First Impressions: Apple iPhone

Nicely put JNGold. I must agree. I've been using WM/PPC for 6 years, followed it from it's inception and WM has most definately grown long in the tooth and very much lame for any geek IMO. What many fail to realize is that WM devices no longer fall into the "I'm different" category. I work on a college campus and more than half the population owns a WM device of some sort. Most of which are none techie types. So if you think the iPhone means you're turning into joe consumer think again as WM has been there for a long time now. We are in a different age where everyone wants to be connected so not many devices are free from mass consumption any more making it harder to be different. WM is everywhere and so will be the iPhone. The best thing the iPhone has going for it, is a true OS that is only limited by what Apple chooses to allow it to do. WM on the other hand needs to be completely rewritten from scratch in order to stay competitve but then again MS is really only focused on the Exchange Server/Business aspect as even they don't use AS leaving those who need AS or should I say WMDC (which doesn't work either) out in the cold. So my advice is to stay loyal to yourself and buy what works for you and this is a mobility today site from what I read not a Windows Mobile site. So what ever's hot and new should be discussed.

You know I got to play with a friends iPhone and to be 100% honest I am not really impressed. I will admit the touch interface is nice but not really all that great. Also, I don't really use the touch screen much. I find voice commands work better and make the unit easier to use especially when driving and wearing a bluetooth headset. So touch screen aside it is not really that great a device the touch or the phone.

David, the one way to nail going from vertical to horizontal with iPod, pictures and Safari every single time: Hold the iPhone straight up in front of you. Do not angle it backwards or hold it flat or down or angled away from you. Just hold it straight up ...and maybe even tilting it ever so slightly towards you. It should work without fail every single time. I hope I explained that right.

"yeah but doesn't the geakyness in you say oh no i am selling out and becoming joe public and being a mr average consumer when we are anything but that."

As Steve has said many times, most of the people that frequent sites like this are the "geeks". However, we are the minority. There is a whole segment of the population that wants to use technology but hasn't because platforms like WM has not appealed to them.

Plus, as a "geek" I can appreciate what the iPhone brings to the table. I can also appreciate how complex the iPhone truly is. With technology, the more simple something is to use, the more complex system has to be.

"The joy of having a windows mobile phone is being different and owning something that does things no body else can."

That's not exactly true. Symbian OS'es can do anything that a WM device can do and it has a very extensive software library to boot. You also forget Palm OS.....

I don't think there's any denying that WM is a great platform for productivity. However, at this stage it has been made to look rather old by the "new kid on the block" in the areas of overall ease of use, multimedia, web browsing and yes, dare I say it syncing data. With regards to the last point, anyone who has use ActiveStink can attest to pain and torture one needs to go thru to data sync'ed to a given WM device. Perhaps you or another person may not have issues but just do a Google on Activesync problems and you'll see what I mean! :)

It's time to take a hard look at WM because now there is someone else that has risen the bar for what a mobile device "can" be. For too long MS, has provided customers with very minor and incremental changes to an OS that has been around and designed for devices that weren't even phones.
Yes, let's call out MS for what it has been lackadaisical and what it needs to improve upon in order to be a device that BOTH personal and professional consumers want to use.

Yeah but doesn't the geakyness in you say oh no i am selling out and becoming joe public and being a mr average consumer when we are anything but that. The joy of having a windows mobile phone is being different and owning something that does things no body else can.

No windows mobile news !!!!

Toshiba Launch G900
HTC Kaiser Reviews
HTC Advantage released in the US
Microsoft Launch Windows Mobile Owners Circle

Yes of course i listened to the podcast but i am a windows mobile user not an iphone user and all i heard was two people ooohing and ahhhing over the iphone and dissing windows mobile at every opportunity.

Am i wrong

Chris

"However, I do believe that aside from the newness of the iPhone, there really is a bit of bias from most of the sites reporting on the iPhone as if it is sooooo much better than WM devices."

Because in many ways it is soooo much better. And that's coming from someone who's been using WM devices exclusively for 7 years now.

