First iPhone Review from Walt Mossberg

[123]

Can you choose a carrier when you select Sunrise in CH? No. Same applies for the iPhone...if they have a contract with one or few carriers, that's it. Stop bitching.

Are you serious? Of course you can. Remove SIM, add another, done.

Also, you don't have to sign a contract in the first place. Your statement is quite stupid. "Can you choose a carrier when you select Sunrise " <- who said that I want to choose AFTER I have already signed a contract? How stupid is that?

Same applies for the iPhone...

No it doesn't. I want to buy the phone without contract. If that's not an option, I want to buy the phone in the US, pay the cancellation fee right there in the store, and use it in Europe.

As for songs as ringtones, this is record companies' fault, not Apple's. It's another case of stupid copyright limitation imposed by them, simple as that.

Last time I checked, the record companies don't own all the music on the planet including music I create myself. So, on what legal basis are they supposed to demand this from Apple?

 

[123]

How would you copy and paste? I was thinking about it. It seems most of the functions that you could use cause the iPhone to do something else. And without a menu that gives you that choice how else could it be done?

Short 2-finger tap: show context menu. "copy word", or "select & copy": move your finger over the text you want to copy. Something like that.

 

[diamond.g]

Short 2-finger tap: show context menu. "copy word", or "select & copy": move your finger over the text you want to copy. Something like that.

I thought two finger tap zooms out in at least Safari (I dunno I watched the Guide last night and I have forgotten some of the stuff already)? But that is a good start nonetheless.

 

[ipoppy]

i had enough

Dear Macrumors,
Please , could you stop update you site by iPhone news. I am sick to read it. Your site is excellent for all news about macs, always been, but recently its just too much about this iPhone.
Stop to it.
Please

 

[YoMamasPyjamas]

Not being able to choose your own ringtone is like not being able to wear your own sandles on a beach. And in this case it's not just, "you can't wear your own sandles, you have to buy one of our pairs," it's "you must choose from one of these pre-approved, kosher, designer pairs, that you must return when you are done with the beach. Now take off your comfortable, familiar pair that fits your personality and makes you happy and replace it with one of our original and perfect ringtones; and don't forget them either - or you'll never speak to your friends again."

So steve, let me play my ringtone, please?

Besides, as I've stated before, the ringtone I want is not one I purchased on iTunes - there's no legal problem whatsoever.

Foregoing any debate over your musical tastes (although I will mention that I was in a band on a tour with Good Charlotte and had the unfortunate pleasure of hearing them way more that I would have liked, so don't tell me I don't know their music), I would like to respond to this interesting sandal analogy.

Now I don't know about you, but being able to wear my favorite pair of sandals (ring tone) is hardly the most important aspect of going to the beach (getting an iPhone). When I go to the beach, I'm much more concerned with swimming in the ocean (surfing the web), laying out in the sun (scrolling through music), tossing a football with some buddies (e-mail), etc etc etc! Now, if for some reason I lost my pair of $25 sandals and was forced to wear some generic pair instead, do you really think I would say, "Screw this! If I can't wear my awesome sandals (which coincidentally play 30 seconds of "A New Beginning" every time someone calls my name), then I'm not going to the beach at all!" I mean, where is the logic in that? The beach still effing rules, even if your favorite pair of sandals are banned from the premises. And hey, I'm sure one of your buddies (hackers) can help you figure out a way to sneak your sandals onto the beach in the coming weeks.

I'm just sayin...

 

[MBHockey]

haha, great post. Well said.

 

[benspratling]

Foregoing any debate over your musical tastes (although I will mention that I was in a band on a tour with Good Charlotte and had the unfortunate pleasure of hearing them way more that I would have liked, so don't tell me I don't know their music), I would like to respond to this interesting sandal analogy.

Now I don't know about you, but being able to wear my favorite pair of sandals (ring tone) is hardly the most important aspect of going to the beach (getting an iPhone). When I go to the beach, I'm much more concerned with swimming in the ocean (surfing the web), laying out in the sun (scrolling through music), tossing a football with some buddies (e-mail), etc etc etc! Now, if for some reason I lost my pair of $25 sandals and was forced to wear some generic pair instead, do you really think I would say, "Screw this! If I can't wear my awesome sandals (which coincidentally play 30 seconds of "A New Beginning" every time someone calls my name), then I'm not going to the beach at all!" I mean, where is the logic in that? The beach still effing rules, even if your favorite pair of sandals are banned from the premises. And hey, I'm sure one of your buddies (hackers) can help you figure out a way to sneak your sandals onto the beach in the coming weeks.

I'm just sayin...

You are of course partially correct, but not allowing me to choose my own ringtone is just as silly as my demanding it, so how can you stand up and say - "No! Users shouldn't be allowed to choose their own ringtone." I mean, maybe the iPhone is just so way cool that leaving it on vibrate all the time should be cool with me, but what could you possibly be gaining by not alowing songs as ringtones? like twelve lines of code? I know OS X needed to be paired dow for this phone, but such a simple little feature, I could program it myself in an hour if they let me at the code.

Besides if the phone becomes popular as iPods, then you are bound to run into someone who has your same ringtone during the day, and that's just confusing. Nobody has my ringtone - I always know it's my phone.

 

[MacinDoc]

You are of course partially correct, but not allowing me to choose my own ringtone is just as silly as my demanding it, so how can you stand up and say - "No! Users shouldn't be allowed to choose their own ringtone." I mean, maybe the iPhone is just so way cool that leaving it on vibrate all the time should be cool with me, but what could you possibly be gaining by not alowing songs as ringtones? like twelve lines of code? I know OS X needed to be paired dow for this phone, but such a simple little feature, I could program it myself in an hour if they let me at the code.

