“We have been testing the iPhone for two weeks, in multiple usage scenarios, in cities across the country. Our verdict is that, despite some flaws and feature omissions, the iPhone is, on balance, a beautiful and breakthrough handheld computer. Its software, especially, sets a new bar for the smart-phone industry, and its clever finger-touch interface, which dispenses with a stylus and most buttons, works well, though it sometimes adds steps to common functions,” Walter S. Mossberg and Katherine Boehret report for The Wall Street Journal.
“It has the largest and highest-resolution screen of any smart phone we’ve seen, and the most internal memory by far. Yet it is one of the thinnest smart phones available and offers impressive battery life, better than its key competitors claim,” Mossberg and Boehret report. “It feels solid and comfortable in the hand and the way it displays photos, videos and Web pages on its gorgeous screen makes other smart phones look primitive.”
Mossberg and Boehret report, “The iPhone’s most controversial feature, the omission of a physical keyboard in favor of a virtual keyboard on the screen, turned out in our tests to be a nonissue, despite our deep initial skepticism. After five days of use, Walt — who did most of the testing for this review — was able to type on it as quickly and accurately as he could on the Palm Treo he has used for years. This was partly because of smart software that corrects typing errors on the fly.”
“The display is made of a sturdy glass, not plastic, and while it did pick up smudges, it didn’t acquire a single scratch, even though it was tossed into Walt’s pocket or briefcase, or Katie’s purse, without any protective case or holster. No scratches appeared on the rest of the body either,” Mossberg and Boehret report.
Walt Mossberg – Apple iPhone is Breakthrough Handheld Computer:
Full review with much more here.
Also, Apple CEO Steve Jobs answers Walt Mossberg’s iPhone questions here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “ChrissyOne” for the heads up.]
This is arguably the most important review the iPhone will ever receive and, as it’s basically a rave review from Mossberg, it means even more money in the bank for Apple.
Folks, we have a winner (as if we didn’t already know). Can’t wait to see this story get picked up by other media outlets.
is anyone surprised at Mossy’s conclusions?
The liberal media will ignore this one and focus on the negatives. Just wait.
Goatburger got the message from Cupertino headquarters. maaa maaa maaa.
In Walt I trust….
it’s curtains for everyone else.
game over.
MW – peace – Peace out, competition!
What’s truly funny?
Apple has MANY more new product releases coming.
Enjoy the ride if you can handle it.
Liberal media? Liberals love Apple. Welcome to earth. You must have been away for a long time.
a la Dvorak…now shut up about the keyboard!!
Negative comments = I didn’t get an iphone in the first issue.
Positive comments = I got an iphone in the first issue and boy do am I looking cool!
Eat your cows heart out Balmy one! Oh! you have?, in that McBurger? did you break any of their chairs while you were at it?
Also, I’m willing to bet there are a few more surprise iPhone announcements this week.
This is Jobs’ baby and he’s loving every minute.
Umm, no….the liberals (i.e. Greenpeace, ActForChange, etc.) have been hammering Apple as of late. You’re the one that must have been away…
“Also, I’m willing to bet there are a few more surprise iPhone announcements this week.”
Already had one in this very review….full MS Exchange support.
Oh dear, Sorry I shouldn’t have said that…after all the poor man is only fighting his companies corner…..
Sorry Balmy one!!!!!!
See if you can turn your employers ethos around please.
Yes !!! Buy AAPL.
I was getting a little concerned over the past few days as the Apple haters have been in attack mode. Walt’s review should help a lot.
Cheers !
“Already had one in this very review….full MS Exchange support.”
And I mentioned that two MDN stories ago!
(In other iPhone “news”, ZDNet is reporting “Apple will announce this week — possibly as soon as June 27 — that it has licensed the (Microsoft) Exchange ActiveSync licensing protocol.”)
Mossberg was honest with his review; if Apple would answer to all or most of mentioned drawbacks, then it would be outstanding.
“There’s also no way to cut, copy, or paste text.”
What the fcuk? I’m all about the iPhone…I’ve been driving everyone I know crazy about it but that has to be one major oversite – or did Walt miss a function?
“You also cannot just start typing a name or number, but must scroll through a list of favorites, through your recent call list, or your entire contact list. You can also use a virtual keypad.”
If Dvorak is paid off by the Microsoft camp, so is Walt Mossberg to Apple. His opinion is biased, and worthless. As if he was going to come out and trash the iPhone! Steve had him bought years ago. After all, don’t write a good review, and you won’t get any more keynote publicity and free stuff (he is quoted in almost all S.J. Keynote addresses). Didn’t he also favour the Apple Cube too. Wow, now that’s a real endorsement!
