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The iPhone is the market’s Fisher Price smartphone: It’s time to reach beyond!

Screen shot 2011-01-03 at 22.50.30.png

I’ve had enough of the iPhone being considered a ‘category-leading‘ device. It’s even worse when I hear people refer to the iPhone as a ‘smartphone’. I don’t think there’s much smart about it.

I think it’s a beautiful experience. For about 20 minutes.

There’s absolutely no way I could use an iPhone, in it’s current state, as a primary device though.

You see, the iPhone has dated regrettably fast. It is now a lot more style than substance.

Here are some key points leading me to conclude the iPhone is — officially — a pedestrian handset for suitable only for the global normob.

The Lock Screen

What was once reaaaaally cool — the swipe-n-click to open the device — is now simply fcuking annoying. Every fscking time I want to do anything with my fscking iPhone, I have to flip.

This is wasting at least two seconds of my life. Every fscking time. I have to pick up the phone. The screen is, of course, DEAD, because the damn battery can’t handle even showing the time passively. So, feeling like an 84-year-old operating a remote control, I press the home button. I depress it. I can’t just touch it. I have to use effort to depress it.

And it’s not an immediate reaction. It’s .. what.. 0.25 seconds whilst I wait for the screen to activate.

Then I need to reach my thumb to the fscking screen and wipe it across. I can’t do a small wipe. No. If I do a small swipe, the flipping arrow goes back to the start tutting to itself. No, to get it to work, I need to do a FULL SCREEN wipe.

To make matters worse, the screen doesn’t appear yet.

No.

I need to wait for it to do a flipping bollocks animation. Again, this was just orgasmic in 2007. But in 2011? No. I don’t want you to animate the home screen. I already KNOW what I want to do, you are *just* in my way. Another 0.25 seconds spunked up the wall while I wait for the device to politely animate the homescreen.

So if you assume it’s between 1-2 seconds — let’s be charitable and make it 1.5 seconds — to pick up and fsck about with your iPhone until you can actually use it, multiplied by 50 times a day, that adds up to 75 seconds of hanging about in a given day. That’s 2,250 seconds a month. That is, by the way, 37 and a half MINUTES a month. Or 27,000 seconds a year. Which is 7 and a half HOURS. A year.

The only thing the lock screen is good for? Getting the time.

It’s only when you sit down and use a Nokia, BlackBerry, Windows Phones or one of the swanky new Android devices, that you recognise how shit the day-to-day iPhone ‘experience’ is.

The Notifications

Getting text notifications or push notifications on to your iPhone is almost painful to behold. A blueish window that appears in the middle of the lock screen? That’s it? White text on a semi-transparent darky blueish background with rounded borders? That’s it? That’s all you can offer me?

Facebook update? Roll out the bollocks notification screen.

Update from an application? Yup, roll out the shit screen again.

Got a text message? Brilliant, let’s stick it in the same shit notification screen again. And shove as much text into the little beautifully designed box as we can.

Got a missed call? Yup, that’ll be there too. Got too many things going on? Got a bit of a busy life where you sometimes get more than one ‘notification’ at a time? Well then. You’re stupid aren’t you? Because the iPhone can’t come within a million miles of the phrase ‘elegant notification management’.

See how beautiful it’s done on Android? Or how graceful it’s implemented on BlackBerry?

Notification presentation is quite possibly one of the worst elements of the iPhone today. Dire.

Multi-tasking

It doesn’t do multi-tasking. It does SOME kind of semi-parallel task operations which, if you met them on a dark rainy night, down some side street, where there’s hardly any light — and the operations had a big dark bag over their head — you could possibly be persuaded to believe they were sort-of multi-tasking.

But true multi-tasking? No.

And even when there is ‘multi-tasking’, it’s so badly implemented that it’s ‘binary’. Your application thread is either ON and it’s KILLING your battery (witness: Google Latitude App, or the fscking TomTom app — there’s a special place in hell reserved for applications that require you to double-tap the flipping home screen then press for a second to delete them because of how much battery they’re blowing).

Or your application is not on. And chances are it will NOT remember precisely where you were.

Alarms

What the hell is Apple playing at with it’s sub-optimal Alarm coding? Millions of people who were previously feeling rather smug about owning a ‘category leading’ smartphone suddenly woke up late one day. Everyone else sniggered. Apple vomited out a patch. This was months ago. Only for the SAME problem to occur because, well, it’s now 2011.

