“The iPhone is not perfect – far from it – but it genuinely re-moulds the expectations we have for mobile devices,” Darren Waters reports for BBC News. “And it provokes a reaction among gadget lovers and ordinary members of the public that no other phone can match.”
“I have been testing it for the last two weeks and whenever people see it they want to hold it, touch it and play with it. And they are genuinely amazed by some of its features,” Waters reports.
“In the US it is known as the JesusPhone – because of the hysteria and hype that surrounds the device. But let’s start with the disappointments – it is a 2G device and not 3G,” Waters reports.
MacDailyNews Note: If you want to get technical, iPhone is a 2.5G device. And Apple is not using 3G because the chipsets are still way too power hungry, which Water forgets to mention. Take a look at iPhone’s battery life vs. 3G phones of similar size and weight to see why Apple made the tradeoff.
Waters continues, “Graphics and picture-heavy websites take an age to load. But RSS feeds and mobile-friendly websites (such as http://news.bbc.co.uk/mobile) load quite quickly over the [EDGE] network that O2 offers. I also found it sufficiently speedy to send and receive e-mails on the go. Sadly, O2’s EDGE network only covers 30% of the country so if you are not in a major urban area, you will experience painfully slow data connections.”
“The phone has built-in wi-fi and you can access more than 7,000 of The Cloud’s hotspots for free. Web pages load very quickly over a wi-fi network and there is none of the usual ‘hang,’ or delay, that is associated with mobile net devices,” Waters reports. “The web browser successfully redefines the mobile web experience and over a wi-fi connection it is – for the first time on a phone – a pleasure to read sites on the go.”
“Like the iPod, the iPhone will force every other competitor in the market to raise its game,” Waters reports. “And for that consumers should be thankful for the iPhone – even if they have no intention of buying one.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: EDGE speed concerns are routinely overblown by those unfamiliar with iPhones. Would we like iPhone to be faster while off Wi-Fi while keeping its battery life? Sure. Who wouldn’t? Would we rather have gone without and waited for the next-gen iPhone? No way. From users who’ve had iPhones in heavy daily use in many different locations, not in just tested one out in a few places over the span of a few days: “They could cut the speed of EDGE in half today and, in order to get our iPhones, you’d still have to pry them from our cold, dead hands.”
I love my iPhone, but EDGE is slow as treacle compared to 3.5G on the USB dongle for my MacBook Pro … and that’s only 3.6Mb/s and the new one is 7.2Mb/s
Saying that my friends with 3G phones complain about the poor battery life.
EDGE is slow yes, but that’s only if you’re downloading full web pages. Personally, I like mobile optimized webpages, and EDGE is plenty fast for that. (Thank you Google!)
Reluctant praise!
Yes, Edge is painfully slow…
For example, with all the ad banners, http://www.macdailynews.com takes over a minute to load on average. And that’s just the home page, if you click on a link to an article, well, there goes another minute.
Very accurate review. The iPhone has acted a bit skittish from time to time, behaving oddly, and certain websites (ahem, MDN) can crash Safari regularly. I’d also like a higher res camera (3.2 would be perfect), and a built-in flash.
It is time that MDN introduced an iPhone friendly version of their website. A good example is the Sky News iPhone site.
Don’t expect Darren Waters or the BBC to be objective.
If they had their way they would have dismissed all this and focussed on the latest wonder MS Mobile offering…
Amazing how only after they interview customers do they begin to focus on the good points. Until then its ‘too expensive, too limited, only works on O2 and even Apple fans hate Apple for that, only has a 2m pixel camera and other phones have all this and are all technically more advanced’.
M O R O N S . . .
Apple could have made the iPhone slightly thicker, thus increasing the battery life.
Apple could have made it cross compatible with all available carriers and speeds.
Apple could have made deals with all carriers, thus letting the carriers compete with each other instead of using the iPhone as a tool.
Apple could have not been so greedy and demand kickbacks from the carriers that we wind up paying for anyway so the iPhone costs way more than it normally would.
Apple could have, for those who would pay, a larger version with more storage space, even a hard drive.
Apple will come out next year with a revision 2 of the iPhone, they will correct some of their first mistakes, offer a broader line, more options and such.
I will consider one then. Otherwise I get most everything on my large screen matte MacBook Pro with a real keyboard and cheap slim phone.
While the “Beeb” is right to note the slow speed of Edge, they really missed the boat in their lukewarm recital of the iPhone’s groundbreaking features. The few limitations of the iPhone are far outweighed by the many amazing things it does. BTW, the only people I have every heard refer to the iPhone as the “Jesusphone” are snotty, condescending reviewers (like this one for the Beeb).
It’s very unreasonable to ask the entire web to alter itself to fit the dimensions and speed requirements of a single companies product like a iPhone, especially eliminating ads which it’s revenue base.
I think it’s reasonable to say the iPhone is a neat device with not a whole lot of practicality if you have to wait many minutes to load a web page.
This crap about 3G and battery life is just that: crap. Regurgitation of Steve Job’s marketing bull. Let’s take a look shall we? The iPhone has up to 250 hours standby and up to 8 hours talk.
So, what about a modern 3G phone? The Sony W960 Walkman is 3G and has 370 hours standby and 9 hours talk time. 50% more standby time and an extra hour of talk.
Blaming the lack of 3G on battery life is bullshit.
“This crap about 3G and battery life is just that: crap. Regurgitation of Steve Job’s marketing bull. Let’s take a look shall we? The iPhone has up to 250 hours standby and up to 8 hours talk.
So, what about a modern 3G phone? The Sony W960 Walkman is 3G and has 370 hours standby and 9 hours talk time. 50% more standby time and an extra hour of talk.
