Regarding the Apple iPhone, “Steve Jobs has said, repeatedly, that this is the best iPod that Apple has ever made, and it is. It’s also the best phone that anybody has ever made,” Lev Grossman reports for TIME Magazine.
“E-mail and web-browsing are unbelievably great. Ditto the crisp music and video playback. Everybody I called with the iPhone remarked on the crispness and clarity of the audio. For the iPhone, Apple has brought to market a revolutionarily smart, sensitive touchscreen and created an entirely new user interface to match it, all in one go, so seamlessly that my 3-year-old daughter — and I apologize for going to this place, but the fact is striking nonetheless — had no trouble unlocking the iPhone and dialing with it (even though she believed that she was playing a musical instrument),” Grossman reports.
“The user interface is crammed with smart little touches — every moment of user interaction has been quietly stage-managed and orchestrated, with such overwhelming attention to detail that when the history of digital interface design is written, whoever managed this project at Apple will be hailed as a Michelangelo, and the iPhone his or her Sistine Chapel (Steve Jobs can be Pope in this scenario),” Grossman reports.
“The hype for the iPhone has been so relentless — witness the screaming Yahoos outside the Apple store — that to praise the phone feels a bit like you’re falling for a sales pitch. Resist the temptation. This thing is a marvel,” Grossman reports.
Full article here.
Good Jobs, we hope someone’s bolted every window with ledge access across the mobile phone industry!
“”The user interface is crammed with smart little touches — every moment of user interaction has been quietly stage-managed and orchestrated, with such overwhelming attention to detail that when the history of digital interface design is written, whoever managed this project at Apple will be hailed as a Michelangelo, and the iPhone his or her Sistine Chapel”
Even the boldest of Apple fanatics couldn’t have written such words.
Holy crap what a bold statement.
Well, someone had to go the opposite direction of those who lamely attempted to damn with faint praise the iPhone before it was released.
I have to admit that the iPhone has definitely lived up to the considerable hype. I knew I wanted one and that it would probably be a great product, but it has surprised even me with how damn good it is.
Oh look at me, “I’m crammed with smart little touches.” I have a “a revolutionarily smart, sensitive touchscreen and created an entirely new user interface to match.” My name is iPhone and I think I’m so great.
Whatever. My brown Zune kicks iPhone’s ass.
Your potential. Our passion.™
Just a guess but I think Time wants back in Steve’s good graces after they blew the whistle on the iMac some years ago. They were not given an advance review phone like the WSJ, NYT, USA Today, and Newsweek were.
Maybe this review will mend fences for an advance peek on the “next big thing.”
Whatever floats your boat zuney. Just don’t ever get close to me with your stinkin’ little turd!
Ahhhh Zune Tang, that is so cute. Imitation is definitely a form of flattery and you flatter the iPhone.
Congratulations on buying one an iPhone so that you could write that superb eloquent review of the iPhone vs. the Zune. Get any good calls with your Zune?
Our call, your wait.
Nice review by Time and the others, time for the hype to settle into reality. Very nice
WOW, what a review !
and he is right !
I hear that you can use the zune much like a telephone. Empty out the guts (just squeeze it and most of the stuff squirts out) and then attach 2 zunes with a length of string. Best part, no activation!!
i can’t believe that some of u still think Zune Tang means it.
“… when you’re transferring content from your computer to the iPhone, you can’t simply drag and drop tracks into the phone, in that richly satisfying way you did with your iPod. Moving music and video around is a matter of instructing iTunes to ‘sync’ the iPhone with one more playlists. The procedure feels clumsy and imprecise — you can’t just spear a specific little chunk of content, like a canape with a toothpick, and chuck it into the device for later consumption.”
What is he talking about here? Lack of disk mode or something about the way iPhone interacts with iTunes?
@ Zune Tang
Did you meat “licks” instead of kicks? It’s easy to make such a typo.
MW: Yes.
@ Guessing,
Firstly, Apple spends a lot of advertising dollars in TIME Magazine.. Secondly, there are actually quite a few negative comments in this review as well. MDN just chose not to quote the negative comments on this page, read the full article and you will see it’s not all praise. It is fairly balanced with good and bad comments.
Guessing “Just a guess but I think Time wants back in Steve’s good graces after they blew the whistle on the iMac some years ago. They were not given an advance review phone like the WSJ, NYT, USA Today, and Newsweek were.”
You may very well be right. It is interesting that TIME Magazine did not get an advanced copy of the hardware.
I don’t think that they really padded their review that much, pretty much everyone who has had their hands on one is simply blown away by this thing.
