10 Things that "Absolutely rock" about the iPhone. (no I don't have one)

[taylorh]

At least with the iPhone and UNIX it shouldn't bring down the whole phone.

What I read was that the phone locked up and had to be rebooted, ans it wasn't uncommon for it to happen as the most inconvenient times. I don't have an iPhone so I'm not sure what that means.
But I was wondeing of other people have similar crashes.
For instance there are is a small number of common bugs on the Treo 750 which I have never experienced, on the contorary rather solid operation.
I wondered how th iphone compares as far as how common crashes are.

 

[braj]

What I read was that the phone locked up and had to be rebooted, ans it wasn't uncommon for it to happen as the most inconvenient times. I don't have an iPhone so I'm not sure what that means.
But I was wondeing of other people have similar crashes.
For instance there are is a small number of common bugs on the Treo 750 which I have never expeienced, on the contorary rather solid operation.
I wondered how th iphone compares as far as how common crashes are.

Yeah, I guess if you are looking at the iPhone to resolve Treo instability it isn't the cure-all. With my Treo I imagine if it had no 3rd party apps it likely would rarely crash. As it is it is pretty stable with Agendus being the only thing that gives me issues (and that's my own fault, the native datebook would be rock solid).

 

[MobileGuy]

Come on, warm fuzzy nostaligic sounds like a ringing endorsement to me. I thought you were not suppose to have an iPhone for this thread. My big issue is AT&T's service and the price of the plan even even wiithout insurance. Can't give up my $29.56 (Insurance and tax included) Sero plan with unlimited everything.

I do like my old T 700p, but I also like my old Psion 3a, just hard to go back. I can't disagree about pricing or about the AT&T network (but I do travel and need GSM). Am amazed how easy it is to get on free wifi in all kinds of places. In any event, i think most who get one and use it for a while won't want to give it back!

 

[braj]

I missed my old ancient Palm alarms (that I had been wanting to update forever) when I got a Treo. Funny. Just so many years had passed with those consistent alarms that I would find myself not noticing the less obnoxious Treo sounds.

 

[marcol]

I'm in the UK so I definitely fit into the 'I don't have one category' and will probably never use the rev 0 software. While there are certainly some things I'd like to see change (mostly additions, some of which I'm pretty sure will be added) it seems to me Apple got a lot of the fundamentals right. With an eye firmly on that, here's my list of 10(ish):

1. Simplicity of UI - app launch and task switching - always two buttons.

2. Simplicity of UI - access to most stuff (especially frequently used functions) isn't buried in menus, the contents of which are invisible until the menu is opened - most actions involve tapping a clearly visible on-screen button. There are exceptions where appropriate of course (video is obviously much better full-screen).

3. Speed of the UI - transitions, app launch and using apps - all seem pretty snappy.

4. UI is gorgeous. Launcher and every app look classy. Love all those transitions and screen effects.

5. UI is flexible. Where other devices have physical buttons (including numeric or QWERTY keyboards), the iphone has on-screen buttons. The buttons you need, when you need them.

6. Input - innovative multi-touch, finger-based input. Completely stylus free.

7. UI designed for capacitive touchscreens. Capacitve screens are great (high durability and clarity) but you can't, as I understand it, just throw one onto, say, a Palm OS or WM device. They need to be touched with a conductive object with a reasonably large surface area, like a finger. A stylus won't work. The whole UI has to be designed around finger-based input.

8. Battery life/power management - excellent esp. for audio and video. Engadget got 9 hours video and 29.5 hours music playback. Crucial in a phone that these don't deplete the battery too much.

9. Settings - all gathered together in one place, as they should be (a lesson Nokia definitely needs to learn).

10. iTunes integration. IMO, iTunes does a great job of collecting together multimedia functions (ripping CDs, buying music (and video), downloading podcasts, managing (and playing) your music and video content, transferring and managing iPod/iPhone content etc). Without this integration I need an iPod as well as a phone.

11. Out-of-the-box Mac support.​

Like I say, there are certainly things I'd like to see added (3G radio, exposed file system and much improved file handling, more BT profiles (including sync - at least for PIM data), to-dos, better alarm configuration in Calendar, cut and paste, multiple selection of emails for deletion etc, etc) but as a platform, especially for the first generation, it's looking extraordinarily good - IMO

 

[whatever7]

I play with an iPhone in Cingular store.

There are two things that are awesome about the iPhone:
* absolutely fabulous black level on the screen. Deep, deep, deep black.

* and the snappy "quartz" UI. I am not talking about the interface, which is not far from Palm's. I am talking about the transitional effect. Steve Jobs is the only one who understand tastely done flash sells.

other than that.....

 

[oalvarez]

I saw a lot of complaints of the iPhone crashing mostly with the web browser.
Have you experienced many of these crashes?

zero. and like i've said before, if it did i didn't even know it. i did my own test: multiple web pages open, played a song on itunes, took a photo, sent the photo via email, used the phone, and no crash. i've had it for almost a month now and no crashes.

