Hands0n
22nd November 2007, 11:13 PM
Tomorrow, Friday, will be 8 days since I bought the iPhone despite my protestations. You may have read elsewhere on Talk3G that I'd been given one to play with for a few minutes and that was it, I was hooked. I had bought the iPod Touch the day it was released in the UK and love the control paradigm to bits, and so had an idea what the iPhone was going to be like.
So what has [mobile] life with the iPhone been like? To be honest a bit of good and a bit of not so good. I will write here about the latter as I think you can read enough elsewhere about why you should have an iPhone. I want to put a slightly different tilt on things and perhaps explain why, maybe, you shouldn't have an iPhone.
First let me say that the iPhone is iconic in several ways, it sets entirely new standards in the control paradigm with its touchscreen. Visual Voicemail has to be experienced to be believed. It turns the drudge of using Voicemail on its head. iPhone also has a very smart and responsive operating system, faster than anything I have seen on a smartphone to date. So what is missing? All cannot be perfect in iPhone-land, and so it isn't.
SMS Messaging
Nice and simple, you cannot send to multiple SMS recipients at once. This phone is a trip down memory lane in this respect. SMS Messaging in the iPhone is arranged like IM Chat with your send and receive messages organised in word baloons on screen. It looks very pretty, and is quite neat as it keeps "chat" over very many days (probably without limit). But if you want to send out a "Meet me down the Badger" message to your mates you will be typing it out and sending it individually for as many times as you need to!
Long SMS Messages
It is far too easy to fall into the trap of typing away and not realising that you have gone one or two characters over the SMS single message size. As the base contract package only has 200 SMS per month this could become a problem for those who use SMS a lot. There is no indication of how many SMS messages your transmission is about to cost you. This is, in my opinion, a serious omission.
MMS (MultiMedia Messaging)
Often [wrongly] called Picture Messaging MMS is growing in use and significance. Friends and family will often send you a picture to amuse. Not on the iPhone they won't. And nor will you be able to send to their mobile handsets either. This device does not do MMS, period.
If someone sends you an MMS you get a text message from O2 inviting you to visit their website to view and pick up the picture. Okay, fair enough, you can do this with the built-in browser, and great if you are in a WiFi zone (home or The Cloud). But not too handy if you're on the train or elsewhere and only have EDGE (or worse 2G) as your means of communications. It is also a huge and cumbersome step to view that picture that has just been sent.
What about you sending a picture taken on the 2Mpixel camera? Well, you can but not to another mobile. Instead you can at a touch of a button forward the picture you just took to an eMail address using the iPhone's built-in eMail client, always assuming that you've set it up already - and that your correspondent has an eMail address.
Why not to have an iPhone?
Well generally it is all about the messaging. If that is important to you then you may well find yourself disappointed with the [lack of] capabilities of this handset. I find myself having to resort to the N95 to send out my multi-SMS stuff. Its not a problem unless the iPhone is your solus handset.
The lack of MMS may or may not be an issue for some - but again, if you use this technology at all then you will find yourself frustrated receiving or sending MMS. But MMS is not only about pictures, and so the lack of MMS may well be too much to contemplate.
It may well be that Apple will introduce some of the missing functionality in future versions of the firmware. But somehow I doubt it. The iPhone is what it is, an iPod with a Communications and an Internet device. It is a bit of a paradox in that it is light years ahead in some areas and yet in the dark ages in others.
If you are seriously considering an iPhone then I suggest a trip to an Apple store to play around with one for ten minutes (no less). Look beyond the glitz and glamour, see it for what it is. If all of that does not matter then you'll have a ball. If any of it does, you may find resentment creeping in very quickly.
Me? I'm lovin it :cool: But the N95 with its 3G/HSDPA 3GB/pcm is never far away - the laptop can't exist without it.
So what has [mobile] life with the iPhone been like? To be honest a bit of good and a bit of not so good. I will write here about the latter as I think you can read enough elsewhere about why you should have an iPhone. I want to put a slightly different tilt on things and perhaps explain why, maybe, you shouldn't have an iPhone.
First let me say that the iPhone is iconic in several ways, it sets entirely new standards in the control paradigm with its touchscreen. Visual Voicemail has to be experienced to be believed. It turns the drudge of using Voicemail on its head. iPhone also has a very smart and responsive operating system, faster than anything I have seen on a smartphone to date. So what is missing? All cannot be perfect in iPhone-land, and so it isn't.
SMS Messaging
Nice and simple, you cannot send to multiple SMS recipients at once. This phone is a trip down memory lane in this respect. SMS Messaging in the iPhone is arranged like IM Chat with your send and receive messages organised in word baloons on screen. It looks very pretty, and is quite neat as it keeps "chat" over very many days (probably without limit). But if you want to send out a "Meet me down the Badger" message to your mates you will be typing it out and sending it individually for as many times as you need to!
Long SMS Messages
It is far too easy to fall into the trap of typing away and not realising that you have gone one or two characters over the SMS single message size. As the base contract package only has 200 SMS per month this could become a problem for those who use SMS a lot. There is no indication of how many SMS messages your transmission is about to cost you. This is, in my opinion, a serious omission.
MMS (MultiMedia Messaging)
Often [wrongly] called Picture Messaging MMS is growing in use and significance. Friends and family will often send you a picture to amuse. Not on the iPhone they won't. And nor will you be able to send to their mobile handsets either. This device does not do MMS, period.
If someone sends you an MMS you get a text message from O2 inviting you to visit their website to view and pick up the picture. Okay, fair enough, you can do this with the built-in browser, and great if you are in a WiFi zone (home or The Cloud). But not too handy if you're on the train or elsewhere and only have EDGE (or worse 2G) as your means of communications. It is also a huge and cumbersome step to view that picture that has just been sent.
What about you sending a picture taken on the 2Mpixel camera? Well, you can but not to another mobile. Instead you can at a touch of a button forward the picture you just took to an eMail address using the iPhone's built-in eMail client, always assuming that you've set it up already - and that your correspondent has an eMail address.
Why not to have an iPhone?
Well generally it is all about the messaging. If that is important to you then you may well find yourself disappointed with the [lack of] capabilities of this handset. I find myself having to resort to the N95 to send out my multi-SMS stuff. Its not a problem unless the iPhone is your solus handset.
The lack of MMS may or may not be an issue for some - but again, if you use this technology at all then you will find yourself frustrated receiving or sending MMS. But MMS is not only about pictures, and so the lack of MMS may well be too much to contemplate.
It may well be that Apple will introduce some of the missing functionality in future versions of the firmware. But somehow I doubt it. The iPhone is what it is, an iPod with a Communications and an Internet device. It is a bit of a paradox in that it is light years ahead in some areas and yet in the dark ages in others.
If you are seriously considering an iPhone then I suggest a trip to an Apple store to play around with one for ten minutes (no less). Look beyond the glitz and glamour, see it for what it is. If all of that does not matter then you'll have a ball. If any of it does, you may find resentment creeping in very quickly.
Me? I'm lovin it :cool: But the N95 with its 3G/HSDPA 3GB/pcm is never far away - the laptop can't exist without it.