Blaming the lack of 3G on battery life is bullshit”
What are you, a Microsoft employee??? If Steve said it, our job as Mac fanboys is to blindly accept it and repeat it. The iPhone is perfect!!!! No one needs any thing else. If you need corporate push email, quit you’re job and find another one who will allow web based mail on the iphone…
Sure the network is dead slow but it’s just gorgeous and so elegant. I enjoy watching a news site loading beautifully in 2 or 3 minutes!!!
Wooo Hoooo Steve!!
OK assholes, now lets look at the number of web pages per tank full.
Oh, and the Sony Walkman has operating software written by the best as well, doesn’t it.
You PC wankers are all about the specks, aren’t you. Must really hurt now that Macs use the latest Intel chips. I see why you have switched to bitching about the iPhone specks.
Gee! That phone looks really good. Where do I get one?
“The iPhone is not perfect – far from it …”
It’s interesting to me to see how many iPhone reviewers are so quick to point out that it is not perfect. It’s obvious that one could say this about any product—cell phone or otherwise. It seems that Apple’s reputation for producing superior products has grown to such proportions that pundits must address that issue before all others. Is it “perfect”? Apparently there is an expectation that if it comes from Apple it ought to be, so its lack of perfection is somehow a flaw. Apple is in pretty good shape, I’d say, when the top, number one issue a reviewer chooses to bring up is its lack of perfection.
And, I’m with Jake on this JesusPhone business. A couple of wags throw out the term and ask “is the iPhone it?” I can promise all of those reading this from around the world that the iPhone is NOT known as the JesusPhone in the United States.
My game got raised last. Twice.
Er, night
The Sony W960 Walkman is 3G and has 370 hours standby and 9 hours talk time. 50% more standby time and an extra hour of talk.
Um, the Sony 960 has more volume: 109mm x 55mm x 16mm = 95920 cubic mm.
iPhone: 115mm x 61mm x 11.5mm = 81374 cubic mm.
Also, the iPhone has rounded edges, so that reduces the volume further. The Sony is 18% bigger, at least, and so has more room for battery. Apple could have made the iPhone thicker to get decent 3G battery life. Some people want that, some don’t. That’s not your call – Apple’s trying to maximize sales. I’m betting they were closer to hitting the right balance than commenters here – they are the ones who have to put their money where their mouth is.
Pete,
Apple COULD in theory let you custom order an iPhone with every feature anyone could possibly want. Just think, you COULD have a 12 megapixel camera built in! Or they COULD just triple the thickness and have a battery that lasts a lot longer! Or you COULD have a 3.5″ hard drive with a friggen’ terabyte of storage! How about a USB port so you COULD plug in a full size keyboard. I mean, what the hell, all they have to do is make it a little bigger and heavier. Right? And why not unlock the thing and drop the price to $49.99 while they are at it? Too bad they don’t have a brilliant strategist like you running the company instead of that darn narrow minded Steve Jobs, eh?
“the iPhone will force every other competitor in the market to raise its game,”
Good luck with that moving target.
Waters was spot on with his conclusion.
To Reality Check (where has he been hiding) and other Microgeeks. You could of course alternatively be honest when presenting your ‘case’. If you compare the iphone with anything that offers the same combination of interactive features which are integral to giving a superior user experience there is nothing out there that has superior battery life or stand bye, at least nothing that isn’t twice as thick (I believe you understand thickness don’t you), offers a small poor quality screen and user experience and usually need a stick to operate, if touch screened at all. Having tried the HTC touch I can only laugh at both the ineptitude of this particular ‘competitor’ as we all can at your own ‘judgement’. It is pathetic and makes the same mistake of adding unusable functions based on outmoded design in place of usability. After all the future always takes time to perfect. Of course we recognise your venom is in direct scale to your fear of recognising your own short comings. Hey guys don’t judge yourselves by the inadequacies of your technology choices you will have a heart attack at this rate.
Oh and bye the way push email is there if you require it, it just needs an open mind to find how to do so.
Product x, y or z isn’t perfect. Well strike me down with a feather. Here’s something which must be news for these BBC FUDcasters, nothing is perfect.
As nothing is perfect (Ballmier’s aim with chairs must be getting pretty good though) designers have to make judgments to make the best possible product for the intended use. In the eyes of many people Apple has achieved that, if not in your eyes don’t buy one.
Wintrolls are earning their wages today, where is Zune Tang to shut them up?
Guys. I wasn’t saying the iPhone wasn’t pretty or had a nicer GUI than the competition. That’s pretty clear to everyone. (Duh). However, the argument stated by MDN, and by Steve Jobs, and by pretty much every other fanboy out there is that Apple couldn’t possibly have 3G because it would hit the battery life too much. This just is not true. There are plenty of 3G phones out there that have comparable or better battery life than the iPhone. The fact they might be a few mm thicker is really irrelevant when the phone is already the size of the iPhone. The guy above who wasted his time calculating volumes for me really does need to get a life.
It seems far more likely to me that the reason for the lack of 3G in the iPhone is that the USA remains its main market place (at present) and that 3G coverage in the US is pitiful compared with Europe, so it’s not such a big deal. However, a phone without 3G in Europe is almost unheard of now – even my free basic phone that came with my Euro 10 a month plan is 3G! I’m sure Apple will get there in the next release.
pete:
fine, wait.
in the meantime i can’t put my iPhone down!! its as compelling as the newton (mind you if they release a newton with multi touch leopard i’ll be the first to buy it), and its only going to get better with the regular updates.
The guy above who wasted his time calculating volumes for me really does need to get a life.
And what’s your excuse for posting here?
Chained to the desk are you?
I’m handicapped and crap in a bag, it puts me in the most foul moods.
Sometimes I just sit here for hours in the stink until the nurse makes her rounds.