iPhone review - the good, the bad and the beautiful
Well, I’ve had my iPhone for a while now; long enough to form my own opinion on Apple’s mobile phone offering. To be honest, whilst there is certainly a wow-factor to the device, it does disappoint in some surprising areas.
That’s not to say I regret purchasing it. I don’t. It’s a welcome replacement to my old phone for one big reason - bigger buttons. I hated texting on my previous phones. I was all fingers-and-thumbs.
Primarily I was after a new phone - one that was easier to type on, and could access the internet. I’d never really browsed the web on a phone before. It was just too painful, and expensive. As a web developer, I’ve been holding off developing for the mobile web for a long time. However, there is clearly a groundshift taking place. With new handsets and competitive pricing plans being introduced, the mobile web is a medium that can no longer be ignored.
With my previous phone I was a bit of a luddite. I never used the camera as I already have some very nice cameras. I never listened to music or radio on them - I have an iPod. I never sent photos from my phone, as it was expensive, and I gave up trying to browse the web as it was too slow. I hated texting on a keyboard so small. I hated the fact that my address book and calendar did not sync too well with my Mac. But as a mobile phone it worked great.
I was never a Blackberry user. I like to escape from my email once in a while, but I can see the benefits of getting at my mail on the move.
So, I guess my wishlist for my new phone was/is as follows:
- Easier to type messages
- Plays nicely with my Mac’s address book and calendar
- Easier to browse the internet
- Easier to read and write emails
- Easier to keep on top of my to-do list
So how does the iPhone fair?
Typing Messages
Well, typing messages is easier than with my old phone, due to the touch screen keyboard. However, the predictive text is far inferior to that of Sony Ericsson. The iPhone auto-corrects unless you tell it otherwise. This is good to a point - it puts in apostrophes for you, which is a nice touch. However, if you correctly type a word, and an alternative is suggested, it is up to you to reject the suggested word by clicking on a cross next to the word, away from the keyboard. What a pain. It insists on thinking that my wife Nat is a Bat!
What’s worse is that the dictionary is American, and there is no way to choose another (even though it knows I’m in the UK), and there is no way for the dictionary to learn new words.
And the worst part.. you can’t even turn off the predictive texting.
The iPhone manual suggests using both hands to type. Believe me the phone ‘aint that big! What is sorely missing is the ability to rotate the phone and then type on a horizontal keyboard. There are applications that can be downloaded/purchased that now provide this feature, but why wasn’t it there form the outset?
And there’s no cut-and-paste. I immediately found myself missing my old Palm Pilot. It was so easy to write with the stylus; highlight words, cut, copy and paste. Blackberry offers this feature, and it is sorely missing from the iPhone.
Syncing with the address book and calendar
Yep. Pretty happy with this. So long as you sync using iTunes. Don’t bother with the MobileMe Cloud offering. You can’t sync any calendars you subscribe to, including the birthday calendar created form the Mac address book.
Browsing the internet
Great if you’re on a wi-fi network; still pretty slow on 3G. As I don’t live in London, I don’t seem to have access to the free wi-fi Cloud network that comes as part of my plan. So, if I’m not at home or at the office, I’m back on 3G. If I am at home or work, I’d rather use my laptop than the phone for accessing the internet.
3G is painful. Web pages are slow to load, as are emails. Useful for an emergency e.g. full-time footie scores but hardly a pleasurable experience.
To make it more painful, the Safari browser is flakey. It constantly crashes. As noted in a previous post, even the Apple web site causes it to crash. I’m pretty sure it can’t handle the Javascript too well. Until web pages are optimised for the iPhone, this will be a big issue.
Even without the browser crash, I;m not convinced that browsing traditional web pages on a small device is an elegant solution to our desire to have information at out fingertips, whilst on the move. You can pinch, tap and rotate the page, zoom in and out as much as you like, but it is still hard to navigate and to read the content.
My opinion might change. Over time, I’m sure that web developers will re-engineer their sites to provide optimised versions for hand-held devices. So far, I’ve only found one - Amazon - and it really is quite impressive.
