10 Things that "Absolutely suck" about the iPhone. (Yes I have one)

[CountBuggula]

No that point is immaterial. Apple marketing is the easiest job in the world cause their products sell themselves.

So...Macs are so good that Apple didn't have to hire people to spread blatant lies about PC's to sell their product?

The iPod didn't become the 1200 pound gorilla because of marketing. It got that way by having:

The best UI
Avoiding a plethora of features and adhering to the KISS principle
High product quality

The iPod is one of the worst quality MP3 players on the market. I used to work at a tech-bench where we got defective and malfunctioning iPods that needed to be refurbished on a daily basis. The iPod gets away with being extraordinarily restrictive and crappy because it became a status symbol and a fashon accessory. Apple marketing did that. Non-tech people who had no idea what MP3s are went out and bought them because they wanted the "cool iPod". When you'd ask them how they liked their new MP3 player they'd say "huh? What's an MP3 player?"

If you look back up a few posts to the graph of iPod sales you'll see it didn't sell well right away, it took time for that marketing machine to take off.

The iPhone has been a huge sales success initially because the Apple marketing machine was already in full swing, and there was an insanely huge media frenzy surrounding the device.

 

[CountBuggula]

sure they have new features.....they don't have that stubby little antenna on them and their sides are curved in a bit. their batteries are also lesser capacity than the others.

Haha, I'll agree with you there

In my sig you'll note that yes, I have a 755, but no, I didn't pay for it and no, I wouldn't pay for it. But it makes a nice free replacement.

 

[mikec#IM]

this is really getting old.......and meaningless.

the trvth never gets old. And it was in response to Jack's comment.


I thought you were leaving...

 

[mikec#IM]

Hey, have you or anyone else here tried doing a search using the word "bug" on any of the Treo forums? How about "help me"? Or "crash" perhaps?

The results are staggering, and equally entertaining.

The tphone was never marketed as the jphone.

 

[oalvarez]

shoo fly

 

[mikec#IM]

I don't speak l33t so not sure what "As there is not defn of" means. But I know that page well.

Just look here alone, we have half the people claiming the iPhone it is not a smartphone so that definition goes out the window. The major industry reporters can't even agree on what a smartphone is with many long holding that the Treo and BB's are not in the same category.

To some people a smart phone has phone and data e-mail capability.
Others say, web access needed.
Others say mulktimedia needed
Others say 3rd party programs needed

Did ya bother to read ya refrenece.. If ya did you'\d see it confirms my point



So units w/o touchscreens are not smartphones...well that knocks out a whole lot of so called smartphones.

Jack, "defn" is short-hand for definition. It's not l33t or whatever disparaging label you want to apply.

I did read it, and it disconfirms your post, that "there is not agreement on "smartphone".

Touchscreens are not required on smartphone.

Here, I will make it brief and simple for you:

Smartphone has:
- Phone
- OS that is designed to do more than just phone/camera/WAP web browsing
(ex. Palm/WM/OSX/Symbian/BB)
- MAY have touchscreen
- Has QWERTY keyboard (physical or virtual; one caveat is those Windows "smartphones" that have the T9 sort of input, which was marketed as smartphone, but really is not)
- Has 3rd party apps in some form (generally, this goes along with the OS being open and having an SDK)
- Syncs with desktop PIM
- Ability to read or edit office automation documents
- "Regular" internet access (normal web sites, email protocols, etc.)

That pretty much covers it. Pretty simple. Guess what - the iPhone is a smartphone.

I'm not saying that's a bad thing. It's just stating that fits the category.

For you to claim there's no defintion (defacto or otherwise) is incorrect.

 

[mikec#IM]

Yep. There sure ain't an agreed definition. I expect a level of agreement will emerge over time but until then the word isn't particularly useful (unless used in a context in which it has already been defined).

There is a defacto one...see my post...I dare you to find a rational disagreement with it.

 

[mikec#IM]

sure they have new features.....they don't have that stubby little antenna on them and their sides are curved in a bit. their batteries are also lesser capacity than the others.

But a least those batteries are (user) replaceable.

 

[mikec#IM]

Not me. I will just take the money that I have made on Apple stock since the availability of the iPhone and buy one.

That said, history suggests that the Apple people are pricing geniuses. Apple products sell at list and the list falls very slowly. I think that the iPhone can sustain its price for quite a while. I would also expect that a 3G iPhone, whenever introduced, will command a price at least as high as the 2G phone.

