Originally posted by: Ultima200
If you read my post I tell what I don't like about the phone....the signal strength is pathetic. I have suspected since I first used the phone that this is directly related to the design of the device where the antennae is concealed inside and can be blocked easily by the hand/face.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who is complaining about this. I posted it at Howard Forums and several Mac forums and people were like coverage area blah blah blah. But there are tons of people with AT&T phones who get better reception than I do in the same areas, so it's just a first-gen problem or a design problem.
The speaker phone is not as bad as everyone claims to be but it is essentially useless outdoors/indoors unless it is dead quiet. I use the speakerphone only when I am indoors and there is very little ambient noise.
lol...not as bad as everyone claims...yet useless indoors/outdoors? The speakerphone is pathetic. I have never had a cell phone with a speakerphone as poor as the iPhone's. I'm hoping hardware rev2 (with 3G please!) fixes this issue.
Aside from those issues, the firmware is still riddled with various annoying bugs and as I said in my previous post, the device is essentially a toy at this point.
I think it has a few bugs but nothing terrible - the major problem I have is that complex websites crash Safari, in which case you just tap the Safari icon and it pops open again. I haven't really had any other major issues. Some of the other apps crash from time to time, but it doesn't lock up the whole system, so re-opening them is as simple as tapping on the icon.
I wouldn't say the phone is a toy, either. It has a lot of very useful functions in its present state. The Contacts system is super easy to use; I can jump to any of my contacts within seconds and not have to deal with a weird QWERTY system on a numberpad. The mobile Email is FAR better than ANY system I have ever used - Treos, Axims, Moto Q, etc. The Email feature alone makes the phone worth buying. The browser is also the best of any mobile device I've ever used. The alarm system is great; I can set multiple alarms with it very easily (although I wish I could name them!). etc. etc.
The point is, if you're an app junkie, it's not a good time to buy the iPhone unless you are planning on hacking it. When the Developer Store opens, things will start getting better pretty quickly. If you're a business user, same deal - right now it's a consumer or small business phone, definitely not a corporate device. But once iPhone firmware 2.0 hits, I think it's going to stand a good chance of knocking out Crackberries.
On a separate but related note, I think that 99% of the users are simply enthralled with the
idea of being able to install tons of apps on their phone, but hardly anyone I know actually uses them. I have a lot of friends with various smartphones and it usually boils down to electronic readers, entertainment stuff (music & video players, Orb or Slingbox kind of stuff too), and games. It's fun to install a bunch of different apps, but very, very few people I know use all that stuff more than once or twice after playing with it. Mostly a phone is a phone plus an entertainment/info device.
The recessed headphone jack was necessary as the compact design made this a necessity. If you take 30 seconds or so and study the aesthetics of the iphone you should be able to understand why they recessed jack is necessary. I personally bite the bullet and use the lousy apple headphones (which I have gone through 3 pairs already) as the jack extender is very awkward to use.
I have the opposite viewpoint - the iPod Touch is nearly the same device, yet the headphone jack is flush with the case instead of recessed. And it's THINNER! The recessed jack is a cop-out from Apple and they fixed it with the Touch. I'm hoping the next iPhone release does the same thing, just a small case redesign. There is absolutely NO REASON why it needed to be recessed. It didn't even have to be flush - having a small lip on the outside (like portable CD players) would have been just fine.
3G coupled with the current hardware and battery would drain the battery EXTREMELY quickly. Its really that simple. Apple is not out to make you suffer with EDGE....they technology available at the time would have made the device unpractical. Battery life of the current phone is actually exceptional given what it does and relative to what is currently available but the best way to see how much power 3g would use is to just browse using wifi.
I have the opposite viewpoint here too. Moto RAZR phones have 3G and a tiny battery, and yet their battery life is just fine. Jobs' statement on 3G draining the iPhone battery is another cop-out, mainly because they needed a hot "new" feature for their Rev. 2 iPhone release. The battery already lasts ALL DAY with EDGE surfing and Push Email, so 3G wouldn't take a terrible toll, especially if the RAZR can do it with that paper-thin battery. I don't know anyone who spends hours surfing the net on their iPhone anyway, so that point is moot. Most people spend a couple minutes looking for something, checking their email, etc. If you used EDGE for more than an hour or two, the battery life drops pretty quickly - and that's a low-power, low-speed connection (I know because I've done it, hehe). It all boils down to marketing - this is their first release and they need something to improve on for their next release other than a memory upgrade.