What's Wrong With iPhone

First, we spent $600 to get me one. Second, it is great for making friends, once people have figured out that's what you've got. Third, it IS beautiful. But iPhone is not perfect. Here's what's wrong with it:

    1) The keyboard doesn't work for big fingers. I read what Walt and David and the others said about how the keyboard works better than expected. I assume they have thin, graceful fingers that are well manicured. Mine are big, clunky and have uneven fingertips. Try as I might, I miss on about 20% of the key presses. I'm also anal so have to backup and correct and often miss again on the same key: usually, the P, L and A, all keys at the edge of the keyboard. So it's takes me at least 30% more time to type than on the Blackberry and twice as long as a regular keyboard.
    2) The priority setting between network and client and between one task and another is still to be worked out. I find myself having to wait for the device to check mail, find and register a WiFi network, open a message (usually spam) with lots of addresses in the To: field, and open the SMS application. It's not as snappy as something as beautiful as this device is should be, disappointing on comparison to a Blackberry and about on par with the Treo.
    3) Battery life is better than a Treo and worse than a Blackberry. The latter is true because Blackberry doesn't try to do as much. The battery life is actually remarkable for such a device with bright colors and display. Indeed, Apple introduced a new Macintosh battery manager this spring, largely as a result of the experience it had developing the iPhone, and my Macbook Pro instantly got 30% better battery life (from about two hours to a little more than three). So Apple clearly learned a lot about battery performance from developing iPhone. But it still needs to be charged overnight; it won't last through the second day if you use the phone, the SMS, WiFi and the other apps in a reasonable mixture.
     4) The camera suffers from being in the iPhone. Because the phone is designed for minimal physical complexity, the camera can't be more than a snapshot feature. No flash. No zoom. (Both features of Blackberry Pearl and Curve.) No lighting pre-set. (My favorite feature of digital cameras; hold the shutter release down halfway to set the lighting, then focus and snap the picture.) No video feature. No little mirror and a button release so you can take pictures of yourself!
    5) No apps to install. Yes, I know that Apple wants to keep it simple in its first release to improve reliability and useability. But no apps! There is already a list of apps that you can get to through the browser. The iPhone IS simple enough that you find all its functions really fast and start to want more within a week. I want more!
     6) No stored or remembered passwords. This also means no cut&paste, but it hurts most trying to enter passwords to enter web sites on Safari. This morning, I hung out at Perk Presidio to enjoy the sun (absent for several days). Logged onto the WiFi network at the Perk. It's AT&T's WiFi network!  You do remember, f course, that AT&T is the exclusive provider of cell service for iPhone, so you might expect that AT&T would put special effort into making their own network really easy to log into on the iPhone. Guess what: They didn't. AT&T's WiFi network is possibly THE most difficult network to sign on with the iPhone.
    Some genius in the WiFi group at AT&T decided to arrange the login fields across the top of the page: user name, drop-down list of service providers, and password. (Have you ever seen anyone separate the username and password fields with a drop-down list? Ever?) You also have to check a box saying that you have read the AT&T service agreement. If you don't do any of this, all the fields are cleared and you have to start over again. And iPhone's WiFi thingie will store WEP passwords, but won't store URL logins. It's a joke that will only help customers realize how poorly managed AT&T is as a company.

Funny story: I think Apple knew that I was going to write bad things about iPhone. I wrote a summary of the points I wanted to make in a Yahoo Mail message while I was sitting at the Perk. When I sent it, the message failed to send (it was the only one of several that failed). It then disappeared. Couldn't find it on the iPhone, on Yahoo Mail or anywhere else. So I might have missed a point or two from that original summary, but I am amazed at how sensitive Apple is to people's feelings about iPhone and how good they are at detecting and responding to those feelings in real time....   

Comments

[Paypal2u Bloggers]

There are many problem happen to be ready for IPhone.

I'm sure it lack of antivirus or something. In the world of mibility and wireless, there're many bugs, virus or trojan lurking to find their way to Apple IPhone.

Just wait and see.

[Jim Dempsey]

Stewart,

I was beginning to think that the lack of 3rd generation wireless was the iPhone's biggest shortcoming, but now it sounds like my original thesis was correct: the software keyboard is the product's Achilles heal.

The iPhone problems you describe, in addition to previously known deficiencies (e.g. lack of memory card expansion, no GPS, no video recording, etc.), beg the question: "When will Apple ship the next version of the iPhone?" I asked the folks at the Apple Store and they didn't know anything.

[Jany Xu]

Two more little quirks:

1. When the iPhone decides that you're working too fast on it, it freezes for a split second before responding. Luckily, I have small, girlie fingers, so typing isn't a huge problem for me, but the iPhone is slothfully slow at responding to anything above 2 letters a second.

2. The casing is not so sturdy. Yes, I should probably be slightly more careful with a $650 toy. No, the iPhone shouldn't have two teeny dents on it just because it had a 2 feet fall.

It's a cute little toy but not the end all, be all of mobile phones.

[Jim Dempsey]

Regarding quirk 2 above (problems typing faster than 2 keys per second): this is probably the result of Apple's fancy auto correction and prediction algorithms, which use your keystrokes to consult an internal dictionary, make predictions, and then take action (i.e. increase the sweet spot of more likely keys). One would think that a modern day CPU could handle this kind of task handily. Fancy software is often a poor substitute for better hardware.

[libby]

did u know that there is a pointer that goes with the keybord. it's at the top of the phone. get your stuff strait.

[Alex]

>>"Indeed, Apple introduced a new Macintosh battery manager this spring, largely as a result of the experience it had developing the iPhone, and my Macbook Pro instantly got 30% better battery life (from about two hours to a little more than three)."<<

Going from two hours battery time to three hours is a 30% increase in battery life? I'm no maths whiz but that don't sound right to me...

;-)

[Tanya]

1.NO GPS. 2.NO usable, efficient 3rd party apps like EPOCRATES, which, as an ICU RN, I use daily. 3. NO video recording. 4. NO storage of Password 5. No memory card expansion...