What’s worse, is knowing all this and I still picked one up. There’s no question that people are having a blind love of all things Apple at times. I haven’t played with an iPhone since I borrowed an original iPhone from Howard Chui for a month or so. That was many years ago, and long before there was any sort of app store. A lot has changed since then, and I wanted to get a first hand impression of the latest from Apple.
There is no question that the hardware is very attractive. It’s a great looking device, even if the design is fundamentally flawed – Yes, it is flawed. The iPhone death grip is real, and all to easy to do. In fact, my very first phone call was an automated call from my carrier where they ask questions about my recent purchase – the iPhone, and I rate their performance. I received the call sitting at my desk, where I spend most of my days and make numerous calls on all my other phones. I wasn’t 3 minutes into the call when the call dropped. At first I wasn’t sure what had happened, and I was starring at the phone in my hand thinking about how odd it was that my carrier would hang up in the middle of that call. And then it hit me – I’m holding the phone the “wrong way”. Talk about getting off on the wrong foot.
The external speakers on the unit are pretty cheap – which I found surprising considering the iPhone is considered the standard when it comes to a portable music player. I’m not expecting the speakers to be the best audio around, but I do expect that it would be better than it is. If you’re going to listen to music on your iPhone, you’re going to need to use some sort of speakers or headphones.
The configuring of sounds may sound like a minor beef, but consider for a minute, just how many iPhones have been sold. If I’m out in public and I hear the bing of new email – I have to think if that’s my email or someone else’s. Even in the office, I find iPhone users asking “was that me or you”? Many phones have offered this as a customization for years, but for whatever reason, it’s just something that Apple doesn’t feel the customer wants.Perhaps the biggest issue I have come across on the iPhone is how poor the email experience is. Thankfully it supports Exchange ActiveSync for powerful push email, as well as Gmail accounts (the two most popular options in my opinion). The problem comes when you have drilled in to read the contents of an email and new email arrives in the background. The iPhone will re-index the inbox and for some reason the message you were viewing is no longer the message you are viewing. Instead you are looking at an entirely different email and that’s a horrible user experience. I have to back out of that email and back to the inbox where I can drill back into the message I was trying to read. At first I thought it was a fluke or something I tapped that made me jump to a new message, but it didn’t take long for me to figure out that there was a bigger problem at work here. I get a fair amount of email and I’m now seeing this behavior at least once a day.
The dual camera’s make for a really great experience, especially when using video chat tool like Fring or FaceTime. It’s so simple to prop up the device and be able to see the person you’re chatting with your video feed in a smaller window. More and more manufacturers are including the second camera on their devices. So you’ll be able to video chat with more of your contacts. Apple just needs to open FaceTime to allow communication with other platforms like Skype and Fring.
A lot has changed with the iPhone in the last couple years, but at the same time, a lot has stayed the same. If you’re in the market for a smartphone, do your homework and be sure to get a phone that meets your needs. Don’t just get an iPhone because that’s what your mother, brother, sister, or friend has. There are plenty of phones available that offer a lot more power and functionality than the iPhone does.