ll stick with GOOGLE411 on my Helio.
I hope iPhone 2.0 has more to offer. I also hope we see it sooner than we would normally see an Apple product line refresh. This is the mobile market, so hopefully it will come out faster than normal. When it does, I hope it’s divorced from Cingular and that there is an actual chat client of some sort. SMS-only is a crap decision that was most likely pushed for by the new AT&T trying to screw everyone out of more money for mobile data transfer.
Also, has anyone blogged from their iPhone yet? Apple, if you want to make a truly revolutionary iPhone 2.0, make it work seamlessly with all the major blogging platforms, integrate the camera with uploading to sites like Flickr, let it record video that can upload straight to YouTube, give it full copy and paste capabilities and tabbed browsing. Make it where we can switch between these different applications without shutting any of them down, just like we can on our computers running OS X. If the “running OS X” iPhone had all that, it would be the true mobile communications device of the Internet community and everyone else, because it would further enable our conversations rather than simply be the hot new gadget we’re all talking about. If it becomes part of the mechanics of the conversation itself, then there’s little worry about what happens when the next big gadget comes around.
July 25th, 2007 at 10:28 am
AnandTech did some testing to find out why the iPhone lacks 3G. The answer? Dramatic differences in battery life:
http://www.anandtech.com/printarticle.aspx?i=3036
There’s a reason that 3G BlackJack of yours came with two batteries. ;)
Unless you only surf large sites like NYT all day, EDGE speeds really don’t seem to be anything to lose sleep over. I realize everyone’s dying to live on the cutting edge (har har), but I’m happy with the compromise so far, and I surf a *ton* during the day.
Including doing management stuff in Blogsmith; works very well.
July 25th, 2007 at 10:31 am
Woops, forgot to finish last comment: with that said, you’re right: it still seems like Apple either *still* doesn’t get all this web 2.0 stuff, or they’re simply being incredibly cautious with rolling out new features like Flickr/YouTube uploads and blogging. Given the recent .Mac updates and Jobs’ admission that it needs a lot of help, as well as the partnering with YouTube, I wager it’s the latter: they’re just being really careful with adding new features and trying to get the phone software *right.* It’s still a bit crashy and buggy (though not nearly as, say, my old BlackJack), so I’m not surprised here.
July 25th, 2007 at 12:41 pm
The iPhone is not nearly as successful as people thought it would be, and shareholders are taking notice:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/25/technology/25phone.html?th&emc=th
So it’s not just you.
July 30th, 2007 at 4:59 pm
I said Google Maps was the killer app too– but not to you ;)
March 18th, 2008 at 1:05 am
convert flv file to mobile phone, iPod,iPhone, Pocket PC, PSP, or Zune
YouTubeRobot.com today announces YouTube Robot 2.0, a tool that enables you to download video from YouTube.com onto your PC, convert flv files to various video formats to watch it when you are on the road on mobile devices like mobile phone, iPod, iPhone, Pocket PC, PSP, or Zune.
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