 

[oalvarez]

What I love most about the iPhone is no more of this

:thumbsup:

you have room for another poster over there at your place?

 

[cmaier]

I've had several crashes of the browser. When the browser crashes, it just closes and you're back to the home screen. When you restart the browser, it reloads any pages it had open, and you're back where you were (generally - session cookies go away, so you may need to log in).

I've detected a few situations where I've run into crashes:

1) sometimes when a page contains a massive quantity of something (not necessarily bytes). For example, a page containing a giant table of 1000 thumbnail photos and descriptions. Reloading works fine, so whatever the problem is, it's transient.

2) sometimes when a page contains sufficiently complicated javascript. Note that this is very rare, and reloading the page works fine.

3) sometimes if you click on a link to a file type the browser doesn't understand (like an .exe, or .zip for example). I haven't examined this type of crash further.

I have not had the browser crash on me other than during loading one of the types of pages above. That is, it has never crashed while I was just reading something, or navigating around, listening to music, jumping between applications, etc.

Also, not once has my iphone "locked up and needed to be rebooted." Nor has it experienced any sort of "slow down effect" that required a reboot.

The only reason i've ever had to reboot is a bug (mis-feature) in the email application. It caches email server addresses, so if your mail server is dynamically assigned IP addresses, and the address changes, iphone can no longer find the server. Rebooting is an easy fix (killing the email program might work too - haven't tried it).

 

[bubbatex]

The STYLE!

IMHO, the iPhone "ups the ante" for everyone else and will hopefully creat ripples of improvements across the board. I mean, look at LG and HTC taking about and introducing "iPhone killers" like the HTC Touch. I personally like the darn thing - it's a beauty - and I am sorry I don't work at Apple any more since every employee is going to get one! But, I am a Sprint guy and I will probably never have one.

 

[surur]

The HTC Touch was in development well before Apple showed its wears. How long exactly do you think it takes to bring a phone to market?

Surur

 

[braj]

The HTC Touch was in development well before Apple showed its wears. How long exactly do you think it takes to bring a phone to market?

Surur

Interesting. Could Apple actually have announced/released early to keep from looking like a follower instead of a leader? Obviously the multitouch on the iPhone is ahead overall vs the Touch (more completely integrated where the Touch is only partial, and not multitouch as I understand it). The Touch did release before the iPhone but as bubbatex shows, the perception is that they were playing catchup after the iPhone announcment.

 

[bubbatex]

Humm, the iPhone is not made in the US - wonder what company(s) saw that design as the manufacturing was being shopped in Asia???

It was a natural assumption as soon as Apple was rumored to be working on a phone what it was going to look like - an iPod.

 

[surur]

Remember the LG PRADA, which looks strikingly like the iPhone and even has a capacitive screen, was shown months (and even won a design award) before the iPhone was even announced.

Surur

 

[bubbatex]

Hey - don't really want to argue about "who was first". The "perception" is that Apple is leading the pack with a new design and interface that is NOT WM or POS. Regardless of who was designing or planning whatever - iPhone will pave the way to both better design and integration on the phone side and more acceptance/use of "convergence devices" on the consumer side.

 

[mikec#IM]

BTW, I have heard from a friend at Apple that the next rev of the iPhone is coming for Xmas. That's as much as they would say, but the source is solid.

Don't tease...details.

 

[braj]

Don't tease...details.

That's all I heard, they wouldn't say anything else. I don't think they have that much to tell but do know that it is coming. The one caveat is that they could mean a software update, not a new device. This person isn't on the iPhone team themselves. I don't even know what product they work on.

 

[bubbatex]

Well Edgadget has posted something similar from an Apple "insider" - a "Nano" type lower cost phone for Christmas.

http://www.engadgetmobile.com/2007/07/19/some-truth-behind-persistent-iphone-nano-rumors/

 

[Malatesta]

Interesting. Could Apple actually have announced/released early to keep from looking like a follower instead of a leader? Obviously the multitouch on the iPhone is ahead overall vs the Touch (more completely integrated where the Touch is only partial, and not multitouch as I understand it). The Touch did release before the iPhone but as bubbatex shows, the perception is that they were playing catchup after the iPhone announcment.

Well, Jobs said they announced the iPhone early because with the FCC and testing there would be no way they could keep it "secret", so they wanted to announced it on their terms.

As far this 'catchup' or 'leading' thing, everyone involved in the smartphone biz knows where it's heading: large, smooth touch screens, touch friendly, etc. MS has been working on it for "Photon" for about 2 years now, POSII is the same with large touchable icons. In other words, this was a natural trend/evolution of the industry. True, Apple sort of "got their first" but just about everyone was headed in that direction anyways.

 

[braj]

So, I like the pictures I've seen posted from the iPhone camera. 2.0 MP is high enough resolution and still reasonable to send via email. But why no video?? Anyhow, next rev maybe