Biggest iPhone disappointment

[AnteL0pe]

1. The high price. SE's unlocked phones are the same price and offer the features Apple decided not to include for some reason. IM, MMS, 3G and A2DP are standard on the new hot SE phones. Also on some Nokias. Even the new Motos! And IM is now a standard even on crappy phones!

A2DP is important to something close to < 1% i imagine. It will be important eventually, but iv only seen one person ever using a stereo bluetooth headset. 3G would have been nice, but the EDGE experience has been pretty good. I expect an IM app and MMS capability to come in an update, those are both glaring omitions IMHO.

2. Jobs hailed it as something revolutionary. So some people expected a more complete phone. Some just don't care due to the cool screen, but others are looking beyond the pretty face.

It is pretty revolutionary. It does look very cool and has a beautiful screen, but people are falling in love with the functionality. The ease of use and the user experience is so much better than other phones its really quite amazing.

 

[cmaier]

I'm kind of reminded of two other situtions in my past. I'm a geek. I design microprocessors for AMD, write operating systems, and buy lots of electronic toys.

In 1997 or so I started using a creative labs mp3 player. Can't even remember the model, but it looked like a cd player and had a hard drive. It had a ton of features. I scoffed at ipod when it came out. "What do you mean you can't do on-the-fly playlists? How are you supposed to control things when there are so few buttons?" A couple years later i got tired of jumping through hoops to get my music onto the thing and having to constantly tell it to rebuild the library because songs would mysteriously disappear off the thing, and I got an ipod. While I missed some features, overall I found myself enjoying my mp3 experience more because it required so much less effort on my part.


Later I got a pocket pc. Later i got a second one. I learned to program it in c++, grew to appreciate the api, but eventually got annoyed at bizarre user interface inconsistencies, activesync hassles, random crashes, and the like. So when it came time to get a smartphone I went with samsung's sph-i500, a palm phone. And I learned to program that, too, and while the API sucked, and the phone had fewer features, what was there just plain worked a lot better. Fewer crashes, fewer clicks to do common things, etc. So my next phone was a treo 650.

But palm stopped evolving about three years ago, their announced future plans are alternately incomplete or laughable, and the software and hacks to bring the functionality up-to-date are getting kludgier and more unstable. Windows mobile is very powerful, but I am still not happy with the inelegance of its design and interface.

My iphones won't arrive until friday, so i have no idea if I will find this to be a similar situation. And I have no doubt that if apple never releases another firmware update, then iphone won't be a suitable device for me. But I am hopeful that, for the most part, the iphone will be a step up in ease of use and simplicity, I'll know soon enough.

And I think that many people who are buying these phones on the basis of their interface are not just doing so because of the "ooh" factor, but are hopeful that the iphone will live up to its obvious potential to simplify at least part of their lives.

 

[oalvarez]

1. The high price. SE's unlocked phones are the same price and offer the features Apple decided not to include for some reason. IM, MMS, 3G and A2DP are standard on the new hot SE phones. Also on some Nokias. Even the new Motos! And IM is now a standard even on crappy phones!

2. Jobs hailed it as something revolutionary. So some people expected a more complete phone. Some just don't care due to the cool screen, but others are looking beyond the pretty face.

high price, perhaps on a comparative basis. but to hate a device because of its high price and lack of features that you point to above? it has SMS, it allows for transmission of pictures via email....yes, WE ALL GET THE 3G issue but EDGE has been surprising to say the least.

it IS revolutionary in that the user interface and the user experience that comes with it TRUMPS all other devices i've ever owned, and i've owned quite a few ( beyond those in my sig....ppc6600, i730, etc). it is not just the "cool screen" as you call it nor the pretty face, it's the experience that some are finding to be that much different than what they were used to.

only the others wished they could have developed such a "cool screen" first.

 

[Merovingian]

Why would I take a bet I would lose. Apple has bet on the stupidity of the public, and that is a bet no-one can ever lose.

Surur

So right, mate. So right.
Some folks are justifying the lack of 3rd party apps as a security measure. Yet OS X thrives not only on the few Apple provided apps but by the sweat of other folks who write great apps that make OS X much better to like. Simple example, Firefox browser.

Anyway back on topic, i read a remark from someone else that Apple could package a chunk of $..T, label it iCrap and hordes of iFolks would still buy it.

By the way, las time i checked, it took a certain influential someone, quote "34 finger taps and 10 mode changes" just to insert a period (or full stop) using the keyboard.
http://missingmanuals.com/pogues_awesome_iphone_typing_shortcut.csp

 

[oalvarez]

^so how do you like your iPhone? what is your biggest disappointment?

 

[AnteL0pe]

Anyway back on topic, i read a remark from someone else that Apple could package a chunk of $..T, label it iCrap and hordes of iFolks would still buy it.

This tired, old assertion has never been true. Apple fans get excited about new products because Apple rarely disappoints and usually beats expectations. When they do drop the ball Apple fans are their harshest critics.

 

[Certs]

Anyway back on topic, i read a remark from someone else that Apple could package a chunk of $..T, label it iCrap and hordes of iFolks would still buy it.
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I believe its called appletv and no one bought it. Or was that the newton?

34 taps to type a period? And that person gets taken seriously? It's a 1-tap step, I can assure you. The last time I tapped a button 34 times was when I was trying to wake my treo up once. Or answer a call when it started to freeze. Or try and shut a reminder off. I'll stop now

 

[AnteL0pe]

34 taps to type a period? And that person gets taken seriously?

The 34 taps were to type "a P.O. Box in the U.S.A.". Just after that he explains a trick to accomplish the same task using just one click per character.