Just shows you how even though conservatives support their own, Liberals also support their own too. Perhaps as it should be, but at least call it as it is.
<i>”Also, I’m willing to bet there are a few more surprise iPhone announcements this week.”
Already had one in this very review….full MS Exchange support.<>
No. It works with Exchange if you enable IMAPmail on the Exchange server, apparently.
“There’s also no way to cut, copy, or paste text.”
Shit, that’s one of those little features nobody mentions but I was looking forward to.
There are some very simple things I can’t believe Apple missed such as the ability to jump right to a contact by typing its name in the search field.
“and you have to switch to a different keyboard view to insert a period or comma, which is annoying.”
I mean this is some simple shit right here that will have to be corrected later on. I don’t want to have to enter a different view for special characters like on a Razr, it should be right there.
Andrew: A simple request. Prove it, with links.
Daddy says no buttons no buy.
“The liberal media will ignore this one and focus on the negatives. Just wait.”
I doubt you really even have a clue what ‘liberal’ means, especially as it relates to the media, and are just another drone that regurgitates the right wing ‘liberal bias’ talking points.
Here’s your homework. Think for yourself.
“Voice call quality was good, but not great. In some places, especially in weak coverage areas, there was some muffling or garbling.”
Pogue’s review said the same. Sounds like the earpiece quality is garbage, a very basic thing that Apple should’ve gotten right.
This is version 1, folks. Sounds like we have started a version 2 wish list. On my wish list is to wifi anything text or webpagewise to an airport with a printer connected to the airport base station and print directly from any iPhone or computer in the house or office.
It shouldn’t be hard to add anything from Mac OS X to OS X.
Mossberg’s review is a rave for Apple and a pan for AT&T. As expected, they dropped the ball. Hopefully, AT&T will continue to upgrade their network.
Actually, the “liberal media” will focus mostly on the positives (amazing features and usability, huge sales numbers, paradigm changing innovation, etc.), because it’s been well established that facts have a liberal bias.
“The liberal media will ignore this one and focus on the negatives. Just wait.”
You’re kidding, right Harriett? MSM is controlled by a few giant corporations who are anything but liberal.
If you hear negative reviews, you can be sure they are bought and paid for by Microsoft, Motorola, Nokia, Verizon, and other competitors who can’t compete with Apple on a fair playing field.
“You also cannot just start typing a name or number, but must scroll through a list of favorites, through your recent call list, or your entire contact list. You can also use a virtual keypad.”
Doesn’t this paragraph contradict itself? I mean, “You can’t just start typing… a number… You can also use a virtual keypad.”
Am I missing something?
excuse me – the iphone’s safari browser doesn’t recognize flash? how the hell am i supposed to use a flash web site? this needs to be corrected… soon!
/mdn ‘magic word:’ now
That ole boy just better stick to writing – he can hardly talk! After trying to listen to all his, uhhs, and uh, I gave up.
But, I like him otherwise, and will be getting an iPhone as soon as I can afford one… already with ATT…
“The liberal media will ignore this one and focus on the negatives. Just wait.” @Harriett
WTF? You mean conservative like Microsoft’s paid reviewers, right? Al Gore sits on Apple’s board.
” R2
“Voice call quality was good, but not great. In some places, especially in weak coverage areas, there was some muffling or garbling. Pogue’s review said the same. Sounds like the earpiece quality is garbage, a very basic thing that Apple should’ve gotten right.”
Go home troll, any piece of radio or cell phone (radio) equipment that is not near enough to a tower/antenna is going to have muffling or garbling. Take your Dell outside and away from your 802.11b system and see the same thing happen. Go away!
Walt said in some weak signal areas there was poor audio.
That does not have an effing thing in the world to do with the earphone. Save your comments for subject areas that you understand.
The data plan for the iPhone should be optional as the Edge connectivity is really slow for surfing the Internet. I can say that it’s even really slow on my Sony Walkman Edge capable phone which uses much smaller web pages designed for cell phones. Why would I pay $20 extra a month for dial up speeds.
Also, I called AT&T sales today and they could not tell me if I could convert my existing primary phone on my family talk plan to the iPhone plan. Not what I would call ready for launch day. So this would mean I would need a whole NEW plan just for the iPhone! I doubt this very much. I would imagine folks could convert an existing family plan because, well, a heck of a lot of people have AT&T/Cingular family plans.
Apple will sell a lot more iPhones after launch day if the AT&T reps have the correct information and there are more options for existing AT&T customers pertaining to family plans when activating from iTunes.
Sound quality of calls? I can’t say I would call the sound quality of ANY mobile phone I’ve owned “good.” Therefore, if I got an iPhone, I’m sure it would be an improvement. Most of the people who buy the iPhone are NOT switching from a high-end smart phone. They are like me… the iPhone’s phone call sound quality will be an improvement. Like the virtual keyboard, it’s a “non-issue.”
