Alison got her iPhone last night. She went to the O2 shop in town to queue for the opening and had a little fun.
I’m not getting one. Unfortunately, despite the fact it is a brilliant innovation, I need one killer feature that isn’t on the phone. I need it to be able to act as a Bluetooth modem. Not for email when away from home for my MacBook, as I originally thought (since the iPhone’s email app rocks), but as a way for my TomTom to connect to the traffic report server. So, I might sulk a bit.
I love the anti-hype going on too. Comparisons to the Nokia N95 or Sony Ericsson P1, comments about 3G vs 2.5G, criticising the fact that it is locked to O2, and even advice that people should wait for the next generation of iPhone to avoid bugs.
Reporters saying that the N95 is better because it kicks the iPhone’s specs are sort of right. The iPhone is not best of breed in data connectivity, or with it’s rather inferior (by today’s standards) camera, or even richness of supported applications. Correct Gold star reporting. Except, you’ve all missed the point.
Phones have been getting more and more complicated, nastier and nastier user interfaces. A review of the Sony Ericsson P1 criticises it’s schizophrenia over it’s THREE different input devices – an unorthodox rocker style keyboard, a touch screen and a thumbwheel. Some programs require one input device, others use another, the choice is arbitrary and sometimes you have to jump around all three.
The two things that bug me about the current crop of high-functionality phones is the complexity, where you have to navigate a menu 5 layers deep to find or change something and the inconsistency, where the history of the phones design has produced more and more innovative NEW things, but left the old things unchanged resulting in a jarring experience moving through the different applications. This is made worse by third-party apps where the designers think that they have to have a different user interface for their app to make it “better” – or even more annoying.
This is where Apple are kicking everyone else arse. The iPhone is a joy to use. Notice the word I used, I didn’t say easy (which it is), I said joy. Everything is quick, there are no annoying pauses at all. The device is responsive. When flipping through lists on the screen there is a well thought out kind of feedback, where display elements bounce and jiggle a little.
Everything was smooth setting it up: The number transfer went through in a couple of minutes, the MacBooks email settings automatically got mirrored to the phone and photos and music were also automatically transferred.
The 2.5G criticism is partially valid, but the problem with leading edge is that it isn’t always as good as the hype. I had a 3G data card on business for a few months and most of the time it fell back to GPRS mode and when on 3G didn’t seem much faster. When 3G is mature it will be great, but at the moment I think it was a sensible compromise of Apples to go with GPRS. It works, it uses less battery power. Apples implementation of GPRS is brilliant too. Email, Safari, Google Maps and the Weather application just carry on working without any annoying questions just like they did on the Wireless LAN – just a bit slower.
What’s all this about the iPhone being locked? Every mobile phone I’ve ever had was locked to the provider that supplied it. I don’t know anyone who buys phones at full retail price to get an unlocked one. I do know of people going to the “bloke on the market” with his dodgy unlocking kit, sometimes resulting in a knackered phone. What’s the difference with the iPhone?
Oh, and regarding bugs. My Nokia 6230i crashes if my TomTom tries a traffic update while I’m talking to someone on the phone. Oh, and it also crashes at random at other times. How old is that model? Can I download my own updates and install them? No. iTunes automatically updates the iPhone when new releases are available. Much better.
No hassle and a joy. Simple. I’ve never seen a modern phone like it.
tags: apple iPhone phone technology ui |