Oh do come on Apple. Think about the flipping fundamentals. Do you remember when Apple did it’s best ‘you’ll never believe it, dang it, heh! we…er… you know when we were writing the baseband code for the modem? Well.. blow me if we totally misrepresented the signal strength on the display.’

I would very much like to be assured that there are no other Cupertino gotchas hidden amongst the iPhone code. Does the clock actually work properly? You’re not going to tell us, are you Apple, that — woops — you’ve missed out February in 2012? Or that the ‘hang-up’ button is shortly — and rather hilariously — going to become the ‘conference’ button by mistake?

Whatever you say about the other mobile manufacturers, they can at least get their device clocks working properly.  Shoddy.

The Decree

You are hereby notified that as far as this publication is concerned, iPhones are no longer suitable for Class-A geek status.

If you can write SQL, if you understand — even loosely — the concept of DNS or if you work in any role connected with the provision of Information Technology services, you cannot, you should not, you must not use an iPhone as your primary handset. It’s just far too embarrassing for us to behold here at Mobile Industry Review.

Buy a BlackBerry. Or a Nokia. Or splash out on a Nexus S. But being seen in public with an iPhone as your primary handset? No. That puts you in the Vicky Pollard demographic.

When the iPhone 5 comes out, yup, that’s fine, I’m sure Apple will have at least got the clock code working properly and maybe even have sorted out the home screen. Then it’ll be fine to use as a primary device.

But from now on? iPhone?

Perfectly fine as a secondary handset. You need to have your head examined if you’re using it as your primary business device.

And before you contribute a post screaming in horror, go back to The Lock Screen section above and re-read it. I bet that the continual push-n-swipe is secretly winding you up massively.

A Final Note

One further message. For the Nike-wearing Black-Tshirt-n-horn-rimmed-glasses ‘cool people‘ who work in media — you know, just about anyone in Soho NY, Soho London or SOMA San Francisco — please do pass the message on when you meet them: The iPhone is a Fisher Price smartphone — use it, but know you are not cool any more.

As far as we are concerned here at Mobile Industry Review, the Great Unwashed [see Vicky Pollard] can continue to use iPhones as their primary devices ’til the cows come home. It’s a delightful experience for the global normob. My mother loves hers. My wife is happy with hers. That retina screen? Lovely. But not for the mobile geek.

It’s 2011 and we’re calling time on the current iPhone generations as pedestrian mobile devices.

iPhone is not cool.

iPhone is not advanced.

iPhone is dated.

iPhone is over.

Let’s see what Steve and the gang deliver with version 5.

Meanwhile, for the avoidance of doubt, I will still be taking my iPhone 4 with me wherever I go. Just never as a primary device.

And just before I go, kudos to Andy Borowitz for this topical tweet:

Steve Jobs was set to hold a press conference on iPhone alarm glitch, but he overslept.

68 COMMENTS

  1. For starters, you want to change that Notes font to Helvetica. Good job you’re a tech, not a typography, geek 😉

    So “iPhone is over” boils down to:

    1. lock screen
    2. “multitasking”
    3. notifications
    4. an alarm bug

    Let’s disregard the alarms thing, which is annoying for users, and bad PR but not much else for Apple (although would an alarm bug in Android make the BBC 10pm news? Never).

    You’re right about the lock screen and notifications. Apple has been surpassed by others in terms of usable and useful features in these areas. I have to jailbreak my iPhone 4 to install LockInfo and get a usable lock screen. And notifications are clunky compared to the subtle way of Android. But these are niggles, that’s what they are. If you’re a mobile geek and the standard iPhone Way isn’t cutting it, jailbreak the thing and be done with it. If you’re a mobile geek you’ll probably be rooting your Android anyway, so what’s the difference? Hacking is hacking.

    But anyway – 7.5 hours of wasted lock screen time? Pah! I’ve spent longer trying to install Windows! Steve Jobs has saved me far more time by making things simple and elegant, thereby allowing me to get stuff done rather than try and make my devices work.

    And you’re wrong on multitasking. I know it’s not apps-still-completely-resident-in-memory multitasking, but if it *feels* like I’m running multiple apps at once, and it enables me to *do* many things at once, then we’re just quibbling over definitions. Oh, and I’ll take the nice iOS multitasking implementation that preserves battery, as opposed to “true” multitasking than requires a task manager to stay on top of things.

    The fact is that geeks, including myself, will find always something deficient in any mobile – including the iPhone – that needs fixing. That’s just part of searching for The Ultimate Smartphone. One day, one day…

    And here’s my one more thing…

    Apple passed $300Bn market cap today. BOOM! How’s that for over?

