“One of the fun things about no longer being an Apple employee is that I’m now much more at liberty to speak my mind about Apple’s products. Apple may have a reputation for being a bit of a cult, but in my experience, most insiders are only too willing to call a spade a spade when the company’s products fall short, and it’s nice to finally be able to do so publicly again without worrying about violating the PR code. And, of course, the opportunity to speak freely came just in time, seeing as the first new hardware product released after I left was a highly significant (but in many ways, still unrefined) one: the long-anticipated iPhone,” Buzz Andersen blogs.
“I was among the faithful who bought an iPhone the day it was released, salivating at the prospect of finally having a phone built by people who get it–and by “it” I mean UI/VI design and industrial engineering. Where I had become accustomed to years of death by a thousand paper cuts the moment I started trying to use my previous mobiles as anything more than a phone, I knew that the iPhone would be different. And, thanks to Apple’s characteristic thoughtfulness, it mostly is,” Andersen writes.
Among the things that make the iPhone such a pleasure to use:
• The Keyboard
• The Google Maps App
• The Web Browser
• The iPod Experience
• The Physical Buttons
• Visual Voicemail
• The Display
Andersen writes, “All of that said, the iPhone is still very much a 1.0 device from a newcomer to the mobile space, and, as such, it’s likely to have some shortcomings.”
Among the ones I’ve noticed:
• The Headphone Jack
• The Absence of Traditional Mobile Features
• The Absence of Traditional iPod Features
• The Camera
• The Email Experience
• The Web Browser’s Performance
• Scrolling Anxiety
• Apparent Lack of Vision (no SDK for third-party developers, social software)
Andersen writes, “All of that said, the current iPhone is still only the very beginning of what is essentially a new platform, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see Apple address all of the above issues (most of which can be corrected in software) over time. Even the lack of an API is something I suspect (or at least hope) is more the result of time constraints than a dearth of goodwill on Apple’s part. I look forward to the future of what I think will, in the long term, be a fantastic mobile platform.”
Full article, in which Andersen explains each of the bullet points above – recommended – here.
Sounds like a REALLY bitter former employee….
LoL NOT!
First post again?
Why is it that if its from Microsoft, as long as it somehow functions, no matter how crappy, people just seem to be OK with it.
But if its from Apple, it aint great, unless its perfect. HEY, if they made it perfect:
There would be no more room for better things to come,
We would complain that it has too many things in it,
And it still would not be perfect cause it would not have a bottle opener in it, start my car remotely on cold winter mornings, nor would it fortell the future.
en
The problem with Apple is that people get so accustomed to their products that their expectations run rampant. Instead of expecting above average to awesome things, people start expecting larger-than-life Hollywood impossibilities. It has a lot to do with most people’s emotional immaturity.
Seems to me that he has balanced his views for the sake of appearing balanced.
Is this a man trying to build a new image similar to that of Mr. Thurrox?
Time will tell. For now we all know much of what he has said and are aware that via software update, most of those things if not all + more will eventually turn up.
@ en,
Are we related?
I don’t understand why the camera gets criticized all the time. Sure it’s only 2MP, but it’s A PHONE! 2MP is the highest resolution camera in a phone I’ve ever heard of. Seriously, why do they judge the camera in a phone against a stand-alone camera? I don’t get it. Please someone tell me if there are 6 and 7 MP camera-phones. Am I missing something?
As proud owner and generally satisfied iPhone customer, two observations:
1. The touch screen is completely worthless if one’s fingers are even slightly moist. As a shooting pro in florida, summers are hot and sticky for many months. Just try answering the phone call while you’re outside working. Prepare for missed calls or voice mail despite frantically wiping your fingers on anything available to get the darn screen to unlock and answer!
2. ATT still blows when it comes to adequate coverage. Verizon where I live was actually better even though I had to get up every time I had a call and walk outside to get enough signal strength. now, I have to walk outside to help the person on the other end be able to hear my words. Verizon let me out of my contract since they could not make the pain go away. What will ATT do? Likely zippo, nada, nunca!
Begging for bandwidth and signal strength in Naples,
I’m emotionally immature. Karl Rove’s talking points for how much I should fear people who are different than me, fear opposing candidates and their platform and reduce all issues to ‘good vs. evil’ so I didn’t have to think about them really struck a chord. That’s why I voted for George W. Bush. Twice. I’m glad I did.
Pretty decent review.
I have to disagree about the camera. Certainly, many phones have better cameras, but it is better than the the vast majority of them. Other than in low light, the images I have captured using my iPhones camera are pretty good.