Pricing geniuses - I dunno, I think they have pricing discipline. They rarely cut prices, and only after the product has been aound for a while. They discountine products rather than lower price and sell more.

Discipline.

I agree the 3G iPhone will be the same price (or higher) when released. I bet the 2G price stays the same.

 

[surur]

Answer the question.

What question? (in 30 words or less).

Surur

 

[mikec#IM]

So...Macs are so good that Apple didn't have to hire people to spread blatant lies about PC's to sell their product?



The iPod is one of the worst quality MP3 players on the market. I used to work at a tech-bench where we got defective and malfunctioning iPods that needed to be refurbished on a daily basis. The iPod gets away with being extraordinarily restrictive and crappy because it became a status symbol and a fashon accessory. Apple marketing did that. Non-tech people who had no idea what MP3s are went out and bought them because they wanted the "cool iPod". When you'd ask them how they liked their new MP3 player they'd say "huh? What's an MP3 player?"

If you look back up a few posts to the graph of iPod sales you'll see it didn't sell well right away, it took time for that marketing machine to take off.

The iPhone has been a huge sales success initially because the Apple marketing machine was already in full swing, and there was an insanely huge media frenzy surrounding the device.

Those Ellen Feiss Apple ads; I love how Apple got drugged teenagers to push their product. Where was the outcry?

Paris Hilton rubs a Carl's Jr. burger on body and it can't be condemned fast enough.

It's all about the presentation....


And btw, iPods took off for one reason - Windows compatibility.

Next.

 

[mikec#IM]

shoo fly

Are you sitting in a hot pile of steaming dung?

 

[braj]

Pricing geniuses - I dunno, I think they have pricing discipline. They rarely cut prices, and only after the product has been aound for a while. They discountine products rather than lower price and sell more.

Discipline.

I agree the 3G iPhone will be the same price (or higher) when released. I bet the 2G price stays the same.

Yep, Apple products never really go on 'sale'. They control the price third partie partners charge as well, you may see a $5 difference but that's about it. The only reason not to buy directly from Apple is for lower shipping, no taxes, or because it is otherwise convenient. Unless there is some huge new products released by other vendors Apple likely won't lower prices. The iPod price never went down, just new version have been released. Lower cost/spec versions were made for the lower end of the market.

This policy actually gives me hope that they will open up the iPhone with an SDK. If there is enough criticism and consumers refuse to buy a device that is so limiting in functional expansion, they may do so to maintain the price point, making it a 'smart' smartphone.

 

[JackNaylorPE]

Frankly the iPhone has been out for three weeks. For you to make the claim that it does everything that 99% of people need including ex-treo owners is hardly a logical argument.

Claim ? Just "doin the math". It's by no emans conjecture, it's simply numbers. Counting sales. Let's define the criteria:

We all agree that the iPhone is not intended for the business market, so we talking strictly consumer market. My complaint about the iPhone's criticisms has been that 99% of the target user base don't need or want those missing features. The iPhone is not being marketed to business users. Criticizing it because it doesn't have business "features" is inappropriate. It's never been proposed as such.

Here it says that there were 180 million cell phone users in 2004 and that 130 million will be retired in 2005 and that the rate of increase is about 9 million a year.

http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2006/3097/

So "doin the math", that's 130 + 9 + 9 or let's lets say 150 million phone sales in 2006.

http://www.palminfocenter.com/news/9165/npd-reports-smartphone-growth-spurt/

NPD also says that 6% of US sales are "smartphones"

"On a quarterly basis in 2006, smartphone sales have risen more than four percentage points to more than 6 percent of new phones sold through October in the fourth quarter of 2006.

So, based upon total sales, 94% of people in the US decided they they don't need nor want smartphone features. With me so far ? No argument possible....these are the sales figures.

Now the largest seller in the NPD report is the Motorola Q which does not even have a touch screen, therefore it does not fit in the "Treo like" category. But heck, I'l let it go.

