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iPhone First Impressions / Reviews
- Thread starter arn
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This is a list of things that most reviews miss to address yet very important to people. If you are making a review, please touch these in-depth areas. If anyone thinks of more, add to the list.
1. Supported video format. 640x480 is the official saying, but in reality, all current video iPod actually support any size as long as the product of the height and width does not exceed 640 x 480. (The fact is more complex than that. You have to divide the height by 16 and width by 16 and then multiply the two values, and the product needs to be less than 1200. For example, VGA size of 640x480 = 640/16 x 480/16 = 40 x 30 = 1200. If you have a horizontal resolution of 720, then your vertical resolution needs to be less than 426 in order to be supported by the current version of video iPod. In other words, video with aspect ratio other than 4:3 or larger horizontal resolution than 640 can still be played by all video iPod.) I want to know if this is true on iPhone as well. After all, it has a 3:2 aspect ratio screen, and all dSLR photos are taken at 3:2 as well.
2. Embedded video format supprted in Safari (QT, mov, avi)?
3. Downloading and playback of mp3/image files from Safari? (i.e. download an image, then view it in photo, then email to someone.)
Cannot be done. Trailers from rottentomatoes.com cannot be viewed even with QT icons. Videos from Apple.com can be viewed however, but not embedded within the browser, but open up a new YouTube like interface.
4. Actual load time of EDGE in practical aspect. The NYT's measurement of "100 seconds per page" was pretty useless, since no one start reading a page only AFTER THE WHOLE PAGE IS LOADED. No, the most important thing is to load the page, FASTER, than one reads the page.
5. Voice quality, speaker phone volume, ringer volume.
6. Photo management of large amount of photos-- testing speed and stability when handling more than 1000 high resolution pictures. (I already got 1500 high resolution pics ready.) Also test if it will resize automatically, or retain original size. Also to test if I can zoom all the way into 100% level without losing any quality.
Phone resized all photo from my iPhoto onto iPhone therefore when you zoom in on iPhone you can only zoom in to about 2x the original screen size. There is no way around it. Viewing hundreds of them is fast enough, can't complain much.
7. Test using existing ATT sim card instead of the new iPhone SIM Card.
Not possible.
8. Insert iPhone SIM card in a different phone (unlocked).
9. Test typing compound words such as butterfly. Will the auto-speller mess me up? For example, if I try to type butter, the iPhone suggests butterfly after I finished typing the last letter of "butter," when I normally press the space key, will it automatically misunderstand me as accepting the suggested "butterfly" word?
To accept suggested word click "space" to reject simply click on the suggested word label.
10. Test how many Safari windows can be opened, pop up blocker, accessing websites with excess spamming, continuous pop-up, etc.
11. Test apple.com's QT video playback. Test specially secure sites such as bankofamerica.com or direct loan service.
Apple.com QT played fine. Digg.com login is also fine (ajax and jave script). Haven't tried banking sites.
12. Test ftp.domainname.com format ftp access.
1. Supported video format. 640x480 is the official saying, but in reality, all current video iPod actually support any size as long as the product of the height and width does not exceed 640 x 480. (The fact is more complex than that. You have to divide the height by 16 and width by 16 and then multiply the two values, and the product needs to be less than 1200. For example, VGA size of 640x480 = 640/16 x 480/16 = 40 x 30 = 1200. If you have a horizontal resolution of 720, then your vertical resolution needs to be less than 426 in order to be supported by the current version of video iPod. In other words, video with aspect ratio other than 4:3 or larger horizontal resolution than 640 can still be played by all video iPod.) I want to know if this is true on iPhone as well. After all, it has a 3:2 aspect ratio screen, and all dSLR photos are taken at 3:2 as well.
2. Embedded video format supprted in Safari (QT, mov, avi)?
3. Downloading and playback of mp3/image files from Safari? (i.e. download an image, then view it in photo, then email to someone.)
Cannot be done. Trailers from rottentomatoes.com cannot be viewed even with QT icons. Videos from Apple.com can be viewed however, but not embedded within the browser, but open up a new YouTube like interface.
