Yet Another iPhone Review

I won’t spend a lot of time covering the things I like about the iPhone as they’re echoed just about everywhere else on the internet. I’ll briefly cover what I like, cover what I don’t like in a bit more detail and sum up my feelings at the end.

  • The screen is jaw droppingly gorgeous.
  • This is hands down the best iPod Apple has produced yet.
  • The multi-touch screen is absolutely a revolutionary input device that cannot be described, but must be experienced.
  • The mail application and web browser are fully functional and work great. For example, my designer sent me a PDF mockup via email, which I opened on my iPhone without issue (multi-touch zooming worked on the large PDF, which was sweet).
  • Clicking on a link to a YouTube video launches the YouTube application and starts playing the video.
  • EDGE isn’t as slow as people make it out to be. Stocks, weather, maps and iPhone optimized websites load up in a respectable manner. Forget about watching a YouTube video though.
  • When moving the text cursor around it zooms in just above your finger because you’d never be able to see where the text cursor is otherwise. Additionally, it auto-capitalizes after punctuation.

There are quite a few things that I don’t like about the phone, which is typical for first generation Apple hardware. It’s clear that the operating system was rushed and that there are bugs, but I fully expect updates to be pushed out in short order.

  • My biggest complaint is that the keyboard is corrective rather than predictive. In other words if I type “tomo” it might suggest “tomb”, but wouldn’t predict I was typing “tomorrow”. I can’t stress how annoying this was coming from a predictive text phone.
  • The software is buggy. I’ve had to even go so far as to reboot it to get things back on track. Again, this will be fixed soon I’m sure.
  • No landscape keyboard sucks for people with big meaty fingers like me.
  • No IM application is jaw droppingly retarded. Another thing I expect to be pushed in an update in short order.
  • EDGE is slow. I know I just said it was acceptable, but it’s only acceptable for some things. I’ll upgrade immediately after a 3G version is available.
  • I dearly miss my scroll wheel from the regular iPod. Sure flicking stuff is fun to look at, but the navigation aspect of the scroll wheel blows the gestures away. For instance, I flick down to an artist, click play and then have to hit a tiny little arrow to go back.
  • Navigation to commonly used tasks is tedius. Just getting to the phone’s keypad takes 3-4 taps. I have no idea what they could do to fix this, but it seems cumbersome to switch around between apps. What would be hot (maybe) is to have a Alt+Tab type feature similar to switching windows in Safari on the iPhone.
  • You can’t open links in new windows in Safari.
  • If Safari is this great platform for developing iPhone applications why the hell didn’t they include some sort of basic JavaScript framework, CSS, images, etc. as an SDK for creating said applications to look, feel and act like regular iPhone applications? Either release it publicly or, better yet, build it directly into the version of Safari on the iPhone.
  • No games. Seriously? This will be best user interface for solitair anyone has ever seen.
  • The SMS utility isn’t very snappy to load.

I think that just about covers it. Overall, it’s better than any phone I’ve ever used. I fully expect the software kinks to be fixed periodically over the coming months and 3G phones within a year. Post any questions in the comments and I’ll besure to reply.

2 thoughts on “Yet Another iPhone Review

  1. Ok so I’m no self professed computer geek what-so ever….most of the things you talk about I have no idea what you are saying or anything however I find you quite amusing!

    My question is this………how much do you pay for service for the iphone? I’m conisdering getting one, they are just too cool for words, but wondering on how much the service is? THANKS!!

  2. You choose whichever minute plan you want (ranges from $50 to $90 a month depending on how many minutes I think) and then $20 a month for unlimited data transfer.

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