So we have unequivocally established that 94% of US phone users don't want these features. I'm quite happy to say "Ok, it's not 99% it's 94%.....but lets get back to the issue. The iPhone is not intended nor marketed to business users. Of those 9 million US smartphone purchases how many are consumers and how many are business users ? So lets do some math:

150 million phones - 9 million smart phones means 141 million unequivocally have decided they don't "need" business features in their phone. Now how many of those 9 million smartphone users should be placed in the business category and how many should be placed in the consumer category ? I'd argue that most of those 9 million are "business users". Let's however say that 5/6 buy their "Treos or whatever" because of a legitimate business need and the other 1/6 are just consumers. That's 1.5 million "consumer market" types buying Treos or equivalent.

let's do the math:

150 million phones sold.....7.5 million "business market types" using smartphones .... 1.5 million "consumer market" types using smartphones. Consumer market = 142.5 million

1.5 million / 142 million = 1.05% of "consumer market" types bought a smartphones. That means 98.95% of consumers decided

Reject my entire argument and you are still left with the cold hard fact that, based upon the data presented, 94% of ALL US purchases have voted with their checkbooks that they do not want nor need smartphone features. This simply is not subject to interpretation. The potential iPhone customer is not a business user, so it takes no great stretch of logic to conclude that taking business users out of the remaining 6 percent easily boosts the base 94% figure up a few % points.

Argue that half of Treo / BB / equivalent whatever users base their purchase decision on personal rather than business needs (a tough argument to support that would be) and what have ya accomplished ?....geez that 99% is now a paltry 97%. I'm crushed ! How could I be that far off the mark ????













Give the new iPhone owners time to get over their euphoria, and about 3-4 months I think the shine may be off. Frankly alot of my casual (non-tech) friends use MMS. I know they would be disappointed with the lack of MMS as well as the lackluster camera in the iPhone. (dont get me wrong, the treo camera sucks horribly) They also have custom ringers, although i suspect apple will fix that soon. Granted they dont need the push email as my 700WX has, but they also would rather have a decently formatted mobile web page on 3G vs a full webpage that takes 50 secs to load on the iphone.

But you have to admit with the 2G iPhone comes out with 3G and retails for $300 in 6-8 months you Appletons are going to be pissed...[/QUOTE]

 

[mikec#IM]

Claim ? Just "doin the math". It's by no emans conjecture, it's simply numbers. Counting sales. Let's define the criteria:

We all agree that the iPhone is not intended for the business market, so we talking strictly consumer market. My complaint about the iPhone's criticisms has been that 99% of the target user base don't need or want those missing features. The iPhone is not being marketed to business users. Criticizing it because it doesn't have business "features" is inappropriate. It's never been proposed as such.

Here it says that there were 180 million cell phone users in 2004 and that 130 million will be retired in 2005 and that the rate of increase is about 9 million a year.

http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2006/3097/

So "doin the math", that's 130 + 9 + 9 or let's lets say 150 million phone sales in 2006.

http://www.palminfocenter.com/news/9165/npd-reports-smartphone-growth-spurt/

NPD also says that 6% of US sales are "smartphones"

"On a quarterly basis in 2006, smartphone sales have risen more than four percentage points to more than 6 percent of new phones sold through October in the fourth quarter of 2006.

So, based upon total sales, 94% of people in the US decided they they don't need nor want smartphone features. With me so far ? No argument possible....these are the sales figures.

Now the largest seller in the NPD report is the Motorola Q which does not even have a touch screen, therefore it does not fit in the "Treo like" category. But heck, I'l let it go.

So we have unequivocally established that 94% of US phone users don't want these features. I'm quite happy to say "Ok, it's not 99% it's 94%.....but lets get back to the issue. The iPhone is not intended nor marketed to business users. Of those 9 million US smartphone purchases how many are consumers and how many are business users ? So lets do some math:

150 million phones - 9 million smart phones means 141 million unequivocally have decided they don't "need" business features in their phone. Now how many of those 9 million smartphone users should be placed in the business category and how many should be placed in the consumer category ? I'd argue that most of those 9 million are "business users". Let's however say that 5/6 buy their "Treos or whatever" because of a legitimate business need and the other 1/6 are just consumers. That's 1.5 million "consumer market" types buying Treos or equivalent.

let's do the math:

150 million phones sold.....7.5 million "business market types" using smartphones .... 1.5 million "consumer market" types using smartphones. Consumer market = 142.5 million

1.5 million / 142 million = 1.05% of "consumer market" types bought a smartphones. That means 98.95% of consumers decided

Reject my entire argument and you are still left with the cold hard fact that, based upon the data presented, 94% of ALL US purchases have voted with their checkbooks that they do not want nor need smartphone features. This simply is not subject to interpretation. The potential iPhone customer is not a business user, so it takes no great stretch of logic to conclude that taking business users out of the remaining 6 percent easily boosts the base 94% figure up a few % points.