  2. Its true that iPhone is not a geek’s best companion or the most advanced OS yet on a smartphone. Being an iPhone user, i can completely agree that Android OS does better.

    Lockscreen:

    But what you told about lock screen is completely BS. After iPhone came out, all the brands started to implement the lockscreen as slide to unlock. although not in the same fashion as Apple patended it. And if you are too concerned about the milli seconds you are wasting, then you should not use a smartphone but do things by yourself..lol..and all the smartphones like Nokia, Blackberry or android takes the same amount of time. They may unlock the screen faster than iPhone but you will find iphone doing the thing for which you unlocked the screen faster. Again, there are faster phones that can do the same. but this aint a reason to call iPhone an outdated phone or less smart phone.

    Notification:

    Here i will have to agree with you. iPhone’s notification sucks. probably one of the main reason why im considering android. You wont know what unattended communication are waiting unless you wake the phone up. Its high time a notification light or any equivalent technology is implemented.

    But blaming the blue notification window for its colour and text sounds like you were looking for some points to bash the notification system and you couldnt find anything good so that you simply made picked up a reason. Honestly there are millions of users out there and its first time i see someone blaming the notification window for its colour.

    but its high time apple implements a good notification screen to sort all missed alerts like you said.

    Multitasking:

    I dont why people keep on asking for TRUE multitasking when everyone gets their things done. Android has true multitasking and we know how fast the battery dies there. and not to mention more than 6 apps dont multitask. so thats actually not multitasking. i get all my things done as i want them to be and iPhone’s adopted method of multitasking has never hindered my flow of work.

    Alarm:

    Alarm glitch is actually a shame. And its happening for the second time. But thats not a reason for why we should say iPhone is over, its dead or any stuff like that. Errors can occur. and it happens for every device.

    iphone still does not qualify to be the best business phone out there, but it certainly cant be used for business.

    Finally, just because its 2011 and it has few glitches, its not time for iPhone to leave. If you think it is, then there will be long queue of phones that actually should leave the smartphone arena before iPhone does. And when i say long queue, i mean a really long one. that might include an entire brand and its line of products.

  3. Oh I didn’t say Apple was over at all, Matt.

    I knew I could trust you to deliver an effective rebuttal.

    My key point is that you can hardly describe the current iPhone iteration as geek-worthy any more. It’s perfectly fine for the normobs. But having to Jailbreak it? *just* so you can make the iPhone experience sufficiently worthwhile to use regularly? And have to put up with the cat-n-mouse upgrade limitations and issues because you want more than Steve has ruled? I think that’s a shame. And I think it’s unworthy of geekdom.

    I am looking to HTC and Samsung’s finest, I’m looking to RIM and I’m looking to Nokia (yes, Nokia) to fill the void for the geek.

    Its going to be very interesting to see how the iPhone develops. Obviously Apple will want to keep the simplicity that so appeals — but at the same time they’re going to find it difficult to serve the geeky/tech needs.

    iPhone 5 will tell us a lot!

  4. I will do a view to demonstrate how stupidly simple the BlackBerry ‘lock’ screen is on the Bold!

    Do you still think the iPhone is *the* tool for the mobile geek, Sajin? (I’m not talking about the normobs!)

  5. My rebuttal was intended to be delivered in the style your original piece, i.e. slightly ranty 😉

    You’re making the argument for customisability – tweaking to the nth degree. You could argue that the iPhone has never been a geek phone. That’s not what the Apple offers – it’s more of a curated experience. So I think I agree with you.

    But as I said, a geek will always make their device their own. The only difference with the iPhone is perhaps some extra effort, and delay, e.g. I’m still stuck on firmware 4.1, waiting for an untethered jailbreak so that I don’t lose my essential customisations.

    Taking your argument to the logical extreme, there’s only one geek phone around right now – the HD2, able to run MeeGo, WP7, Android, WinMo 6.5. Should we ditch our iPhones in favour of that? Give me the curated experience every time.

  6. Glad it’s not just me that’s bored to death of all the bloody transitions – I much prefer the snappiness on Android to my iPods swooshiness.

    Surprised you didn’t mention also the security get-around which I annoyed a few of my friends with again over Christmas – lovely to make phone calls from their locked phones. Oh, and while we’re at it, a couple of other bugbears for me are how most of the settings for each app are in the seperate system Settings menu, and also the lack of dedicated menu and back buttons means you have to waste a good percentage of screen real-estate just to provide these basic functions – not such a problem on an iPad, but on the iPhone / iPod it just seems inelegant.