4. Actual load time of EDGE in practical aspect. The NYT's measurement of "100 seconds per page" was pretty useless, since no one start reading a page only AFTER THE WHOLE PAGE IS LOADED. No, the most important thing is to load the page, FASTER, than one reads the page.
5. Voice quality, speaker phone volume, ringer volume.
6. Photo management of large amount of photos-- testing speed and stability when handling more than 1000 high resolution pictures. (I already got 1500 high resolution pics ready.) Also test if it will resize automatically, or retain original size. Also to test if I can zoom all the way into 100% level without losing any quality.
Phone resized all photo from my iPhoto onto iPhone therefore when you zoom in on iPhone you can only zoom in to about 2x the original screen size. There is no way around it. Viewing hundreds of them is fast enough, can't complain much.
7. Test using existing ATT sim card instead of the new iPhone SIM Card.
Not possible.
8. Insert iPhone SIM card in a different phone (unlocked).
9. Test typing compound words such as butterfly. Will the auto-speller mess me up? For example, if I try to type butter, the iPhone suggests butterfly after I finished typing the last letter of "butter," when I normally press the space key, will it automatically misunderstand me as accepting the suggested "butterfly" word?
To accept suggested word click "space" to reject simply click on the suggested word label.
10. Test how many Safari windows can be opened, pop up blocker, accessing websites with excess spamming, continuous pop-up, etc.
11. Test apple.com's QT video playback. Test specially secure sites such as bankofamerica.com or direct loan service.
Apple.com QT played fine. Digg.com login is also fine (ajax and jave script). Haven't tried banking sites.
12. Test ftp.domainname.com format ftp access.
This was answered before, if I am not mistaken.
All functions of the phone, even the ipod part, will be locked until you activate it with AT&T.
Yes, when you first turn it on it even tells you that you need to activate on iTunes. And there is a "slide for emergency" bar at the bottom. haha
Haha I am already having problems activating it. "Server is busy. Please Try again."
EDIT: It activated finally. All I can say is WOW. I already connected to my WIFI and i just cannot believe this thing. YouTube is simply awesome. I am just getting around to using the internet.
EDIT: It activated finally. All I can say is WOW. I already connected to my WIFI and i just cannot believe this thing. YouTube is simply awesome. I am just getting around to using the internet.
Just wait for touch screen iPods, I'm sure they will be here in a few months. I am holding out in hope of wifi and safari. Im sure I will be disappointed.
Can you test out the EDGE network? How long does it take to load wikipedia and its articles?
That's going to be the deal-breaker for me (EDGE speeds).
I'll probably buy it anyway, but just wanted to read up on it for a couple weeks first.
In your bottom 2 pictures, you seemed to have what looked like a transparent plastic plate about the same size as the iPhone... Do you mind telling us what that is, or is it just part of the packaging? Enjoy...
all i can say is the only time i have touched it is to put it into the dock. i am waiting for music to sync before using it. it is beautiful.
It took about 8 or 9 seconds to load the wikipedia.org frontpage on EDGE... and about 20-23 seconds loading the "APPLE" wikipedia article on EDGE.
In my opinion, it really isn't that bad so far. I know EDGE sucks but it is very doable.
In my opinion, it really isn't that bad so far. I know EDGE sucks but it is very doable.
iPhone looks great, activation....
iPhone looks and feels great, but AT&T may be having activation issues. iTunes activation ends on, "Your activation requires additional time to complete. An email will be sent to ... once your activation is complete."
A quick call to AT&T indicates that, "things are really backed up." That was useful.
Still, great to have one in house.
iPhone looks and feels great, but AT&T may be having activation issues. iTunes activation ends on, "Your activation requires additional time to complete. An email will be sent to ... once your activation is complete."
A quick call to AT&T indicates that, "things are really backed up." That was useful.
Still, great to have one in house.
Doing the initial sync, iTunes is really using a lot of CPU to copy files over. My MBP's fans are flying. 