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Tanner’s iPhone Review Part 6: The Final Word

Posted July 10, 2007 10:00 AM by Tanner Godarzi
Categories: Reviews Opinions 

image This is it readers, part 6 and the last part of my iPhone review. It’s been an amazing experience using the iPhone and so far, its either met my expectations, went slightly above and dazzled me or under performed. And now, part 6 of 6 of my iPhone review: The Final Word

Before The Phone
Many of us upgraded to an iPhone from nice phones, really nice phones, addictive phones,  bling-bling phones or even a smartphone. Ditching a phone thats only use was to reflect light via the built in mirror to something as nice and sleek as the iPhone is like going from roller blades to a Jaguar.

The most basic phone you could get
Before I attained the Jesusphone (too much Gizmodo) I was stuck with the most basic phone known to mankind. But I did like it until my needs started to evolve at which point how I used a computer and my workflow needed to evolve. I put off saving for a new phone because I was intending to purchase a MacBook or ultra portable Mac when Apple decided that someone else needed to make a mockery of UMPCs besides their manufacturers. I never really hated my phone really but I was envious of phones that had speaker capabilities, could browse the web and all that good stuff.

Basically I was stuck in a personal caveman era of phone technology. I wanted the closest I could get to a pocket computer or stick with the most dumbed down phone available. That was until Macworld 2007…

T-Minus 24 Hours
6PM the previous day, June 28th I was both excited and nervous, I had never waited in line for an Apple product before. I packed my backpack, checked it twice, made a sticky and checked that twice. Made some food in the morning and brought some spending cash. Now this was normal, 10 hours is a lot of time to spend in line but this next sentence will probably have you rolling on the ground laughing, I suggest having someone nearby to do the heimlich maneuver and make sure they don’t look at your screen.

At 8AM in the morning, I expected to be the first person in line in a line of about 7 in front of the Apple Store.

Done laughing? Good, but I am being serious here. However my logic was flawed predicting this scenario. If you’ve been to South Coast Plaza it’s geared towards people who want to spend a lot of money, true the iPhone would make an awesome fashion accessory but what socialite would wait in line let alone come in at 6PM? That only leaves the die hard Apple lovers and people who go to work. Who in their right mind would take off work for a phone? Now the die hard Apple lovers, probably not a lot since I was assuming most people who bought a Mac in that area did so as a fashion accessory. Yup wrong again.

8:11 AM I arrived being confronted with a line of 90 people, the first who had got here did so at 5 AM in the morning. I met a really nice guy named Jeff who was waiting in line next to me, he just so happens to read iPhone Matters on a regular basis (thanks Jeff!) 10 hours didn’t seem like a long time though, it flies by when you are devising tactics to find some Internet access. First off we were moved 6 times, I’d say 100 feet from where we originally started. Second, we ended up in no man’s land so wifi access from the Apple Store was dismal, even standing 15 feet away I got a horrible connection.

However what was really cool was all the people sharing the iTunes libraries over Wi-Fi and the group of people who made an Internet chain by turning on Internet Sharing and allowing half the line to get on the Web for about 20 minutes. One guy did share with us his EVDO connection (I hate you EDGE).

Keep in mind though, if you wait in line for an Apple product at an Apple store be prepared to meet every type of Mac user there is. The people up front booed others for brining in PCs.

OverAll User Experience
Enough of the past experiences getting nostalgic over a damn phone, what are you people? You’re looking for some real world testing!

Multi Touch
I can say one thing about Multi Touch: Steve made it look a hell of a lot cooler at Macworld. Pinch your pictures, zoom in! Yeah, works in like 3 Applications, super amazing. To me it’s something so simple and something I am so accustomed to (using fingers on a trackpad) that it’s like cool at first but wore off yet was useful for zooming in. My friends and family tripped out after seeing how the screen could be manipulated like this.

Typing
Trust me when I say you will love the iPhone’s keyboard once you are used to it. I didn’t believe it either and when you pull out your new iPhone the keyboard will be very, very intimidating. To get used to it I recommend not only taking it slow but trying to bring over your current keyboarding habits. For the first three days just use one finger while the other hand holds the phone. After that just type how you normally do on a regular keyboard. For me that would be fast and I missed a lot of letters while hitting ones I did not want. Just keep at it and the key is finding your comfortable position and do not adapt different keyboarding habits between the phone and your computer. If holding the iPhone is comfortable then you’ll pick up typing easily. However, if you brush it off and never learn then please return it, if you do not try to learn it right away then you’ll be worse and worse because your body will get used to slow typing. It’s like wearing retainers to keep your teeth in place, if you don’t wear them they move and become hideous.