    At least Apple have now employed Rich Dellinger (the guy who created the rather brill notifications functionality on WebOs), so at least that bit MAY be resolved in iOS 5 (here’s hoping).

  7. Glad it’s not just me that’s bored to death of all the bloody transitions – I much prefer the snappiness on Android to my iPods swooshiness.

    Surprised you didn’t mention also the security get-around which I annoyed a few of my friends with again over Christmas – lovely to make phone calls from their locked phones. Oh, and while we’re at it, a couple of other bugbears for me are how most of the settings for each app are in the seperate system Settings menu, and also the lack of dedicated menu and back buttons means you have to waste a good percentage of screen real-estate just to provide these basic functions – not such a problem on an iPad, but on the iPhone / iPod it just seems inelegant.

    At least Apple have now employed Rich Dellinger (the guy who created the rather brill notifications functionality on WebOs), so at least that bit MAY be resolved in iOS 5 (here’s hoping).

  8. I concede the lock screen Raj – I need that, and can’t upgrade my iPhone until a jailbreak is available because of it. But notifications – I manage these by ensuring I don’t get too many in the first place. I don’t need that level of distraction, so perhaps I haven’t noticed it as an issue.

  9. Ewan, I completely agree with you. As a mobile geek, I own devices running every major mobile OS except for a WebOS device.

    The only thing the iPhone still rules in is in the number of apps.
    Blackberry is a more efficient emailing machine
    Windows Phone 7 quite frankly is more beautiful.
    Android has almost as many apps, and is customizable (which is good because the default email & sms app suck badly)
    And Symbian, (yes good old symbian) in its S^3 incarnation I like better than iOS as well. I really think Symbian is undervalued currently, by the same train of thought that believes the iPhone is a class leading device.

  10. All true, could not agree more. The iphone is a little kids version of a smart phone, offering ease of use over functionality. This is the same as much of Apples current generation of products. Created for the old, ignorant, and technically vacant population. Good design is great but more function and less limiting design.

  11. So, Ewan, what you are really saying is 2011’s iPhone is 2007’s Motorola RAZR…

    A ton of normobs go crazy on it the first three year, but then it becomes uncool as it doesn’t advance at all, correct 🙂

    Or could pulling out the iPhone as your primary device be like the folks who wore their Blackberry on their hip as if they were in the wild, wild west as a famous gunslinger! Nice device, but trying to flash it to show everyone how “cool” and “important” you must be…

    Memories of your older posts.

    Giff

  12. This post amounts to ugly Apple bashing. I think we may want to cast our minds back to 2007 where the “smartphone” market was bogged down by RIM, Microsoft, and Nokia with their terribly outdated OSes and non-imaginative products. After the iPhone hit, it bent our minds and showed us how Smartphones should be made. It was so good in fact, that we know AT&T’s network has been killed ever since by the shear amount of data usage brought on by the iPhone. Before that, all you had was a pathetic RIM browser and not much better Pocket IE on Windoze Mobile.

    If the iPhone was so bad, then why has EVERYBODY copied it? Everyone has copied the “swipe to unlock” feature, the “elastic GUI”, the pinch-to-zoom feature, everyone has a capacitive touch screen (some cheap and nasty but nevertheless), everyone has app stores now, and everyone wants to be an iPhone killer.

    In my opinion, we should be taking our hats off to Apple for what they have achieved over the years in many aspects of computing. It is thanks to Apple that we can buy music for 99c a song legally, buy or rent TV shows and movies, buy apps seamlessly (and have them updated seamlessly). Indeed it is thanks to Apple that we even have a GUI on desktop computers (lets not forget that Apple’s Lisa and Macintosh brought this to us and Microsoft simply stole the idea).

    I tend to agree that Apple needs to improve the notification system, but thats about it. All of your other points are, in a word, pointless.

    You are just ranting on about nothing. The iPhone is by far the best smartphone on the market today. It broke the mold. Android is far to fragmented, webOS is a failure thanks to its terrible hardware, RIM’s OS is living on borrowed time, and not to mention Symbian …

    The iPhone has brought us so many innovations that make the Smartphone industry what it is today, including the once scoffed at idea that it is much better at mobile gaming than the PSP and DS. It is.

    Please take a step back before your spew out this anti-Apple rhetoric and really take a look at what the iPhone has brought us. Think back to 2006, how boring it was, how stayed everything was. Android, webOS, and Windows Phone 7 are all here because the iPhone showed us how to do it.

