COMMENT
Eager to get your hands on an iPhone? Natasha Lomas says you may be better off waiting for the kinks to be worked out.
About a month ago I got an email from Apple informing me a loan iPhone 3G was about to be mine for a whole seven days. I say 'about a month' because I can't really remember when this whole iPhone episode occurred. Not because I'm terribly forgetful - or awash with loan phones (I wish). No. It's because I'm just not missing it.
Blasphemous as that may sound - especially to any Mac fanboys out there - it's true.
The iPhone was a dandy piece of hardware alright but, sad to say, its performance did not live up to the slick promise of its exterior. In this instance, Apple surface belied Apple substance as myriad bugs made their presence known.
So here's why I don't miss the iPhone 3G:
1. The browser
Yes it's certainly best in class for surfing the mobile web - but only when it works. During the seven days the iPhone 3G graced my presence I lost count of the number of times the browser quit without warning before I could get to the bottom of an article I was reading. All that pinching to shrink webpages and accelerometer-fuelled reorientation is all very well but fancy is as fancy does, and if it can't go a few hours without crashing it's just not cool.
2. Web reception
While the odd crash may not sound so bad - though crashing became more 'norm' than odd after a week of use - this was made all the worse by problems with the iPhone's 3G reception. This was never reliable. Even when there apparently was a signal it would often simply not work - or else be so slow as to make browsing painful. On one very slow half-hour bus trip, for instance, I managed to load and read two articles from an online newspaper. If I'd had the real paper in my hand I would have been able to read the whole thing by then.
A simple task like logging into webmail meant leaving the phone for 15 minutes - apparently signing in - only for the operation to fail at the end. This was all the more annoying as I temporarily had no internet at home (therefore no wi-fi for the device to fall back on) and being able to rely on the iPhone for web at home would have been great. But it just couldn't deliver.
3. GPS
This also seemed reluctant to work properly. I had previously seen GPS working on a friend's iPhone - albeit occasionally still inexplicably dropping the homing beacon for long periods - yet my loan phone never seemed able to offer that current location pin-point. It just didn't seem to have any kind of handle on where I was. So that was another feature that - for whatever reason - failed to live up to Apple's 'it just works' mantra.
4. Apps
The iPhone App Store has been lauded as a Steve Jobs stroke of genius - and from a revenue-generating point of view it's clearly doing well for Apple. But the experience for users leaves a fair bit to be desired. Prior to download, information is scant so you often have to download the app in order to find out how it works in practice and whether it's worth having.
Many of the free apps at least are junk - probably to be expected (you get what you pay for, after all). But more info and a more descriptive rating system would be useful here to help users filter what's on offer.
Beyond that, however, the bug problems continued. While buggy third party software can't be blamed on Apple - and many of the apps are inevitably buggy - I also stumbled on what appeared to be another bug with the phone itself that caused apps to crash on start-up and lock me out. On several occasions I had to delete and reinstall pretty standard apps - such as Facebook - as they stopped working completely. So not a glowing report here either.
5. The camera
Lastly, the camera is a disappointment. For such a slick piece of mobile hardware - with such a nice screen - it's difficult not to expect more. But the shiny exterior has another undesirable effect: playing with such a flashy gadget, out and about on London public transport at least, you can't help but feel like you're asking to be mugged. This is a problem with Apple's impeccable branding. A device that epitomises desirability is one that may well end up walking off in someone else's pocket. So at the end of the seven days it was only a relief to pack the shiny hardware back off to Apple and get back to using my battered old Sony Ericsson instead. Scratched and chunky it may be but it works - more than can be said, in my experience, of Apple's iPhone.
Since my ill-fated loan Apple has issued a firmware update for the iPhone 3G which purports to include "bug fixes". Exactly which bugs have been tackled it will not say so we can only hope it's covered all the issues I found.
Early adopter? Buyer beware…
Comments
There are 16 comments. Join the discussion
1. Rory Choudhuri
What is it about phones and GPS. My BlackBerry 8110 is almost unusable - I click the Start GPS menu item and, perhaps 5 minutes later, the device gets a lock on enough satellites to provide a location fix. It seems the iPhone is as bad. Are the Nokia range any better?
2. James Katt
The vast majority of iPhone users are very happy and bug free.
Thus, I would recommend that you return your iPhone 3G for a replacement.
I did so for mine. And I am much happier for it!
3. Gonzo Miller
Sounds like Apple gave you a demo model
However, I do agree with your gripes but I assure you these problems have be fixed. Notably the GPS problem and 3G connection problems have been addressed in previous updates.
4. Steve Lipson
It is upsetting that thinks did not go well with the iPhone 3g. Give it some time to adapt.
Your article was so negative. Maybe you should wait for someone in England to develop better technology and market a new cell phone that will far surpass what was presented by Apple.
Best of luck.
Steve Lipson
5. Stuart Fawcett
This commentary is potentially very one sided as its just judged on one phone, I also initially had a very bad software and hardware experience with a Vodafone v1615, but a few months ago Vodafone replaced the model and this had the latest Windows CE6.1 software. Now I’m happy with the device, Both hardware and software problems are gone.