Awesome review. I’m glad he highlighted the Wi-Fi. I’m not sure if all potential customers understand that if you are in a place with Wi-Fi (like the office, airport, home or coffee house), the iPhone will work at the same speed as a laptop in accessing the Internet. How many other hand held devices can do that?
Harriett… The liberal media will ignore this one and focus on the negatives. Just wait.
Harriett… Get a life… the liberal media is the only one who even cares about the iphone.
The iPhone “makes other smart phones look primitive.”
Apple should plaster that quote all over their print ad’s.
Whats going to happen to iTunes, when all these people go online to register their iPhone?? remember last Christmas when everyone was registering their iPods.
Maybe they could buy some extra bandwidth from the Zune on line store
@ Harriet
“liberal” means open minded. The media must remain open to receive and dispense information… all information….
if you do not like a particular editor or reporter… then fine, but please dispense with the polarizing labels… this serves no-one.
Apart from Dvorak, Enderle, Thurrott and Ballmer, it seems there ain’t anyone going to be so STUPID as to trash the iPhone…
Trolls are SO funny! (Andrew)
MDN says…. ” as it’s basically a rave review from Mossberg, it means even more money in the bank for Apple.”
——————-
I don’t know if I’d call this a “rave’ review, it was an overall “good” review, but he certainly pointed out some fairly big annoying negatives.
Mossberg says about battery life: “in our two-week test, the iPhone generally lasted all day with a typical mix of tasks.”
Apple says about battery life: the iPhone will lose battery capacity in about 300-400 charges. After that you can send it to Apple and they will change it for a fee.
Does this mean that you have to send your iPhone to Apple once a year for a battery change and pay them what … about 50-100$?
ping: You missed the point.
(In other iPhone “news”, ZDNet is reporting “Apple will announce this week — possibly as soon as June 27 — that it has licensed the (Microsoft) Exchange ActiveSync licensing protocol.”)
@Mikko
It starts losing charge after 300 to 400 iterations. That means that you’ve got lots more charges in addition to that number before the phone battery becomes useless.
As Expected
1: Lousy Edge network, but the Qualcomm 3G chip ban is the real problem. At least the iPhone can be imported into the US, unlike new 3G phones.
2: Keyboard is hard to use. Notice it took a few days of use for the keyboard to become a “non-issue” despite lots of mistakes. I predict a stylus will quickly become popular. I have a GPS that has a small keyboard as well and find myself using a pen instead of fat fingers.
3: WiFi isn’t as everywhere as people would wish it could, so the slow Edge network will be used quite a bit with a feature rich device like the iPhone.
4: Glass does indeed scratch, a Saphire Crystal screen would have been a much longer lasting choice. So a case will be needed for the iPhone, which adds to it’s bulk in the pocket.
5: Mandatory Apple iTunes account in order to activate iPhone.
6: Locked phone. Cell coverage does indeed change across the USA. It’s like entering another territority, with different rules even governing the use of Wifi in Starbucks!!! No T-mobile, no Wifi!! Of course the iPhone’s intense popularity could grow AT&T into a mega-monopoly and resolve the coverage issue. Prices will rise accordingly with a near monoploy.
7: No mention of the poor 2 megapixel camera. Must be really horrible.
8: No mention of the poor storage capacity. Did see a lot of photo’s on the screen, so apparantly it was filled up with content.
9: GPS? This is a big deal. Sure it might eat the battery, but it doesn’t have to be turned on unitl one needs it. And when you need GPS, you REALLY need it.
In conclusion the iPhone is designed to centered around selling content, as a entertainment device. With poor storage capacity that will require a costly Dot Mac account to back it up.
The iPhone isn’t really a good tool to replace a computer, phone and iPod, camera just yet.
Add GPS and much more storage, 3G and at least a 5 megapixel zoom camera.
Until then I have already spend many thousands on seperate and more prouctive devices.
Sorry Apple, the iPhone gets a no buy vote from this harded user.
I will look forward to more updated versions when I’m ready to upgrade from all my other devices.
Why the fsck would you want to copy and paste text on a phone???
For fscks sake – ITS A PHONE! NOT a bloody word processor!
You use a phone for making calls and mobile communications – NOT bloody word processing.
Next people will want to edit HD video on it… FFS GET WITH THE PROGRAMME!!!
@ RoadWarrior:
I have no problem with some of your points. However, I do have a problem with the following:
#4. Glass does indeed scratch. What you failed to realize is that there are trade-offs when engineering a product. If you want the best material, you will pay more for it. If you pay more for it, the cost burden will be on consumer. So, Apple has to reach a balance. Not too cheap and not too expensive either. In the long run, as production and demand increase, the prices will come down. Hopefully, Apple will be able to offer a much better product for a lower/same price as they have done with the iPod.