  13. Of course you can see an Android device (you are in the US apparently), but what exactly does it do better, outside of the browser, than say an N8? I own both and I will tell you, for calling, contacts, sms, music player and yes even email, S^3 beats Android 2.2 (dont know 2.3 yet) I dont care about regular browsing on a tiny screen, be it 3 inch, 3,5 inch or 4 inch. What possible advantage would Android have other than its browser. Apps? Games run like only so so on most Android devices, and the new S^3 hardware platform is easily just as good, in my mind better.

    Conversely, the N8 has better audio quality, image quality, video quality, reliability, battery life, reception and support (official, not talking about XDA, who are fantastic). Why would I downgrade to the average Android device? The Galaxy S is often mentioned as the best Android device. After a while of adding content, it lags. It has not camera flash. It is made of plastic. My friends have it, the screen displays color banding, its stated resolution is exaggerated ( being a pentile screen).

    No, this is not to downplay the huge strides that android has made, but it still cant do the same things as S^3. Even with Google pushing it. Yes it has a better looking homescreen, and a better browser. But after that? Opera is a joy to use on an N8. I know where my text message ends up with an S^3 device, not so much with Android. I know my device will get updates, not so sure with most Android device manufacturers. My battery lasts the day, unlike for instance the Desire HD. My data is more secure. My OS is more secure, due to the nature of apps needing signing.

    Anyway, in the end this is always the same discussion, because apparently there are very different views of what constitutes a smartphone. If you mean mimicing the iPhone most closely, that is a definite win for Android. The browser, the apps (at least the amount), well done. But I see a Smartphone as a converged device. This topic has been covered in great detail on AAS, have a read.

    http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/features/item/12217_When_is_a_smartphone_not_a_sma.php

    To each his own.

  14. Of course you can see an Android device (you are in the US apparently), but what exactly does it do better, outside of the browser, than say an N8? I own both and I will tell you, for calling, contacts, sms, music player and yes even email, S^3 beats Android 2.2 (dont know 2.3 yet) I dont care about regular browsing on a tiny screen, be it 3 inch, 3,5 inch or 4 inch. What possible advantage would Android have other than its browser. Apps? Games run like only so so on most Android devices, and the new S^3 hardware platform is easily just as good, in my mind better.

    Conversely, the N8 has better audio quality, image quality, video quality, reliability, battery life, reception and support (official, not talking about XDA, who are fantastic). Why would I downgrade to the average Android device? The Galaxy S is often mentioned as the best Android device. After a while of adding content, it lags. It has not camera flash. It is made of plastic. My friends have it, the screen displays color banding, its stated resolution is exaggerated ( being a pentile screen).

    No, this is not to downplay the huge strides that android has made, but it still cant do the same things as S^3. Even with Google pushing it. Yes it has a better looking homescreen, and a better browser. But after that? Opera is a joy to use on an N8. I know where my text message ends up with an S^3 device, not so much with Android. I know my device will get updates, not so sure with most Android device manufacturers. My battery lasts the day, unlike for instance the Desire HD. My data is more secure. My OS is more secure, due to the nature of apps needing signing.

    Anyway, in the end this is always the same discussion, because apparently there are very different views of what constitutes a smartphone. If you mean mimicing the iPhone most closely, that is a definite win for Android. The browser, the apps (at least the amount), well done. But I see a Smartphone as a converged device. This topic has been covered in great detail on AAS, have a read.

    http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/features/item/12217_When_is_a_smartphone_not_a_sma.php

    To each his own.

  15. Have you considered all the extra clicks needed on a Nokia touch phone? They will certainly waste your time. Most Nokia phones actually don’t show the time before you press a key anyway, The N8 and C7 show the time in idle.
    Anyway I like your brisk way of saying things and I guess that the iPhone will have to have its own evolution, if it stands still it will be overtaken even by Nokia.
    Your harsh words have been spilled over Nokia many times without outrage from people 😉
    I think that both Nokia and Apple will hear you and se if they can use the input in any way.

  16. Have you considered all the extra clicks needed on a Nokia touch phone? They will certainly waste your time. Most Nokia phones actually don’t show the time before you press a key anyway, The N8 and C7 show the time in idle.
    Anyway I like your brisk way of saying things and I guess that the iPhone will have to have its own evolution, if it stands still it will be overtaken even by Nokia.
    Your harsh words have been spilled over Nokia many times without outrage from people 😉
    I think that both Nokia and Apple will hear you and se if they can use the input in any way.

  17. Nokia, you make a very good point regarding the harsh words I’ve published
    relating to Nokia. Seems Apple fans are highly, highly invested!