Multimedia and Safari experience blow WM out of the water period. Once Flash gets on the iPhone, the experience will be even better. Let's put it this way, when I want to surf the web and don't want to pull out my laptop, I reach for my wife's iPhone and not my Treo 750. Just the screen real-estate and the clarity of the screen are enough to entice.

Even syncing multimedia to the device is a no brainer. In those respects the iPhone is MUCH better than any WM device.

As with the iPod, you really need to own one to truly appreciate what Apple has brought to the table. Same thing happend when the iPod was beginning to pick up steam. Non-owners (and haters) alike criticized the device for not having this or not having that....meanwhile look what happened. :)

I agree with all the iPhone coverage vs. coverage about WM devices that do not seem to be on the near horizon.

There just is not much to say about WM devices lately.

However, I do believe that aside from the newness of the iPhone, there really is a bit of bias from most of the sites reporting on the iPhone as if it is sooooo much better than WM devices.

The empirical facts are that it is NOT much better quality or feature wise than a WM device. All Apple did was take out some common features of mobile devices to put in some new features which are just about all out now for WM devices, save the new touchscreen HW.

What they chose to do to their customers by forcing them to be with AT&T is atrocious by any measure. Don't even get me started on that.

"a qwerty keyboards is a must"

This I have to respectfully disagree with. I am as fast and as accurate with the iPhone virtual keyboard as I am with my Treo.

It may be "a consumer toy" but that "toy" is built on a pretty robust platform.

Perhaps the iPhone has dominated the news across various sites because there's really nothing notable about another slide out keyboard device, late WM6 updates, etc. etc.

Well Chrissy I hate to say it but the iPhone has broke records and quite honestly my site isnt the only site talking about it.

Did you listen to the podcast? If I had SOME Windows Mobile news to talk about I would but quite honestly I dont see much out there!

Oh .. Yeah.. Where is my WM6 upgrade for the Blackjack I was promised? Either way I will continue to report the news as I always have..

Honest.

So are we now iphonetoday then, this phone is so over hyped its unbelievable. Come on Dave this site is all about mobility and the work place push email is the killer feature for us mobile workers not music or videos, a qwerty keyboards is a must, i think the hype is taking over, give it a month and i bet your back to windows mobile, this site rose through windows mobile and apple comes along and releases a phone after many years of watching others develop the os's and does a few features well, but beneath the surface its nothing more than a consumer toy.

Chris

what if you want to play movies, TV shows, movie trailers, podcasts, photos, and YouTube videos from your computer on your TV? In 40GB and new 160GB models starting at $299, Apple TV brings iTunes and more to the big screen.

It doesn't seem like the Belkin power and dock connector work with the iPhone.

http://catalog.belkin.com/IWCatProductPage.process?Product_Id=164964

I use this to connect and power my iPod to my cars' aux port.

Posting from the iPhone. Typing is pretty darn quick with almost the same amour of errors that I usually get on my Treo.

This device is awesome!

If it wasn't for my 3rd party apps, I'd go buy an 8gb for myself!

Anyways Dave don't welcome me, welcome Lara!

George thank you very much for your kind words ! One thing you will learn about me in particular is that I say how it is. I am not easily swayed to one product or the other. I am simply committed to my community and telling them my true feelings. I am glad you saw that!


Jerry welcome aboard!!! :)

Dave,
Excellent podcast review of the iPhone. Finally a review that is unbiased. There does seem to be a bias since many of the podcasters are rabid Mac fans, have Macs, use iPods, and seem to live in large cities. I have used Apple computers and Macs since their invention, and got off the bandwagon in 1990 when I got tired of closed architecture with no support when it changed repeatedly. Some of the reviewers, because of these attributes, forget about the rest of this country. I live in North Carolina on a barrier island. The county is 70 miles long and varies in width from four miles to less than 100ft. We do not have an Apple store and we do not have an AT&T/Cingular store. Our cell phone access is spotty. The AT&T signal strength on Trios at my house are one or two bars and according to the AT&T map I am supposed to be getting the "BEST" signal strength. It is only that good if you are on the Edge network. Digital does not work at all in town and we do not have 3G. The counties around us are in the same position as we are......rural. To get an iPhone I would have to travel 80 miles, one way, and if I get it, I would have no idea how it would work were I live. I think that there is a vast plethora of cell phone users in this country that cannot get the service that folks in San Francisco and LA can get and those in NY City have no idea what terrible cell phone service is until they come out here.
Your review points out to the positive and negative aspects of this phone and does not dismiss the negatives as being fine. This is a characteristic of many Apple reviews.
Just another opinion. I do think that the iPhone is great and I especially like your perspective that the entire experience is a shift in cell phone company business, with Apple dictating the rules. I think that this is great and I hope that it continues and becomes a benefit to all cell phone users.

