Does Apple ever intend to improve the iPhone as a... well... PHONE?

Palm Pimp

Palm Pimp

macrumors regular
As much as I like to compare the iPhone and Palm Pre (love both of them), I have to admit that both of them suck at something really fundamental: being phones. Call quality is terrible and calls drop all the time.

Do you think Apple is eventually gonna make strides and call in the hardware engineers in from break, and help the software guys our?
 
Pretty certain it has nothing to do with Apple's lack of hardware support, they simply don't care about low level functions. Drop calls have more to do with AT&T than Apple if anything.

Just look at Apple's Mac lineup, does it look like they care to compete with Dell and HP's low budget PCs?
 
My AT&T service in Miami, FL is very good. Almost never fewer than full bars.

I have an account with Verizon also and use a BB Storm on that system. It's both slower and weaker, signal wise, for me. I'll be dumping them soon.

There were times, especially right after AT&T's Cingular merger, that I was hating AT&T. Rarely would I ever get full bars, and call quality was very staticy.

But just under a year later, it's absolutely perfect here.

Where do you live, BTW?
 
So you know the phone quality on a phone that isn't out yet is bad? If you did have a chance to use one, it's probably not the final version anyway and the phone part can be improved on before going to production.

And if the quality of the Pre as a phone is bad, you can't totally blame the device. The phone will be on what is arguably the worst network in the US with the exception of a few areas.
 
Wirelessly posted (iPhone 3G (white): Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_0 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/7A259g Safari/525.20)

I've never dropped a call on my iPhone 3G. At least, not that I can recall! And I bought mine on launch day, so we're coming up on a full year of use. Without a single dropped call.

IOW, place the blame where it's due. Maybe it's the network ... ? ;)
 
same here. never had a dropped call. sound is good. i wish they would improve it as a fridge.
 
ATT is undeniably weak in certain parts of the country. Witness the NY Times article of last week. Apple signed an exclusive contract with ATT for the next couple of years or perhaps more. There is a point where Apple must acknowledge the weakness of the sole network in the US and seek to give its customers, who tend to be loyal to Apple, either a product with a stronger antenna, more power, or allow competition of networks or force ATT to more quickly upgrade their network in the weak areas.
 
Palm Pimp said:
As much as I like to compare the iPhone and Palm Pre (love both of them), I have to admit that both of them suck at something really fundamental: being phones. Call quality is terrible and calls drop all the time.
Click to expand...

Nope.

Here on O2 in the UK, call quality is great and I haven't ever had a dropped call.
 
Never have problems here in central Fl either. I guess it all depends on where you live, but I really dont believe that any one network is better than another anymore, just geography and personal preference.
 
koobcamuk said:
Nope.

Here on O2 in the UK, call quality is great and I haven't ever had a dropped call.
Click to expand...

Same here, but a 2G phone imported from the states.

Call quality could be improved, and i get alot of call failed which just happen when the phone decides to drop the signal. Mabe its just the old hardware though.

For future hardware, the ear peice speaker could be louder and clearer.
 
Actually, I think Apple has improved the phone function. iPhone v1 only got me 3-4 bars (sometimes 5). However, with the release of v2, I get all the bars at home and most of the places I drive to in Dallas. AT&T's service in small towns outside the major cities, on the other hand, is a different matter altogether.
You should tell us where you're calling from. Location does make a difference, because AT&T's service isn't strong in all parts of the country.
So really, you should change your subject to: Does AT&T ever plan to improve its service for all parts of the country?
 
Palm Pimp said:
As much as I like to compare the iPhone and Palm Pre (love both of them), I have to admit that both of them suck at something really fundamental: being phones. Call quality is terrible and calls drop all the time.

Do you think Apple is eventually gonna make strides and call in the hardware engineers in from break, and help the software guys our?
Click to expand...

The carriers are the ones you want to talk to.
Apple's worked a fair bit on the phone, and also simplifying the use of phone functions - loudspeaker, using the phone in-call to get to notes, contacts etc, merging calls, doing conference calls, getting decent ringtones /pictures associated with contacts, getting the favorites/recent/contacts/keypad.
And visual voicemail.


Calls dropping, call quality, is primarily the carrier. You might find some differences, in terms of signal, but a lot is to do with having a decent signal in the first place. Same goes with the not-yet-on-the-market Pre.

http://www.usnews.com/blogs/daves-download/2009/03/31/no-skype-for-palm-pre.html
David LaGesse No Skype for Palm Pre March 31, 2009 07:32 PM

Skype has no plans to write software for the Palm Pre, a company exec said today..."We want to see how that device sells," COO Scott Durchslag told reporters. "If [the Pre] takes off, it's something we'll consider."

From initial impressions of the iPhone app, the company does have its hands full. Reviews are mixed, with many early users reporting crashes. My own experience was smooth, although call quality varied markedly...
 
I've never had a call drop or anything yet... Though I don't live in a bigger city, but when I visit bigger cities everything works perfect as well as 3G...
 
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