  18. Nokia, you make a very good point regarding the harsh words I’ve published
    relating to Nokia. Seems Apple fans are highly, highly invested!

  19. “It’s more of a curated experience”
    Absolutely Matt, this is one of the best terms I’ve seen for the Steve Jobs gimp suit and basement manacle set that is the iPhone experience.
    Thanks, will be using your phrase professionally all year…

  20. Oh the consistency…..

    One thing you missed in the iPhone UI paradigm is the back button always being in the top left of the screen. I have fairly large hands and find this difficult to reach one handed. This bugs me every time I use an iPhone app, grrr

  21. So, being as someone who is constantly bashing on Apple myself. Such as bashing their over excitement about the Beatles, about them stealing Expose from Linux distros, from taking so long to get Spaces, from having an App Store on the Mac OS X 10.6.6 now and saying it’s the first thing ever like this while Linux distros have done this for ages makes me piss angry. Seriously, absolutely furious that Jobs is such a nimrod, HOWEVER…

    The animations and silkyness of an iPhone? That’s one of my favorite things about it. I am a geek, and i use Linux to code on and build web apps with it and SSH into remote servers to code and use Git to sync my changes with my remote linux boxes and run a VM to run Ps, IE, etc… blah blah I *am* a geek, however, i like me some animations. I’m not sure what the big deal is with it to be honest. And the lock screen? I dunno, honestly never even thought about it bugging me and it doesnt… i think i’m just fine moving my thumb that tiny amount. 0.25 seconds? Really? I waste more time wiping my ass with shitty toilet paper. I think ill upgrade that before i upgrade a phone i enjoy because of 0.25 seconds.

    Animations are a huge part of modern day apps and UIs. Why do think Desktop apps are still so popular? There are just as powerful web apps but they dont FEEL as “nice”. This is why JS frameworks like jQuery and why now Canvas and WebGL are getting popular.

    The alarm thing? Totally agree, but to not get an iPhone over? Ha! Thats just fucking stupid. Android? texts to wrong people and viruses galore. Blackberry? God… don’t even get me started. The balls fall off, the touch screen is janky, and more. I’ve used all of these and these are all MAJOR bugs.

    Notifications, also, sucks.

    The multitasking? Yeah, a little shitty and a klugdy hack for “multitasking”, but again, i personally haven’t had any issues with it. My battery is fine and everything is usually where i left off.

    The only things i really agree with is, the alarm and notifications do suck. But to pick a POS blackberry which has fallen apart for me and the UI is pure and utter shit, no way. Android? Love it, developed for it, and would switch, but im on a contract ATM. Nokia? Hahahaha. wow. Yes, it CAN call people, and SMS, etc, but again, people, including geeks, like GUIs.

  22. “Fscking” is the market’s Fisher Price curse word. I want to agree with you on this article, but you made it so hard to read with your pretentious nerd’s version of a curse word replacement. It’s so annoying.

  23. Sorry Jason, a high proportion of the executives get the posts emailed to
    them. I have to be careful with the ‘fucking’ words because a lot of the
    readers complain that the posts are stopped by the corporate firewalls when
    it actually has those letters in order.

    It seems that ‘bollocks’ gets through ok, hence I left that unchanged!

    Got a suggestion for an alternative to ‘fucking’? Apart from not using it in
    the first place 😉

  24. Wrong. MicroB on the N900 is widely lauded as the best mobile browser out there. iPhone’s lack of Flash support means it is simply missing a large chunk of the web. This most definitely does not make it “the best browser out there”. One could argue Nokia’s standard clunky beast of a browser is on a par or better simply because it supports Flash for the vast majority of sites.

  25. Well said.
    I agree that notifications are absolutely horrible on the iPhone (thank the lord for jailbreaking and lock info).

    Blackberry though. Wow dude. I’ve owned and was a hardcore BB user and… Well. I can easily look past the few faults in my iPhone compared to garbage BB Os. BB is falling behind in many ways…

  26. Can you explain to me why BB is a more efficient emailing machine? I’ve come from using a BB for years.

  27. Notifications suck. Agreed. This will be fixed eventually.

    Although I totally go on my rants about the iPhone and what it could be I tend to take a step back afterwards and realize that the grass always seems greener on the other side. I’m sure If I spent a few weeks with an android device there would be things that would piss me right off.

    Jailbreak your iphone like the rest of us and Stfu.

  28. OK, that argument could run & run 😉

    But Flash I can live without when the CSS3 support & hardware acceleration is so good!