Getting Adjusted
Getting adjusted is easy in the sense that iPhone is very user friendly but difficult in the sense that it’s so damn small and you’ll protect it. If you have iPod Protectionitis then the iPhone is your prescription. Mine has been dropped on concrete face down but was a flat fall, nothing. My idiot neighbor spilled beer on it and nothing happened all though touch commands do not work. However I still picked up a case for my iPhone because I need a strong clip for when I go bike riding. I will be posting the review very, very soon.

Everything Else
Not much else to say except a few things. For one, the battery life was odd, it’d say 80 % charge and soon would be down to 20 %, perhaps I got carried away but I get about 3-4 hours doing everything and sometimes simultaneously. The screen I absolutely love, it’s like the glossy screens Apple installs in their notebooks but the gloss is toned down. The screen is good in the sunlight however you see all your finger prints, yuck.

Why I Bought An iPhone
The price tag of the iPhone is a hefty one and while I do not need to justify my purchase to anyone else but myself I have to say it was 15 % hype and 85 % me wanting to utilize this as a mobile Mac. So far that’s working out nicely for me but I am still getting things set up. I was somewhat disappointed, the iPhone seems like so much more but it was a self created illusion.

The Absolute Final Word
Should you get an iPhone? I won’t sway you but I’d suggest average consumers wait and more savvy users make sure the iPhone can do what you want as you’ll probably end up using every feature to justify the price, the iPhone doesn’t do a lot but it does what it does good. Overall it lacks some core features and lacks obvious features that would help it really take off but Apple want to limit just who bought an iPhone and focus on improving the next generations.

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Comments

  1. I am not sure what you have been reviewing about but when I tried iPhone i was not able to find contacts based on names.
    I am used to keying in first few chars and get the contact name to dial for but in iPhone this is kind of serial access functionality.
    And that is what i think is the bigger drawback of this phone.

    Posted by PC on July 10, 2007 12:17 PM

  2. PC, I am not trying to be mean, but if you can’t find you contacts easily on the iPhone then maybe it is you and not the phone.  I find everything on the iPhone extremely easy to use.  The guide to the phone doesn’t even come in the box, but everyone I know with an iPhone has figured everything out on their own with no problems.

    Tanner… By advising some to wait for version two are you saying they should wait for iPhone two or for the rumored iPhone Nano or even just wait to see what updates come out for it?  I personally think it will be at least a year, possibly two before iPhone version two. The iPhone Nano should have considerably less features if it is expected to cost around $300, so it may not be a good fit for many.  I think/hope that within the next 6-8 months there will be a few updates that will target the main complaints against the iPhone.  This includes updates for ringtones, games, Flash, and a few other minor software things.

    Posted by Chris on July 10, 2007 2:02 PM

  3. Chris, I say wait not because of the iPhone being a 1st generation device but wait for the iPhone to suit your needs. For me the device works perfect and am adjusting my workflow so I can Blog on the go which frees up a lot of time. My dad on the other hand uses a phone for basic features but would like an iPhone. The two big detterents are the price and how he puts it “too many features.” This is a person who knows very little about technology. 

    Also the price would make it hard for people to justify buying an iPhone like my dad. It’s cool but when it comes to an individual’s need then they must consider which is right for them. As I have also said the iPhone doesn’t do a lot but it does what it does good, it’s more of a communications device that can let you contact or find information any which way and some things like the iPod functions feel tacked on, if Apple was really serious about the iPod on the iPhone they would’ve done at least an 8 GB version as the low end model. You can tell Apple wants you to focus more on music than videos judging by the iTunes syncing options and the video interface on the iPhone.

    It’s a good phone, I got it like I said to use as a mobile Mac but some people don’t want all that yet love the interface like multi touch.