Besides if the phone becomes popular as iPods, then you are bound to run into someone who has your same ringtone during the day, and that's just confusing. Nobody has my ringtone - I always know it's my phone.

It's a digital rights issue, not a software issue.

 

[MacinDoc]

Dear Macrumors,
Please , could you stop update you site by iPhone news. I am sick to read it. Your site is excellent for all news about macs, always been, but recently its just too much about this iPhone.
Stop to it.
Please

So post on another thread and stop bumping this one up by posting complaints on it...

 

[thomasfxlt]

Now that there is finally another thread for the ringtone enthusiasts....

There seems to be a lot of "value" discussion going on in the reviews and it appears to be a fairly common assessment that this phone is well executed but expensive and will only appeal to "gadget geeks" with the money to pay.

I don't think I agree with that. The average investment in a Wii is $500-600 by the time you buy extra controllers and some games. In my case, I bought the Wii for my kids. They certainly don't need a Wii. They already had a Playstation, but I bought them one. I think lots of people (middle class people) have done the same thing. Why wouldn't they buy an iPhone? Some people are practical and have to have a very honed in reason to buy, but many will buy because it's just the coolest phone ever made. More importantly, it's not a phone first, it's an iPod...a real cool video iPod that just happens to have very good phone capability. The market is limited at $600, but this phone is going to sell.

On another note. The business analysts are all saying that corporations are blocking the use of the phone because of security risks. Trust me, after enough high power sales people and executives complain, the IT depts. will open the door once the security issues are calmed. There's lots of this same stuff going on relative to allowing Macs in the workplace in general. The IT guys don't want to allow Apple in the door for many reasons (that's another topic).

Many successful corporations have employed a strategy to sell to end users to drive a technology "upstream". I think the iPhone is the corporate nutcracker.

 

[NiteWaves77]

From 80kbps to 180kbps

Dude! Stop screwing up everybody's uninformed opinions with your actual data. Please.

Three weeks ago, I was getting anywhere from 60kbps to 80kbps using DSL Reports' speed test. Now I'm averaging 180kbps.

Hyperbole?

Note to people who've never used a 300baud modem and terminal software on cassette: you don't know what slow is.

 

[phasornc]

A 3G to Edge Comparison

Okay in case your interested I just did a comparison of my Treo 650 ATT Edge vs. my friends Treo 700p Sprint "PowerVision" [3G]

using www.dslreports.com/mspeed - mobile bandwidth tester using the 1 GB download. Both phones were using their latest versions of Blazer, Palm's browser.

700p - Sprint PowerVision
223 kbps
.345 sec latency
total download time 33 seconds

650 - ATT Edge
138 kbps
3.44 sec latency
total download time 64 seconds


For general browsing the latency issue makes a HUGE difference. In real life, the 700p can download a 600KB file before the 650 on Edge even starts the download. The is abundantly clear when using a webmail or banking application. At least now once you get past the initial wait time speeds are acceptible. No I can say downloads really are definitely faster than a 56k modem. Time to redownload Opera for the Palm now.

 

[Zadillo]

Okay in case your interested I just did a comparison of my Treo 650 ATT Edge vs. my friends Treo 700p Sprint "PowerVision" [3G]

using www.dslreports.com/mspeed - mobile bandwidth tester using the 1 GB download. Both phones were using their latest versions of Blazer, Palm's browser.

700p - Sprint PowerVision
223 kbps
.345 sec latency
total download time 33 seconds

650 - ATT Edge
138 kbps
3.44 sec latency
total download time 64 seconds


For general browsing the latency issue makes a HUGE difference. In real life, the 700p can download a 600KB file before the 650 on Edge even starts the download. The is abundantly clear when using a webmail or banking application. At least now once you get past the initial wait time speeds are acceptible. No I can say downloads really are definitely faster than a 56k modem. Time to redownload Opera for the Palm now.

Opera for the Palm still crashes regularly though - or more its the IBM JVM thing that still seems to crap out.

 

[dashiel]

Okay in case your interested I just did a comparison of my Treo 650 ATT Edge vs. my friends Treo 700p Sprint "PowerVision" [3G]

using www.dslreports.com/mspeed - mobile bandwidth tester using the 1 GB download. Both phones were using their latest versions of Blazer, Palm's browser.

i think you mean 1MB.

 

[Timbafun]

Iphone improvements

The Wall Street Journal's Walt Mossberg has posted his review of the Apple iPhone.

Mossberg and Bohret tested the iPhone for two weeks in multiple usage scenarios and in various cities:



Some highlights:

- largest, highest resolution screen of any smart phone they've seen, most internal memory
- Impressive battery life and thin
- Feels solid
- Regarding the touch keyboard: "After five days of use, Walt -- who did most of the testing for this review -- was able to type on it as quickly and accurately as he could on the Palm Treo he has used for years."
- Can't use T-Mobile SIM cards
- Wi-Fi capability doesn't fully make up for the lack of a fast cellular data capability
- Multitouch: "effective, practical and fun"
- No way to copy/paste text
- Microsoft's Exchange system support
- Voice call quality was good, but not great
- Can't record video
- No Adobe Flash support
- Songs can't be set as ringtones

I would like to better underestand which of these shortcomings are
technically fixable via software update and which are fixable only
with new hardware.

 

[Zadillo]

I would like to better underestand which of these shortcomings are
technically fixable via software update and which are fixable only
with new hardware.

Well, things like the slow speeds of EDGE can only be fixed when a 3G iPhone comes out, for example, so that's a new hardware issue.

No copy/paste would easily be addable via a software update.

It seems already essentially confirmed that iTunes 7.3 adds ringtone functionality.

Voice call quality could possibly be improved with software updates, but probably not anything significant.

Recording video and Flash support are both things that seemingly could be added via software updates.