State of the Art: The iPhone Matches Most of Its Hype
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Appleâs new phone does so many things so well, and so pleasurably, that you tend to forgive its foibles.
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There's more to gain than lose from the upcoming iPhone.
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âIf lovinâ this phone is wrong,â pines Etan Horowitz , âI donât want to be right.â He calls iPhone âthe most fun and easy to use gadget Iâve ever laid my hands onâ and says that âcarrying it in my pocket made me feel connected to the world the way I do when Iâm surfing the Internet on a high-speed connection.â In fact, âSafari, the iPhoneâs Internet browser, lets you display up to eight Web pages at once, and itâs easy to move among them.â Horowitz âwas also impressed by the battery life, which gave me nearly six hours of talking, Internet browsing and video watching before I needed to charge it.â
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Apple Inc.'s  upcoming iPhone  is shaping up as this year's must-have gadget, but several  perceived shortcomings are pushing some potential buyers to  wait for an updated version.
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The last few days have seen an amazing amount of security chatter concerning the iPhone considering that the thing just launched. Jon Espenschied would like to hear a little less hysteria and a little more clarity about the difference between standards and "what's usual."
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âThe best recent advance in the mobile telecommunications user space came not from a mobile telecom company but from Apple Inc. â the iPhone.â  That, according to David Benjamin (EE Times) was the conclusion reached by a âblue-ribbon panel of human behavior and technology experts at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain.â And, Benjamin points out, âAnup Murarka, director of technical marketing for Adobe, cited a study showing that 77 percent of iPhone purchasers described themselves as âvery satisfiedâ with their user experience.â
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Finding it âa significant leap,â Steven Levy (Newsweek) calls  iPhone âa superbly engineered, cleverly designed and imaginatively implemented approach to a problem that no one has cracked to date: merging a phone handset, an Internet navigator and a media player in a package where every component shines, and the features are welcoming rather than foreboding.Â  The iPhone is the rare convergence device where things actually converge.â iPhone, he says, âfinally fulfills the promise of people-friendly palm-top communication and computing.â
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âApple has succeeded in crafting a unique phone that is superior [to] everything else on the market,â remarks Stuff.tv. âIn one great leap Apple has rewritten the rules for mobile web browsing, invented a completely new touch-sensitive interface, and evolved the iPod. In the hand, the iPhone oozes sexiness; its wide, high-resolution screen is encircled by a halo of chrome and wrapped on its back side by cool brushed metal. When you hold it, itâs thinner and lighter than pictures would suggest: it feels like you are holding the future.â And Stuff.tv awarded iPhone a five star rating.
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As the wait for Apple Inc.'s iPhone reaches a fevered pitch, here are five trends in gadgets that may be even more important, and a few highly touted ideas that may not make it.
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Blog: Exploring future product opportunities using the iPhone's components
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(InfoWorld) - The level of hysteria associated with the arrival of Apple's iPhone is just a notch, maybe two, below that of the Second Coming. However, there is a very good chance that when the smoke clears in the next weeks and months, a whole lot of disappointment, frustration, and dissatisfaction will be left behind. If the iPhone is like other wildly anticipated products in the past, this could well manifest in one or more of the following forms: * The iPhone has a massive hardware defect that results in a recall of the hardware. This is not likely, but it is a risk with all first-gen hardware. * The iPhone is initially received with warmth but, after the first year of AT&T's two-year sentence, the public begins to realize that they've been had. See: Motorola RAZR. * The iPhone is a smashing success and marks the beginning of a run of Apple dominance that, like other successful rebellions, becomes twisted and short-sighted, leaving the general public with limited market options. * The iPhone is an immediate disappointment in both the power and performance categories and is immediately recognized as such for some or all of the reasons explained below. Those are the generalities. Now, read my 13 most probable reasons the iPhone will break your heart. 13. No GPS. The more you compare the iPhone to the BlackBerry, the more it pales. Imagine attempting to navigate your way through the streets of New York City -- or anywhere else for that matter. It's really, really nice to have a built-in GPS system showing you the way. And it's really, really frustrating that Apple has neglected GPS in the iPhone. 12. Text entry won't work well. There is no way -- no way! -- that the virtual keyboard on the iPhone's touch screen interface will work as well as the physical keyboards found on BlackBerries or most other devices. Most assuredly, entering text will be a frustrating, convoluted affair. Complaints about typing have already begun to surface. 