    Am excited that the iOS browser is the first to start really providing decent Device Access APIs… more to go, but this will be the benchmark of a good mobile browser in the years to come.

  29. Yes, iPhone has lost its sheen. Yes, Steve Jobs can sound like a twat every now and again. Yes, the iPhone is no longer the “cool guy in town”. But let’s remember one thing – the only real innovation (and I am talking about ground-breaking revolution innovation here) in the past few years has come from Apple. Before Apple the likes of Nokia, Blackberry and co were really just jerking us off. Compare the crap they sold us in 2007 compared to what Apple came to the party with. It is insulting.

    I am an iPhone user but I am 90% sure I will soon change to probably an Android device unless iOS 5 really blows me away (doubtful). I am frankly tired of having to continually jailbreak the device in order to get customised usage. Ewan, I agree with you to a large extent – Apple and the cult of iPhone do bug me to a great degree. Where I don’t agree is with your overall incredibly negative assessment of the iPhone. If it wasn’t for Apple, we wouldn’t be experience the renaissance of the smartphone today.

    You mention that BB are number one in a lot of markets and that counts for something. So is Nokia – yet they are both crap. Look at the markets that count – the ones with early adopters (not India, not Russia, not Mid east) who are at the leading edge of usability, design and innovation and your BB and Nokia are left wanting. Sad fact but true.

  30. Yes, iPhone has lost its sheen. Yes, Steve Jobs can sound like a twat every now and again. Yes, the iPhone is no longer the “cool guy in town”. But let’s remember one thing – the only real innovation (and I am talking about ground-breaking revolution innovation here) in the past few years has come from Apple. Before Apple the likes of Nokia, Blackberry and co were really just jerking us off. Compare the crap they sold us in 2007 compared to what Apple came to the party with. It is insulting.

    I am an iPhone user but I am 90% sure I will soon change to probably an Android device unless iOS 5 really blows me away (doubtful). I am frankly tired of having to continually jailbreak the device in order to get customised usage. Ewan, I agree with you to a large extent – Apple and the cult of iPhone do bug me to a great degree. Where I don’t agree is with your overall incredibly negative assessment of the iPhone. If it wasn’t for Apple, we wouldn’t be experience the renaissance of the smartphone today.

    You mention that BB are number one in a lot of markets and that counts for something. So is Nokia – yet they are both crap. Look at the markets that count – the ones with early adopters (not India, not Russia, not Mid east) who are at the leading edge of usability, design and innovation and your BB and Nokia are left wanting. Sad fact but true.

  31. Iphone 4

    No file transfer via bluetooth

    Cannot use songs as ringtones

    No 12 MP camera

    No physical shutter on camera

    No FM transmitter

    No FM radio

    Cannot connect to computer without itunes

    No direct access to memory

    No USB on the go (cannot access external drives connected to it)

    No offline maps (unless u pay $40 for garmin)

    Poor loudspeaker (and mono btw)

    Ridiculously expensive phone and boring without the app store

    App store makes phone even more expensive but less boring

    No memory expansion via micro sd

    Fake multitasking

    No XVID/DIVX playback

    No HDMI output

    High resolution screen but still LCD so poor contrast not like Amoled

    No flash with browser

    No Pentaband

    Limited video calling features (unless you use skype)

    Not very good if you try to use it as a phone to make and recieve calls

    Remember Big Brother Jobs is watching you

    If none of the above is important to you then the iphone is the best phone. It will absolutely blow you away. For those of you who prefer a phone to be more functional than decorative try a Nokia. Nokias are the most durable phones on the market. The reason Nokia is not prevalent in the USA is because they don’t want to make carrier specific phones so no jailbreaking necessary.

    To me the difference between an iphone and a brick is……………………. is there a difference?

  32. Just checking. Only that’s precisely how Apple describe their OS — and this
    is believed and assumed by a large proportion of their customers.

  33. Yeah Rick, thanks for the iPhone put-down. Very eloquent and love the humour, seriously. No one is really disagreeing with you – well not me anyway. I do think you missed my point, though.
    The iPhone has lost it’s lead – no question of that – but
    – without the iPhone there would be no dominant smart phone market. We would all be texting via a numpad (remember, having to push the number “1” three times in succession in order to get “C”?).
    – without iPhone, we would still have the awful Symbian interface.
    – without iPhone, we would still have largely hobbyist developing buggy apps with woeful stability.
    – without iPhone there would be no app market, no app industry.