#7. 2 Mega pixel camera. Who needs a 4, 6, or higher pixel? Why do you need such clarity? The iPhone was not meant to be a high end camera. See #4 about trade-offs.
#8. Poor storage capacity. What poor storage capacity?!! Show me a camera, phone, internet, music gadet (all-in-one) with 4 and 8 GB of storage that is currently in the hands of consumers–there is none!
#9. You missed the point on GPS. When the first smart phones came out, was GPS the selling point for these smart phones? The answer to that is a BIG NO. GPS did no become maintstream until a few years later. Even then, it’s still not widely used by all manufacturers. Who knows, Apply might add this at the next rev. When the demand is there, I have no doubt that Appple will add this feature at a later date. So, your complaint about GPS is the same as the complaint about iPods not having an AM/FM tuner. It’s a non-issue.
> Does this mean that you have to send your iPhone to Apple once a year for a battery change and pay them what … about 50-100$?
No. It’s just like with the iPod. You “can” send it to Apple, but I can change the battery myself on my iPod. You’ll probably be able to buy a iPhone battery kit on eBay for about $15-20 including shipping. Within a week after the release date, there will be web sites with instructions.
re: excuse me – the iphone’s safari browser doesn’t recognize flash? how the hell am i supposed to use a flash web site? this needs to be corrected… soon!
/mdn ‘magic word:’ now
—-
FFS give Apple a chance!
The product is version 1.0 – flash will come in time when the iphone is out and Apple have time to update Safari for it!
1st things 1st – get the product in the shops and then they will update it via software update ofc.
@ marko
“@ Harriet
“liberal” means open minded. “
I can’t see the relevance of any of this to a tech product, but no, it doesn’t.
It’s from the Latin root _liber_, meaning “free”. Therefore, it has to do with the concept of freedom.
Note the term “Liberal education” – meaning education suitable for a FREE man (as opposed to a slave). Note the old-fashioned virtue of “liberality” – being FREE with your money. Note the 19th-century notion of political liberalism – meaning personal FREEdom, as over against State power.
Of course, most people who now call themselves liberals have little respect for personal freedom, but that’s by-the-by … and nothing to do with the iPhone.
_Liber_ – free.
Petey:
I’m sure I remember Jobs commenting that the browser on the iPhone is totally Web 2.0 standards compliant. Although Adobe Flash is quite commonplace on websites [annoyingly so in my view], it is not Web 2.0 compliant.
No doubt, now Adobe owns Flash it will eventually bring it up to web standards [or not, as is Adobe’s want these days]. At that point – assuming it happens – Flash will be viewable on Safari’s iPhone browser.
Personally [and I’m a Flash user] it is a big fat pain in the ass all this non-standards software.
I’m glad to see the initial reviews are overwhelmingly positive, but they SHOULD be tempered a bit. Tech-headed reviewers (and users) tend to overlook the little things that they take for granted, but which annoy the heck out of Joe & Jane Shmoe.
Real reviews will be on the blogs and in our ears in a few days. Sit tight.
@Jooop
Umm, no….the liberals (i.e. Greenpeace, ActForChange, etc.) have been hammering Apple as of late. You’re the one that must have been away…
They aren’t “liberals”, they are just good old pains in the ass.
It’s time for people, especially USAnians, to put the bed the notion that “conservative” and “liberal” can be simplistically used to describe an entire worldview, or that either of those terms means what they think they mean when used in the pejorative as they so often are…
Since the iPhone has a virtual keyboard, why didn’t Apple develop a setting for Dvorak in addition to QWERTY, since it is officially recognized by ANSI? Sorry Georgy Porgy Puddin’ Pie if you can’t accept logical change and progress.
Imagine how fast we could type if our thumbs hovered over the vowels on the left thumb and the common consonants on the right thumb alternating thumbs. This is an information technology world we live in and no longer need to spell “typewriter” as a marketing gimmick on the top row any longer (in addition to the random placement of letters keeping the most common 2 letter combinations illogically placed far apart and more difficult to reach). Dvorak gave a great gift to humanity, it’s a shame we should squander the legacy of his dedicated hard work, time, and effort. Even the inventor of the QWERTY typewriter, Christopher Sholes, tried to change the patent layout after springs were added to it (to a keyboard map much similar to Dvorak’s), but Remington would not listen.
The ONLY people that will disagree and find my feedback offensive are those that are stubborn and cannot embrace change, let alone progress. No matter how hard one will try to debate this, there is no valid argument that will justify their case.