11. It's ugly! There, it had to be said. The iPhone's awkward, neo-futuristic design looks like something out of an old Star Trek episode. Remember the me-too styles and hairdos that were in vogue at the tail end of the 1980s? The iPhone feels like that, and it likely marks the end of the relatively pleasing design aesthetic that marked Apple's rise to grace. 10. Slow Internet access. The iPhone will utilize AT&T's old Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution EDGE wireless network, which means data speeds that aren't nearly as fast as far superior 3G technology. In 12 months, when everyone you know is surfing the Web at lightning-fast 3G speeds while they're mobile, you'll be stuck in the slow lane. And you'll still have one more year of locked-in service contract to go. 9. Sensitive screen = scratches. It's extremely easy to scratch the front of the iPod. It will be really easy to scratch the front screen of the iPhone, even with its glass faceplate. This is a neurotic concern, perhaps, but it's still valid, especially considering the $500 price tag for the low-end model. 8. It's pricey. As much as $600 for the phone. As much as $100 per month for a reasonable service plan. That's almost $2000 for the first year of iPhone, which is a lot of cash. Worse yet, after the first year of service, first-gen iPhone users will still have another year remaining on their contract with AT&T but by then, Apple could well be up to its third iteration of the iPhone. 7. No MMS. The absence of MMS technology means that you can't send or receive pictures via text messaging. This takes about 70 percent of the fun and usefulness out of the phone's camera. This is something that will likely be rolled into a future version. 6. Touchscreens lose their sensitivity. The hard reality of using a touchscreen on the go is that, over time, it will lose sensitivity and begin to malfunction. Ask anyone who has toted their Treo or Palm Pilot around in a bag or pocket for a few years. 5. No IM. Initially, the inability to use instant messaging apps may seem like no big deal. But it's a huge convenience for both workplace and social connectivity. BlackBerry users and Windows Mobile devices can already IM away. 4. No enterprise e-mail connectivity. Chances are that if you are reading this, you'll want to use the iPhone as a work-oriented device. Unfortunately, if your workplace doesn't utilize POP or IMAP e-mail servers, you're out of luck on the e-mail front. 3. No third-party applications. Given Apple's insistence on closed environments, it's no surprise that iPhone will not support third-party applications unless they exist within the Safari browser environment. Congratulations, Apple -- you have just stifled innovation and development on your brand new phone for years. 2. Locked to AT&T? In the eponymous 1984-themed commercial that marked the debut of the Macintosh, Apple went out of its way to emphasize freedom of choice, freedom of life, freedom from the hegemony of the PC. Does anyone else think it strange that Apple is now releasing a phone based on a closed OS with virtually no third-party application support and limited file flexibility? The clincher is that iPhone users only have one choice of service providers: AT&T. June 29, 2007 could mark the moment that Apple becomes the sort of oppressive, inflexible bad company that it has long accused Microsoft of being. 1. The smug factor. How excited are you to be on a plane surrounded by legions of iPhone users, each of whom is smugly confident that their iPhone has transformed them into a superior being? Admittedly, this complaint ranges into grumpy old man territory, but still. Remember when Apple used to be cool because it was alternative? On June 29, those days are officially over. George Jones has been an avid technophile since the day he got his first Commodore 64 (and almost electrocuted himself by cracking it open with the power on).
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Here&#39;s our list of things Apple did right with the iPhone--and things that could use some work.
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Blog: Apple's Web site has one of the most detailed looks yet at the iPhone, a 20-minute guided tour of how it all works.
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Don't expect this gadget to turn attention away from the iPhone.
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PERSPECTIVE Regardless of whether or not you bought into the flash and hype that accompanied the iPhone's launch, Apple's newest device is important not for what features it brings, but for what it makes obsolete. The death knell has been rung for the mobile Web.
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iPhone certainly caught Dean Takahashiâs  attention in 2007.  âApple tossed out the design parameters for cell phones and came up with a device based on what you wished cell phones would be,â he reports. iPhone âhas a 3.5-inch display, a touch screen that makes it easier to use your fingers to browse Web pages, an instant link to YouTubeâs top videos and an easy way to call contacts or create group calls.â Takahashi also thinks the â new iMacs look great as wireless all-in-one units without a lot of ugly cables. They have great automatic backup systems, wonderful video editing tools, and cool methods for keeping your desktop organized.â
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The cellphone industry went to Barcelona to âshow off the latest and greatest phonesâ and, once again, hardware took center stage. But, Victoria Shannon (New York Times) points out, âsoftware is growing in importance as smartphones, capable of accessing the Web, become more popular.â So, Shannon continues, âit was no surprise that many of the phones were iPhone clones â with touch screens, sleek flat shapes and spare software interfaces. Apple was able to make a phone that paid equal attention to the software and the hardware. And the rest of the industry was following suit here.â