    When you look at it, Apple has singlehandedly created an industry (the App industry) and a category leading product line (the smartphone). What were Nokia (or the other usual suspect) doing? Oh, that’s right – they are number one in India, oh and Russia, and maybe Indonesia, and possibly Brazil, and even Burrundi – in fact, they are number one in countries which haven’t even got mass acceptance of 3G (if they even have it at all). And you call iPhone a brick?

    So, if the iPhone is a brick, as you describe it, bring on the bricks.

    The rest of the telco industry has benefited form this and thousands of new companies have sprung up from nothing because of Apple’s foresight. Now if you want to bag and denigrate the current iPhone then be my guest – I am not going to argue with you (in fact, I agree with you). But if you are going to re-invent Nokia as visionary or as an innovater in the smartphone arena then I am more than happy to let your words speak for themselves

    P.S. I love your excuse as to why Nokia is not big in USA. “…because they do not want to make carrier specific phones”. Of course! That’s it. Strategic genius (and proponent of “DoubleSpeak”) we have here.

  34. Actually Ewan, you may be interested in an article on a UX designer’s blog about the design shortcomings of the iPhone http://bit.ly/h18LXX . Although the post is a little old it brings up similar issues that you have outlined. These are the issues that really frustrate me, you and most others and leave us scratching our heads. But the post did go on, paradoxically, to say that despite the poor design elements of the iPhone, it was the iPhone’s “fun factor” in it’s design, that made discovery more of a pleasure for it’s users than a chore.

    This is where you may be right in pointing out that the iPhone is more of a toy and not for serious users.

  35. Hi Rick, comments on Nokia and Windows tie up? Symbian just really didn’t cut it did it?
    Oh well, back to my brick.

  36.  How can you say that… its the apps that make they
    phone and they are not fisher price! its an eco system of products that work
    together and work well, they don’t get in the way, and when tech doesn’t get in
    the way that is an awesome achievement!  

  37. dude is this article serious??? You mention that you waste 2 seconds of your life with the slie to open feature?? dude get a life man and stop fucking wasting your time writing bullshit articles which would take you a day to write up. Try going out more, making friends lol

    cheers and hope to hear from you soon brother

  38. im so sick of everyone saying that the iphone is crap

    YES!!! the iphone is crap BUT a Jailbroken(not in the shadow of apple) iphone is the best smartphone out to date,its Amazing what this bit of kit can do Once jailbroken ..My phone turns in to a handhelp PC
    As i can do pretty much do everything on my iphone as i do on my PC

    and i feel sorry for the people who brought the phone to ba a phone as i know many, and they all say
    im selling or iv sold my iphone its boring i want a blackberry LMAO

    but also for looks,style,size…and screen quality it wont be beat

  39. I stopped reading at Notifications as you obviously have nothing useful to say. The Lock screen is what it says on the tin, it “Locks” your phone as to avoid making annoying pocket calls to your phone book contacts. This feature has been around for a while now on such handsets as the Nokia 5.1 from 1996. 1.5 seconds to unlock a phone, are you serious. Just think about the time you could save by doing us all a favour and stop breathing. I think it’s an embarrassment that you comment on how long it takes to unlock a phone when you’ve spent time writing this.

    Lets not forget that if it wasn’t for the iPhone then the competition wouldn’t have followed and granted us with better handsets. The iPhone when released had one goal, it put the Internet with you wherever you went, and with this it succeeded and carries out general smartphone tasks with ease. Lets not lose focus here, it’s a phone that allows you to do other things. I’ve seen things included on other handsets that sound fantastic but just don’t work. Apple at least have one thing right, they don’t release anything that isn’t well tested (OK, the maps issue I’ll give you) and the experience that iPhone gives with knowing its not gonna screw up when you need to make that all important call. I’ve used HTC, Blackberry, Samsung, ZTE, Motorolla, Nokia and even the old iPaq phones from HP and the only phone I’ve never had issues with working first time, every time is iPhone. Stick your 1.5 seconds lock screen and notifications arguments, I’d rather wait for the lock screen than waste more time taking batteries out of phones because the substandard software has crashed to a point that it doesn’t recognise when your pressing the power button only to wait for the thing to boot up again (over 4 minutes on my old HTC Wildfire) after each reset, 3 times a day, that’s 84 minutes per week, 360 minutes per month, and a staggering 4’380 minutes per year. That’s THREE WHOLE DAYS of wasted time resetting an operating system that was release in a state that wasn’t fit for purpose. You call new technology a forward step, I call waiting for emerging technology to work first time quality control…

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