Though I agree all PDA's seem to compromise reception quality in all the receivers on a modern phone. maybe they need a bit more MuMetal screening between the DCDC convertor, processor and radio receivers.
6. Richard Davies
I think the main issue is the battery life!
I was travelling down to london with no SAT NAV (my car was in garage) and so I set up the route on the iPhone. When I awoke 6 hours later to us the device it was completely dead! I ended up buying a road atlas instead.
In summary the battery is extremely disappointing and to me the worst aspect of the 3G iPhone.
7. Keith Johnson
Hi Natasha,
Sorry that your experience with the I-Phone 3G was bad. I personally have not had the issues you appeared to have.
3G in a good reception area worked fine, GPS worked fine & locks on very fast, especially compared to a NavMan I've used in the past.
Did you try doing a reset (Hold the Home key & the sleep button for 10 secs or so)?.
The Appstore has reader comments, star ratings & description, I've found that to be pretty useful in deciding what to download. Also some of the free stuff is really nice too, yeah there is some rubbish but it's easy to take off if you don't like.
Anyway have fun browsing the internet on you Sony Ericsson.
8. Keith Johnson
Hi Richard,
Yes battery life is not the best, especially when using GPS,. But if I was in the car using the GPS, I'd have it plugged into the cigarette lighter socket.
Also annoyingly not been able to replace battery is very bad!!, at least then you could hot swap.
9. Ian Ashton
10 Reasons I'd miss my iPhone
1. It has all my contacts' details on it.
2. It has my appointments, meetings, SUFC matches on it. Also birthdays and other things I need reminding about.
3. I can get to Google and Wikipedia using it.
4. I can watch videos, films and listen to music on it.
5. I can store and carry about files and photos from my Macs and PCs on it.
6. I can access the App store from it. I can browse, buy and use apps with a couple of taps. I can play games and stare at the fish in my Koi pond.
7. It has all my lists on it. Shopping, DIY, Films to watch, odds and sods, Xmas presents, books to read.
8. It tells me what the weather is like and how far my shares have fallen.
9. I've a world atlas in my pocket.
10. I can call or text people on it. They can ring or text me as well.
10. anonymous
With regard to the comment about GPS and phones I agree, my Blackberry 8310 has never yet yielded a proper signal.
11. anonymous
Sounds like like its all show and no go.
When recently replacing my Windows Bobile HTC M600 from Orange, I considered the new iPhone.
Reading this article, I am so pleased I chose a Blackberry 8820. It really is well thought out, it works a treat, is stable and does everything without the flashiness.
12. David Long
There are many flaws with the 3G. Crashing is very common - especially when using safari browser.
3G reception and the GPS dot hasn't really been a problem with signal as far as I can tell. It seems to be closer linked to the phone running low on memory.
If you get the really slow 3G connecting and time outs or it never finds the dot or apps close as soon as you open turning the phone off completely and back on again seems to fix the problem. This is becomes more and more annoying as it takes so long to turn on and off and I have to do it nearly every day.
The camera doesn't need more megapixels as some suggest - just a better lense. On one of the first camera phones the Nokia 3650 had a 0.3megapixel camera but the lense wasn't a pinhole and wafer thin like the iPhone so image capture was a lot better.
Despite all these flaws and the host of missing features like copy and paste the biggest problem for me is loosing data. If for some reason you phone does one of it's far too common crashes during an app install you can kiss your photos, text messages, and any other data that hasn't been stored on your PC/Mac goodbye. The phone locks up and while you can reset or turn it off you can't turn it on again - just get a pretty apple logo and that's all.
You then have to do a restore - which is great if you have a recent back up - only for itunes to tell you that your previous backup is no longer compatible with your iPhone and so you have to set it up as a new phone and start from scratch. All your photos from the camera (not that they were any good), text messages, settings, progress/saves in apps - gone.
This has happened at least once to every iPhone 3G owner I know so it's not uncommon.
13. anonymous
I'm afraid you are missing all the fixes of the bugs that you were having with the recent update. And it sounds like your phone was defective and with a simple swap of the phone, maybe you didn't have to return it. I am pretty happy with mine.
14. anonymous
sitting here in a coffee shop browsing the web, and posting a few replies using my iPhone I cannot say that my experience is in anyway like that of the person who had the I'll fated phone. It never hangs, has never had any browser issues and even finds where I am even when in the middle of nowhere. I'm not saying that it is perfect, but when it comes to technology what is?
15. anonymous
My 'old' iPhone doesn't have any 3G or GPS problems ;-) and the battery life is twice that of the 3G.
Its no replacement for my old Palm, the apps are just not there yet, but I still love the interface.
16. Oliver Clark
My chunky and battered Sony Ericsson has "just worked" for web-browsing, mapping, email, music, video and office apps for 4 years. It does a pretty good job of making phone calls and sending texts. Its qwerty keyboard makes composing text easy. Best of all, I haven't felt obliged to show it off to friends and relatives like a new-born baby, nervously watching over them until they say "Ahh, isn't it lovely?" and hand it back to my protective clutches.
It's reassuring to see that Marketing still has a place in commerce, though - Apple's triumph resides in its ability to repackage old techs in shiny packages.