Argue that half of Treo / BB / equivalent whatever users base their purchase decision on personal rather than business needs (a tough argument to support that would be) and what have ya accomplished ?....geez that 99% is now a paltry 97%. I'm crushed ! How could I be that far off the mark ????













Give the new iPhone owners time to get over their euphoria, and about 3-4 months I think the shine may be off. Frankly alot of my casual (non-tech) friends use MMS. I know they would be disappointed with the lack of MMS as well as the lackluster camera in the iPhone. (dont get me wrong, the treo camera sucks horribly) They also have custom ringers, although i suspect apple will fix that soon. Granted they dont need the push email as my 700WX has, but they also would rather have a decently formatted mobile web page on 3G vs a full webpage that takes 50 secs to load on the iphone.

But you have to admit with the 2G iPhone comes out with 3G and retails for $300 in 6-8 months you Appletons are going to be pissed...

[/QUOTE]


Jack,

More words != more proof

Your premise is completely skewed.

Phone sales, for the most part are subsidized. Most smartphone purchases are subsidized by businesses.

I agree most people don't need a smartphone - they need a phone.

But to present it like the market has not chosen smartphones (which the iPhone is included) because they don't need the feature is specious.

Wanting a feature and accepting the price-point are two different things.

Again, you make this looooooooooooooong posts, with no points.

Conciseness is next to godliness.

 

[CountBuggula]

Claim ? Just "doin the math". It's by no emans conjecture, it's simply numbers. Counting sales. Let's define the criteria:

We all agree that the iPhone is not intended for the business market, so we talking strictly consumer market. My complaint about the iPhone's criticisms has been that 99% of the target user base don't need or want those missing features. The iPhone is not being marketed to business users. Criticizing it because it doesn't have business "features" is inappropriate. It's never been proposed as such.

Here it says that there were 180 million cell phone users in 2004 and that 130 million will be retired in 2005 and that the rate of increase is about 9 million a year.

http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2006/3097/

So "doin the math", that's 130 + 9 + 9 or let's lets say 150 million phone sales in 2006.

http://www.palminfocenter.com/news/9165/npd-reports-smartphone-growth-spurt/

NPD also says that 6% of US sales are "smartphones"

"On a quarterly basis in 2006, smartphone sales have risen more than four percentage points to more than 6 percent of new phones sold through October in the fourth quarter of 2006.

So, based upon total sales, 94% of people in the US decided they they don't need nor want smartphone features. With me so far ? No argument possible....these are the sales figures.

Now the largest seller in the NPD report is the Motorola Q which does not even have a touch screen, therefore it does not fit in the "Treo like" category. But heck, I'l let it go.

So we have unequivocally established that 94% of US phone users don't want these features. I'm quite happy to say "Ok, it's not 99% it's 94%.....but lets get back to the issue. The iPhone is not intended nor marketed to business users. Of those 9 million US smartphone purchases how many are consumers and how many are business users ? So lets do some math:

150 million phones - 9 million smart phones means 141 million unequivocally have decided they don't "need" business features in their phone. Now how many of those 9 million smartphone users should be placed in the business category and how many should be placed in the consumer category ? I'd argue that most of those 9 million are "business users". Let's however say that 5/6 buy their "Treos or whatever" because of a legitimate business need and the other 1/6 are just consumers. That's 1.5 million "consumer market" types buying Treos or equivalent.

let's do the math:

150 million phones sold.....7.5 million "business market types" using smartphones .... 1.5 million "consumer market" types using smartphones. Consumer market = 142.5 million

1.5 million / 142 million = 1.05% of "consumer market" types bought a smartphones. That means 98.95% of consumers decided

Reject my entire argument and you are still left with the cold hard fact that, based upon the data presented, 94% of ALL US purchases have voted with their checkbooks that they do not want nor need smartphone features. This simply is not subject to interpretation. The potential iPhone customer is not a business user, so it takes no great stretch of logic to conclude that taking business users out of the remaining 6 percent easily boosts the base 94% figure up a few % points.