    Posted by Tanner Godarzi on July 10, 2007 2:09 PM

  4. Good review.  I also just finished reading the Gizmodo review.  I’ve been using a Motorola e815 phone for a couple of years, and it’s worked pretty well as a phone.  However, synching has been problematic, and of course it only syncs phone numbers, no street or email addresses.  EVDO was cool when I got it, but has been pretty useless overall (for $15 extra a month).  I once spent an hour finding a URL to a movie schedule site that worked on it and saved that, and that was that.  Now, two years later I can read Verizon’s mobile version of the web news/sports/weather, or quickly go to the movie schedule link I saved.  Oh, and I purchased Solitaire, twice (since it got lost during a download somehow).  My point?  The phone worked for its basics, but its extras were too tedious to be useful.

    My iPod synched nicely with my Mac, and always had my calendar and contacts info, but I seldom carried it with me.

    So, when the iPhone came out I was ready for the Mac experience on a phone.  The iPhone is clearly a 1.0 product, and I don’t fault those who have decided to wait.  But, the posters at Gizmodo seemed to have missed the point of Apple’s foray into the cell phone world.  While I agree that generally Apple doesn’t add new functionality to interim operating system updates, but focuses on fixes instead, I think the iPhone will be handled a bit differently.

    Apple has been gearing up substantially internally to move ahead with this product.  This is not meant to be a me-to product just to glom onto a piece of the cell phone market.  I believe Jobs when he said last month that this will be a major product center for Apple, and that it’s all-hands-on-deck to get it out to the customer, and get it right for their needs.  The iPhone is changing the cell phone paradigm, and shaking up the industry.  You don’t think so?  Just listen to the other cell phone makers and carriers comments.  They’re clearly concerned that something fundamental is changing in their market, and are scrambling to position themselves against Apple’s entry.

    That suggests to me that Apple is treating this as a new computing platform, not just a phone.  That explains why it’s running OS X, and why updates will be fed automatically via iTunes when users plug it in for synching.  I don’t really believe we’ll see nothing for 3 - 4 months updating the iPhone.  I expect to see monthly updates, just as for MacOS X, fixing the current crop of glitches and gotchas.  Further down the road I expect to see improved functionality added as well.  Apple can NOT let iPhone improvements languish, or it will die.  It’s too expensive for the masses as just a fashion statement.  The excitement is now, and now is the time to move ahead.  I would be very surprised if the iPhone OS X team isn’t working 24-7 to keep the excitement for the new phone on the front burner.

    So, for me, the iPhone is good enough for now.  It has the functionality of my iPod (including Address Book and Calendar), carefree synching compatibility, Internet access that isn’t crippled by the phone company, and basic phone functionality to meet my requirements.  I expect bugs like its not recording missed calls or voicemails that post during Internet EDGE sessions will be fixed quickly because they are critical to the usability of the phone.  Other improvements like a consolidated email Inbox or an ability to create and save documents for later use, and the myriad of other goodies that people want will take time.

    Those who relish the easy and use of the Mac environment will love the iPhone experience.  I do, and I’ve been using Macs for over 20 years.  Those others who are checking off consumer features and comparing them to other phones, and their relative costs, may not be the target market for this first generation device, just as a feature-to-feature comparison of a Windows PC to a Mac isn’t always favorable.  I value my time too much to NOT make use of Apple’s cutting edge user technology.

    Posted by Dave Marsh on July 11, 2007 3:59 PM

  5. While there is much criticism of “everything” that the iPhone doesn’t have or do, it includes a lot…in new interface context and Apple-family-features that took a lot of work, under deadlines that even forced postponing Tiger.

    Despite Apple’s committment to the iPhone as a major business, their culture of frequent upgrades and award-winning service and customer satisfaction, there remain several significant advantages.

    The operating system and software “is” the secret sauce, and iTunes is the spoon.  Apple can change the iPhone through iTune updates, painlessly, every time you synch your phone.

    Think of it.  What other smartphone lets you “return it to the manufacturer for new features and upgrades” as often as you wish?  The sideloading through iTunes and easy consumer control of downloads adds much to the experience and useability of the device…and Apple’s lead on the catch-up copycat cellphone manufacturers.  With what they have done with version 1.0, I can’t wait to see the iPhone after a year of improvements and upgrades.  As my daughter says: “Apple rocks”.

    Posted by hardman on August 3, 2007 11:18 PM

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