However, what it clearly evident at present, is that many companies are choosing to develop iPhone applications rather than re-visit their web sites. If you use Wordpress, LinkedIn, eBay, wikipedia or Facebook you are going to be much more productive using an installed application, rather than a web application.
The one notable exception to this is Google (except for Google maps which come pre-installed). Yes they have an iPhone application, but it’s actually a rather disappointing wrapper around their web applications, which are optimised for the iPhone, but not particularly good. I was a big user of Google Reader, but have since switched to NetNewsWire for my RSS feeds.
Emails
Well, email push is a bit of a con. If you subscribe to MobileMe, you can get a push account. But you can get this for free from Yahoo! or Mail2web. And I don’t want yet another account anyway. Instead my phone polls every hour (can be configured to be more frequent) which is just fine. most of the time I’m at my laptop anyway.
Although my mail server has a spam filter, iPhone email has no way of setting up rules to move Spam to the appropriate (IMAP) folder, which is annoying. I now realise how good my Mac Mail application is as a second level spam catcher.
As mentioned, cut-and-paste would be great, as would a horizontal keyboard. The iPhone is great for reading emails, but if possible I wait to send replies form my Mac.
Text Messages
Aside from the annoying auto-complete, it’s pretty good. I’m much quicker at typing than with my old phone. The touch keyboard lacks any form of feedback - something that the Blackberry Storm now offers, so you have to really watch what you type.
What is really disappointing is that I can’t attach a photo to a text message, though I can attach one to an email. Why this is not possible is beyond me. i would have assumed this to a standard feature.
I would also expect, as standard, to be able to forward a contact to someone by text message. But once again, this feature is lacking. And,as copy-and-paste is missing, it’s quite laborious to go into my address book, write down the details, go into my text application and type them in.
Text messages are grouped into threads, which is nice - you get to see your conversation with the other party. But deleting messages is a pain. Each thread needs to be deleted individually.
Camera
Nothing special. no zoom. No flash. Not particularly high res. Useful if you need a photo of the car that shunted you at the traffic lights, for your insurance claim; but not the sort of camera you’d use to take shots of the family.
Bluetooth
Bluetooth support is limited. Very limited. You can attach your earpiece, and I guess speakers, but you can’t listen to you iPod through it, only your phone calls.
My earpiece only pairs with the phone if I turn on the phone before the earpiece.
My biggest gripe, is that turning Bluetooth on and off takes a ridiculous number of clicks. Select Settings, then General, then Bluetooth, then On/Off. There is no way way to create shortcut keys on the phone, and this is a pain to do at the beginning and end of each car journey.
The Styling
Yes, the iPhone looks beautiful, sexy, to die for, whatever. But, when all’s said and done, at the end of the day, it’s a phone/pda/computer. Highly polished, shiny, black surfaces and glass screens are hardly practical. The only place you get to see how sexy the phone is, is in the store. Once you get it out of the store, the first thing you do is buy a bullet-proof protective case and screen guard. There’s a nice little bit of cash being earned in selling these accessories. I can’t blame Apple for the design. There is a reason that the iPhone will likely sell better than the android - not because it is a better device, but because it looks cooler. But it would be nice if, for a change, Apple designed a product that not only looks cool, but is also practical.
Summary
The iPhone has been greatly received, and for very good reasons. I think it is a great product, and I’m glad I bought it.
What has surprised, and disappointed me, is that there are a number of features that are now taken for granted with mobile phones, yet are lacking on the iPhone - a dictionary that learns, the ability to tun off the auto-completion, sending photos and addresses by text message.
Many of these shortcomings are available by jailbreaking the phone, something I am reticent to do, and to be honest, haven’t got the time nor inclination. I’m sure, over time, Apple will address many of my gripes, and probably charge for the privilege.
If you’re thinking of buying an iPhone, I’d definitely recommend it - just make sure you know what you’re not getting.