Yes...hopefully by then Photon will be out too! :)

Well, that should hold you over 'till version 2 comes out. ;)

Finally got one for my wife(4gb)! I will live vicariously through her for my iPhone fix! :)

Itunes is not required for the contest for the Blackjack..

Thanks for the kind words.

David,

great to see so more action on this site!

However, I have found that using itunes to get my podcasts both audio and video was too cumbersome what with transfering 100's of Megs etc from PC to PDA. Instead RSS feeds via FeederReader will download direct to my Ipaq over WiFi and includes enclosures. I am sad to see that this contest requires the use of itunes which disappeared off my lap top over 6 months ago.

;-(

Maybe you still have the image from last time I entered a contest with these requirements.

Thanks anyway,


Chris

Manuel thanks alot for the kind words!! Great feedback so far from everyone!

David,
Great review. Very clear and concise. I must admit I do not like to ATT marriage. Today I saw in CNBC that Telefonica is looking to get the exclusive in the UK. After seeing ATT and now Telefonica, I'm not surprised we will need to get a new contract with the local "telecomm" company that get married with Apple.
Apple: Good product (+). marriage with "telecomms": ( a HUGE -)

I'm using a O2 Atom Life (WM6, 3G, no ties with telecomms companies) and I like the Iphone very much however still need to wait until Apple get a local telecomm arrangement and how the real costs will be.

Way to go David... Keep doing the good work on MT

John call quality has been fine on my unit. If you listen to the latest TWIT.TV podcast Ryan Block used his iPhone during the entire show. It sounded great. Check it out..

Thanks for the kind comments!

Great review - especially for the short period that you have had it. One comment: I noticed you spoke about the speaker but not really about call quality. I ask since a review from PC Magazine says it is a great Ipod but a lousy phone.

From the review:
"But the iPhone isn't called the iPod With Phone. It's the iPhone and, put simply, it isn't a very good phone. Call quality was the worst we've heard on a high-end device in years. We're not going to put that on AT&T, either: our Blackberry Curve made much clearer calls at the same time, in the same place. Reception leaves something to be desired. It's complicated to dial, difficult to send text messages on, and missing all sorts of features that are basically assumed to be in most high-end multimedia phones nowadays."

Full article here:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,2082435,00.asp

Dave, outstanding job on the video and damn you were spot on with all of your early assessments. I too have my formerly beloved BlackJack in a drawer, and haven't missed it even a smidgen. I'm not sure I can ever use PIE again now that I've used Safari on the iPhone (though I've never really loved it much on the Mac ironically). I might lose my mind if I hear another person compare the latest Opera Mini iteration to Safari. Opera Mini 4 is impressive but it's like the Mets single A farm team compared to the browsing experience on the iPhone. Also, this is my first iPod and man was it worth the wait. Overall the device experience is pretty thrilling, especially compared to how much I wanted it to be. EASync and flash capability in the browser would render me giddier than I already am, and when you consider the 700MG OS and 620mhz processor, there is definitely room to grow. Any guesses from anyone who's used one on the RAM, or is that published/speculated somewhere already?

iPhone has killed EDGE/UTMS around the country! Maybe not, but ATT Data service is down in a bunch of areas!

I did call Apple and they stated 4800 photos definitely would cause a little lag..

That should not matter if the sensor was properly built. The sensor, according to Apple, "sense" rotational movement i.e a 90 degree or 180 degree turn. So it shouldnt matter that the device is on a table or upside down. It should detect angular position.