Ugh. The whole social networking thing again. Look, it’s not just because I don’t give a fuck about those apps, it is just that I do not see them as being all that necessary to the iPhone at the moment. It is surely much further down on my list than several basics: active links in text messages, cut and paste, iChat, MMS, etc. Also, to get the right social networking app is not trivial, eg Zune. I’m more interested in getting the already worked out, useful functions worked out than exploring social networking apps.
It is healthy and good to criticize the iPhone and to ask for more features. That isn’t being crabby, it is just being realistic.
Sounds like a crybaby. Here is a users 72 hour review.
http://web.mac.com/kof4life/iWeb/Site/Blog/9ADEFCD3-233C-425F-9E8E-8C1EEB0739A0.html
@MrMcLargeHuge
The camera is somewhat of a disappointment. There are a few 6mp camera phones out there now – and that number is growing – from a number of vendors including Samsung. The problem is of course, that they all still have a crappy UI unlike the iPhone.
2mp would have been great a couple of years ago, but not now. What this device brings in many ways is the start of true convergence in a great mobile device designed by the best.
People today want to be able to take great photos, movies and so on with their phones. Having a camera Hopefully they’ll up the camera quality in future versions. Otherwise it is still an amazing device.
“Why is it that if its from Microsoft, as long as it somehow functions, no matter how crappy, people just seem to be OK with it.
But if its from Apple, it aint great, unless its perfect.”
because the average MS customer has no taste, and is happy with mediocrity. the average Apple customer expects things to be great, and hopes for perfection.
…yes, we are hard to please, but if we were all like the MS customers we would still be sitting in the trees and thinking that it was “good enough.”
@BustingtheSkullsofIdiots
“most people’s emotional immaturity”
That’s a rather sweeping generalization, considering there are 6 billion people on this planet. How did you manage to do such massive psychological testing on such a large test population? Are you possibly Superman in addition to being SmarterThanAnyoneElse?
Adding more pixels to the camera is pointless, since more pixels don’t have anything to do with muddy images or poor low-light sensitivity. I have a real camera with 2MP that takes far better shots than the iPhone, but that’s because it has a real lens + flash. Enough with the useless metrics.
No matter how much you spend on it, a decent camera simply requires far more space than is available inside the iPhone. No point to waste money on pixels when you’ve already made a design decision that the screen, battery, and form factor are more important than great photos. Which was the right design decision, hands down.
Possibly the iPhone could have had better photo enhancement built-in, but it’s better to just touch up the colors/etc in iPhoto.
Is this the bloke who is involved in Palm Treo etc.
“Scrolling Anxiety”??!!??
What the heck is that?
http://www.MittensRomney.com/
So has anyone tried the Spam Blocker? Is it for the Mac even? Just curious. I always click Skip this ad.
Peace.
“scrolling anxiety”….GET EFFIN REAL!
I don’t think the camera in the iPhone was intended to help any photographer win contests. In my experience, it does really well as a “proofing” device. I’m at action or a showroom, I take a few quick pics, email the better one or two to my biz partner, and get a quick response.
Otherwise, outdoor leisure shots are fine.
Want “much better” pics? That’s never really been about a phone.
Ah yes, the whole liberal idea of a hopelessly complex world…
So complex in fact, that you never get around to reaching a useful conclusion on anything. Much better to just dither around endlessly on everything.
Anyone who measures the quality of an image by the number of pixels disqualifies themselves. Virtually all cameraphone images are compressed to hell, as the phone has so little built-in storage. So, even a 5MP cameraphone image could be lousier than a 2MP cameraphone image, if the compression is too high.
The fact is, the iPhone uses very modest levels of compression, about 5:1 to 8:1, which is fine or superfine on a digital camera, as it has so much built-in memory. In other words, the iPhone gets as much out of its 2MP camera as one would expect out of a digicam.
The quibble I have, is the same as Andersen’s, the white balance is skewed to the blue. Apple needs to tweak the white balance, and I’ll be much happier.
J. Mark Strong, I believe they have treatment for sweaty hands.
Yeah… just spray Axe on your hands… no palm slippage and women will throw themselves at you… sweet.
“Scrolling Anxiety?” Try losing your right hand in a work related accident then come talk to me about anxiety. What’s our society coming to? Sheesh.
Comment from: Botvinnik
“scrolling anxiety”….GET EFFIN REAL!
He meant “strolling anxiety” i.e. taking a walk in the park with your iPhone while being very anxious. Many folks will experience this but of course not everyone.