Argue that half of Treo / BB / equivalent whatever users base their purchase decision on personal rather than business needs (a tough argument to support that would be) and what have ya accomplished ?....geez that 99% is now a paltry 97%. I'm crushed ! How could I be that far off the mark ????













Give the new iPhone owners time to get over their euphoria, and about 3-4 months I think the shine may be off. Frankly alot of my casual (non-tech) friends use MMS. I know they would be disappointed with the lack of MMS as well as the lackluster camera in the iPhone. (dont get me wrong, the treo camera sucks horribly) They also have custom ringers, although i suspect apple will fix that soon. Granted they dont need the push email as my 700WX has, but they also would rather have a decently formatted mobile web page on 3G vs a full webpage that takes 50 secs to load on the iphone.

But you have to admit with the 2G iPhone comes out with 3G and retails for $300 in 6-8 months you Appletons are going to be pissed...

You know, I'm really not sure why you're still beating this horse to death. We all know the iPhone has sold remarkably well due do its accompanying media frenzy/hype. We also know that the vast majority of Americans don't want/need a smartphone. Do you have any additional point to make besides these? If not just move on.

This thread is about reasons why smartphone users (the ones who actually want/need those extra features) might not want an iPhone, lest the iMasses come here with comments like "you idiots, still using that 5-yr old piece of crap technology Treo! The iPhone totally rocks your Treo LOL N00b!", which is exactly what we see everywhere else in any forum where the iPhone has been brought up in discussion.

 

[CountBuggula]

shoo fly

Haha, was this directed at me? I've been called CountChocula so many times lately (is that supposed to be an insult?) by llarson I almost forgot what my alias actually is.

 

[surur]

For some reason Jack is saying the iPhone has all the features a consumer needs. Here is just another example that this is not the case.

Srb Foofy 07-19-2007 07:01

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The bluetooth on the iphone!!!

Ok so i tired getting a pic from my friend with my iphone though bluetooth, He can find me but whenever he trys too connet it fails? Is the bluetooth only for headsets or what??

JiveDonkey 07-19-2007 07:34

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

for now, yes

BIGMERF 07-19-2007 07:45

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

are u serious, wow

ShovelhEd 07-19-2007 12:50

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

yeah, pretty useless stuff. Being able to share songs, contacts, and such would be great. That and a2dp are my biggest gripes

chinese_fury 07-19-2007 16:52

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Bluetooth is pretty much cripled by AT&T / Apple at this point, you can only do what they want you to do. Until some group hacks the iphone.

harlenm 07-19-2007 17:24

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Quote:
Originally Posted by ShovelhEd
yeah, pretty useless stuff. Being able to share songs, contacts, and such would be great. That and a2dp are my biggest gripes



You will never be allowed to share songs. The same reason you can only sync your ipod/iphone with one computer at a time.

http://www.howardforums.com/showthread.php?t=1204791

Jack the iPhone lacks features even normal phones have, like MMS, Bluetooth OBEX, RINGTONES!!!

I'm sure you will explain only geeks want to send pics via bluetooth.

Surur

 

[braj]

I really doubt all iPhone users are 99% happy with the purchase as Jack seems to think. Just because you buy something doesn't mean you were 99% happy about all features. I'm sure many would rather just have 1 device that covered all bases, but got it anyway for various reasons and still have to use another 'smarter' phone for business. And I'm sure there is a segment who bought it a bit uninformed and went 'there's no chat? WTF?' More example could be given of course. The bottom line is that saying just because they shelled out the bucks means it has what 99% of people need is bogus and not based on anything but Jack's imagination. Are most happy about the purchase? I'm sure they are. Do many want to see more and better features? Of course.

 

[surur]

I really doubt all iPhone users are 99% happy with the purchase as Jack seems to think. Just because you buy something doesn't mean you were 99% happy about all features. I'm sure many would rather just have 1 device that covered all bases, but got it anyway for various reasons and still have to use another 'smarter' phone for business. And I'm sure there is a segment who bought it a bit uninformed and went 'there's no chat? WTF?' More example could be given of course. The bottom line is that saying just because they shelled out the bucks means it has what 99% of people need is bogus and not based on anything but Jack's imagination. Are most happy about the purchase? I'm sure they are. Do many want to see more and better features? Of course.

Exactly. Will Jack's argument fall apart when the iPhone gets its much vaunted upgrade to include all the smartphone features its missing?

Surur