It probably didn't rotate because it appeared he was turning it on top of a desktop. The sensor wouldn't note any change because it stayed in the horizontal orientation regardless of which way it was facing. Boils down to "operator error".

I agree with your analysis of the applicable market too. I think that the applicable market is currently comprised of folks using Sidekicks, Blackberries, iPods and the like. The problem I see is that the price-point appears to be very disproportionate to the comparable technologies being used by, or available to, the applicable market. Really, if you ask the same group of people what a converged device is, what do you think the answer is going to be? However, even this group of people knows the difference between taking video and taking pictures. They also understand the concept of waiting around for a website to load, effective keyboard experience (If you think the process for maximizing your effectiveness of the iPhone keyboard is second nature, check Apples hints again.), and a freezing application. How much of that market that you have described has the discretionary funds to sink into a $600 device that they cannot even insure? This will also have an effect.

In addition, the hype purveyed by Apple is really outside of the applicable market that you have defined. Why bother with providing web based 3rd party applications after stating that the device would not support ANY 3rd party applications. Maybe because they realized they would never be able to meet those projections without including the market which would find 3rd party applications an important asset on a converged device.

So, it appears to me that this device will hit a market for sure (Apple fanbase) and may bleed into some other markets. I do not believe that this will be enough to meet projected mobile market share percentages though.

Let's not even get to the topic of class action history of Apple.

I will agree with you on the coolness of the device, just don't see the need to spend the amount of money for total cost of ownership to get it. I believe that a good percentage of their target market has a similar practical perspective. I mean I am hearing it all the time, even from Apple fans and owners.

Is there any book reading capability in the device?
I am a heavy user of mobireader & ereader.

I agree with what a lot of you are saying but I really don't think it is going to matter in the least. The iPhone is a consumer device, plain and simple. It is for the people who want an iPod and a phone combined. I've said it before and I'll say it again at this point in time it is not geared to people like us, professionals and power users, it for the the average Joe.

I believe that this is audience that Apple is going after and they might change the device in future revisions to go after the techies and business professionals.

What we have to remember is that we use our devices far differently then the average consumer that is why some of us are disapointed in this product as well as many others. I don't think there is a product out there today that covers everything. And when there is I am sure we will find something we don't like about it:-)

Most people don't want complicated devices. How many people do you know in your immediate circle of family and friends that could not tell a smartphone from a regular cell phone? I bet it is a lot.
The average consumer is getting smarter but at this point the vast majority think that a phone like the razor is cool and would not have the first clue on how to work a Windows Mobile device.

I will probably get an iPhone just for the fact that it is a converged device that will let me listen to music, watch videos, and get email.

And to be honest I think it's cool!

Brilliant Review as always, won't see the iphone till end of 2010 as I live in South Africa (Pity)
Thanx for all the cool info.

Interesting review. I am curious as to how things fair out for you after a couple of weeks.

I also find it interesting that people tend to make comparisons between native iPhone software and native WM software, but continually drop out the fact that for pence, you can install 3rd party software to more accurately meet individual behavior and thinking. This can not be accomplished with the current iPhone. An assumption that the iPhone does not need 3rd party apps is simply an assumption that all individuals behavior and thinking are the same, or that somehow 1 software company can meet EVERYONES needs. NOT true.

Unlike some in this thread, I disagree with the HTC Touch statement.

I agree that the iPhone soft-keyboard blows away the WM keyboard and stylus combo. I believe the hardware keyboard has been shown by the market to be the solution that people want. Apple will learn this soon enough.

I disagree with the statement that PC Mag found no problems whatsoever, as the only thing they did was turn the device on and try to access an application. I did not see them try any of the three sensors after the dropping to see they were still functioning correctly. I am wondering if your difficulty with the accelerometer had to do with your dropping of the phone.

I notice that there were quite a few times that you had to repeat steps in order to get the phone to recognized them. I also notice that the landscape does not work for all applications and not even for keyboard. I do like the application specific keyboard layout that the iPhone has though. You are definitely correct about Apple creating an upgrade path for 3G, as well as GPS.

