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iPhone honeymoon is over
Well its now been about two weeks since the iPhone launch and its apparent that the honeymoon is over. Yes, overall people like the phonecomputeripodcommunicatoremailbrowserthingy but the Apple fanboys (and girls) seem to have a lot of (legitimate) complaints about the phones missing features and bugs. Hey, people its iPhone 1.0 - its not going to be perfect! Â
The best and most comprehensive review of the iPhone I’ve seen so far comes from Gizmodo. Their conclusion: its cool but wait for 2.0.Â
One of the biggest complaints I’ve heard about the iPhone is its battery. It seems that many people are experiencing problems with the iPhone holding a good charge. However, the biggest battery complaint is that you have to send your iPhone back to Apple after 300 to 400 charges for a new battery. You’ve got to be kidding me! That’s ridiculous! Why didn’t they just design the phone so that I can replace my own battery?
I was on the phone yesterday with a buddy (a big Apple fanboy) who had just bought an iPhone for his wife. I asked him if he had heard about the battery replacement issue. He had not and he was a little pissed off about it. By the way, the battery replacement is not free - it will cost you $79 and three days without a phone unless you pay a $29 fee for a rental iPhone. Who the heck wants to go through that hassle! Blah…
Several other good reviews to point you to include:
-Scott Bourne of the ApplePhoneShow (a Podango property you ought to be listening to 
): The iPhone is a star - but not perfect.
-Gigaom has set up a “how would you improve the iPhone” thread. Good read.
-The iPhone returns, or the return of the iPhone.
-Here’s wirelessinfo.com’s exhaustive review comparing the iPhone against Helio Ocean, Treo, blackberry, N95 and the Prada.
Like I said, I think someday I’ll pick up an iPhone but I don’t see that day in the near future. The so called “Jesus Phone” (very insulting nickname by the way) is nice but still comes up short.
One of those motto’s I think is great to live by is “under commit, over deliver”. I have been wondering if Apple over committed on the iPhone or if the Apple user base got so excited about the phone that they built it up to be more than it is. I think it may be a little of both. Why would Apple come out and try to temper enthusiasm for the phone when their stock price is at an all time high? Why wouldn’t Apple fanboys get overly excited about Apple entering the mobile space with such a ”revolutionary” device then hype it to the point of premature ejac(you know the rest). Its a classic case of over-hype leading to under deliver.Â
Let’s also not get started on “the new” AT&T. I think we all know how that’s going to end. Or the fact that Apple didn’t even officially show up to a conference dedicated to building third party apps for the iPhone (yes, MS was there). Â
All this said, the iPhone has still had a stellar beginning and it will be a force in the smart phone industry. iPhone 2.0 will surely address many of the current short comings much in the same way iPod 2.0 did. Analyst are projecting that Apple will sell 12 million iPhone’s next year - Apple says it will sell 10 million. That’s a lot of phones…or is it? The US mobile phone market has 240 million users. Analyst hype aside, let’s be reasonable and assume Apple hits their 10 million iPhones projection. Well that’s a 4.1% share of the total US mobile market.
Alas, the iPhone is truly an Apple product…Â
UPDATE: apparently the iPhone battery WILL last longer than 400 charges - Click here for the Gizmodo clarification.
To be fair, the iPhone is said to retain up to “80% of its original capacity after 400 full charge and discharge cycles.” Not sure where the “300″ in Bob Sullvian’s article came from, and it’s not completely dead after 400, but it’s hard to expect a glowing review from the news org owned by Microsoft.
Left by Richard K Miller on 07/10/2007Richard:
Thanks for the link but you do have to admit that sending the thing in to have the battery replaced is a bit lame.
Left by Chris Knudsen on 07/10/2007Yes. Sending it in is crap. There are a few people here at my work that have one, and their charge lasts for days.
Left by Russ on 07/10/2007[...] Chris Knudsen has a good post that covers some of these things, from his post I found this one from Om Malik that he linked to, the comment list is quite exhaustive and very good. [...]
Left by Phil801 - Geek Blog » The whi-Phone on 07/13/2007