Dear Zune Tang,
Another great contribution that reeks of sarcasm. I guess you’re having a great laugh at other’s expense because they just don’t get it.
Are you the same person as Sputnik?
Now I see. Been doing more skimming through these reviews than I thought.
“The bad news is that the iPhone’s iPod leaves out the ability to manually manage the transfer of music and video content. Unlike any previous iPod, the iPhone does not allow an option for manually dragging and dropping content from an iTunes library directly to the iPhone device icon. Instead, the iPhone strictly uses defined library syncing options for collecting and syncing content from your iTunes library to the device.”
What kind of bullshit is that?
The more I read, the more it becomes clear that Apple are doing everything to keep the iPhone as ‘closed’ as possible.
But if this means cripppling Bluetooth then it’s a deal breaker.
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/iphone-obex
It’s really surprising how many people, including myself admittedly, cited the iPhone as an escape from the crippled clutches of Verizon.
Yet we come to find the iPhone is locked down just as much as a Verizon handset, if not more since Verizon loosened up on the Bluetooth front and you can get free mp3 ringtones on their phones.
If I had to guess, I’d say that Apple’s reasoning behind much of this would be for security purposes. The same excuse Verizon used.
re ZUNE TANG: Oh look at me, “I’m crammed with smart little touches.” I have a “a revolutionarily smart, sensitive touchscreen and created an entirely new user interface to match.” My name is iPhone and I think I’m so great.
Whatever. My brown Zune kicks iPhone’s ass.
Your potential. Our passion.™
—-
LOL!
You are one seriously screwed up dude!
The iPhone is the best mobile device ever created and you actaully think your broawn turd of a Zune can compare??
Boy are you sick in the head!
Face it Zune, Microsoft are fscked, they couldnt have created this device in 100 years.
Why?
Because they are only interested in making money and market share, wheras Apple’s driving force is innovation and moving society forward by technology.
In 100 years time when a teleportation capsule is invented quess which company will invent it?
Yep – you guessed right, it will be Apple.
You can now go back to your ancient mobile phone with physical buttons and ‘baby’ software.
What you are seeing here Zune is only the begining – in 5 years time Apple would have sold over 300 million iphones.
And what’s great about it is that Microsoft, Nokia, Sony Erricson or ANY other competitor cannot compete.
I’m really gonna enjoy watching all these ol dinosaurs go extinct over the coming years.
Apple iPhone.
Welcome to the future.
re : @ Zune Tang
Did you meat “licks” instead of kicks? It’s easy to make such a typo.
—-
Especially on an ancient and crappy mobile phone with buttons on it.
😀
those that still reply to Zune Tang are completely ridiculous.
anyway, about the review:
i think the reviewer means, that unlike the iPod, the iPhone is synced with a playlist, u can’t drop music on the iPhone within iTunes.
it’s no big deal (if true, i don’t own an iPhone), just create a playlist for the iPhone.
How long will it be before MS ‘dumps’ its Windows Mobile partners and creates another vertical phone device (ala dumping PlaysForSure for Zune)? I wouldn’t be buying a Windows Mobile phone anytime soon.
There are already reports of MS talking with TV makers in China to produce an aTV competitor. Once this is out, all the Windows Media Centers will be similarly Zuned.
Given the grief that MS employees got for coming to work with iPods, I wonder what will happen when they start showing up to work with a device that actually runs OS X?
Really, folks, Zune Tang brings some of the best humor ever to this site. I look forward to his/her/its comments in every thread. The threads seem empty without Zune Tang chiming in. Keep up the good work Zuney – you make me smile. But not as much as my new iPhone – it’s as slick and sweet as I thought/hoped it would be. Took all of 3 minutes to set up with ATT and another five or so to synch to the Mac. I shut my old Verizon Motorola off for the last time last night. It shall sit dormant. I didn’t even bother deactivating Verizon as my company has some sort of huge multi-phone plan – OK, not huge, but 8 phones. When it expires, we will all be getting iPhones. Most want one now. I got one because I’m the owner of the company – it’s good to be king.
[I think there are now several Zune Tang’s out there, because some of the post are definitely not as funny or clever.]
These days, I use a regular land-line phone much more than a mobile phone. I think the way the iPhone handles managing voicemail “visually,” setting up three-way calling, using the contacts database, and doing other phone tasks (as seen in the demo video) is totally great. I wish AT&T would license the iPhone interface design to make an “at home” phone (the type with a base station and a wireless handset). It wouldn’t need a high-res screen, multi-touch capability, large capacity flash, the iPod features, or the Internet features. Just that stuff that makes the iPhone the best PHONE ever made.