You DO have to force quit applications when they freeze. This process is explained on the Apple website. I suspect that is due to internal OS and memory issues as you can not blame 3rd party apps on this phone.

I find that the Safari browser is less functional than the current Opera beta browser.

I do not see this device reaching their goal. We shall see. It is easy to use, slick and has a great WOW factor, but is too limited for the price-point. C'mon $600 but no video, that function is available to people paying $40 for a phone. Get ready to pay $1000 for a device from Apple that actually can do what a $300-$400 WM device can do.

I also, would like to know what apps you gave up from Blackjack which you can not use on the iPhone. XM Satellite Radio, RSS reader?? Maybe in a future software upgrade from Apple, but not NOW that is my point.

Naahhh...not a novice. However, I would severely miss my Sling Player, Wallet software (where I keep all kinds of protected info), Glucose monitoring software, couldn't use my new Moto S9 headphones, etc. Funny, most of the things I would miss most are personal-type applications rather than productivity applications. :)

Well my Blackjack is still in my drawer and I am a pro user.. Maybe I am now a novice :)

"I do not see this device reaching their goal. We shall see. It is easy to use but too limited for the pricepoint."

Yes, too limited for enthusiasts (and professionals)like us. Enthusiasts however, don't make up the total populus that the iPhone appeals to. I think the iPhone will do just fine. As I have said before, it seems to be a very good 1.0, and personally I think it would fit just fine for many who want an entertainment device that does "extra stuff".

OH... David, you're giving away an 8GB Apple iPod!!! Bait and switch was never implemented in such a smooth way.

My wife calls it the iPod Phone.

If I ever get my hands on one, im sure I'll be excited enough to call is my iPod Phone.

Great review for limited use.

A few points I saw when I visited my demo at the ATT store.

Rotation only works in a few apps, not every application.
Sound volume was a bit low (Phone calls - Built-in speaker and speaker phone)
No Java VM Support.

Everything else is GREAT!!! Your review was right on!
DAMN, I want one.

Who is the thin guy speaking in the video?

Awesome review Dave! Thank you. I agree totally what you said about the HTC touch.

I love your final comments on the pros and cons!

Way to go!!!

Well done David. I am a BlackJack User and am thinking in going iphone, not just for me but for my wife too. It just seems easy enough for her to use.

The iPhone's three built-in sensors: accelerometer, proximity, and ambient light, improve the user experience by doing smart things without the user intervening or even having to think about them -typically Apple

Does the iPhone have the ability to listen to XM satelite radio on it?

Great Review, I pretty much agree with your opinions. I just switched from Blackjack as well and this phone blows it away. At first I was a little leary that it wasn't 3G, but the Edge has done pretty well for what I use it for. The biggest disappointment at the moment is that it doesn't support exchange email. I am a 4smartphone user and love that service. Hopefully support for that comes out soon. Bottom line they made an advanced phone that is easy to use and like you said because of that they will sell millions!

Nick thanks for the comments. I think the programs you are looking for are definitely not your average Joe apps. I can do IM through a web app but apple will be releasing a chat app soon.

Darn shame that the camera doesn't have video capabilities. I love the overall design of the iPhone and wish it was an open-os for third party software.

Can't wait to hear the latest podcast!

By the way...I liked the video.
Music was a tad too loud though...on my PC at least.

Kissing alot of Apple butt there ain't cha?

Questions:
Since the OS isn't open...will you miss any apps available for WM...like:
GPS,
Encrypted Wallets,
IM,
SlingPlayer,
FTP,
or any other third party app you may have been into on WM?

I love the Form factor and cool interface of the phone...Something Apple excels at throughout their products. But I see it as a really cool iPod with a Phone and not a Smartphone. Would you agree with that?

Thanks mherald.. All I can say is you never know when or how I will give the iphone away. Maybe comments?

Take a look in the news as we are giving away a blackjack now.

Thanks for the Video Review! The web browsing does look nice and I hope Microsoft does move a little faster with their Deep Fish browser. I can't wait for the iPhone give-away, but until then I'll be using my Mogul.

Please note I stated we were giving away an 8GB ipod... Sorry I meant to say 8GB iPhone..

Comments welcome!