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iPhone in the wild...

evillageprowler

evillageprowler

macrumors regular
Original poster
Nov 5, 2007
178
0
NJ, USA
Hi folks,

I went to a small party last night in Manhattan. There were 12 adults there. Someone noticed that we had six iPhones in the room. 50% was a pretty high number, and I struggled to find a single good reason for this. We're all different people in terms of fondness for gadgets, academic background and professional skills. I also found a fairly broad spectrum of reasons for why each of us got the iPhone.

Another thing I noticed was that each phone (I think) was the new 3G model, and that we use it predominantly with 3G turned off.

I've owned my iPhone (white 16G 3G) for ~ 2 weeks now. I was deciding between the N95-8G (or N96) and this new iPhone. What made me decide to buy the iPhone was that I felt I'd simply be more inclined to use its broad range of features than I would on the other smart phones. Sure - certain things about the iPhone bothers me (no MMS, no video capture, ho-hum camera and no flash). But, the truth is that I can accept its shortcomings because I get so much use and value from the iPhone despite the shortcomings.

That the small party have a 50% acceptance rate really does not surprise me. The iPhone, in spite of its shortcomings, is an immensely useful gadget that is also fun and easy to use.

EVP
 
The RAZR is the iPhone of a few years ago.
It was fashionable and everyone wanted it. Then once they used the RAZR and found out how craptastic the UI is, they dropped it like a turd.

Same will happen to the iPhone unless they start fixing these problems like the long backups, sluggish UI, crashes.

I am ready to go back to 1.1.4 or whatever it was before the app store.
 
Skubish - I hear what you're saying about the problems; different people will have different levels of tolerance on specific issues and problems.

However, at least in the case of my friends, being fashionistas was not even a secondary reason for getting the iPhone. And, I never noticed such a large percentage of RAZR users amongst my friends. (I actually can't recall anyone from that clique ever owning a RAZR, or we just never noticed because it wasn't significant enough to notice.)

EVP
 
Wirelessly posted (iPhone: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_0_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5C1 Safari/525.20)

skubish said:
The RAZR is the iPhone of a few years ago.
It was fashionable and everyone wanted it. Then once they used the RAZR and found out how craptastic the UI is, they dropped it like a turd.

Same will happen to the iPhone unless they start fixing these problems like the long backups, sluggish UI, crashes.

I am ready to go back to 1.1.4 or whatever it was before the app store.
Click to expand...

I think that the iPhone falls in a much different category than the Razr. I have had a very good experience over all with the iPhone and iPhone 3G. With the Razr what you got was it. At least, with the iPhone, it appears that Apple is trying to fix many of the annoying things about it such as the long backups. This is to add to the fact that there are many people that have different tolerance levels for devices.

As far as the party is concerned, I think that 50% is an awesome figure. Most people that I have talked to about it have some things that they wish would get fixed but they are overall satisfied and they feel like Apple is working on the shortcomings.
 
That's actually one thing I don't like about the iphone--the fact that so many people have it. Pulling it out I feel like a sheep--though I reallly enjoy it despite the current problems I'm having.

I bought the iphone for its features and not so much for fashion. I keep in a case which makes it look like a blackberry and use black headphones which makes me feel a *little* less like one of the sheeple.
 
lol you should see how many of my classmates have an iphone ( we need epocrates for medical school, it was this or a craptastic palm treo)

still its a kick ass device ( hardware wise) waiting on software to make it reach its potential

I would have kept my Sony Ericsson K810i ( much better "Phone") and waited to see how the Blackberry thunder, Google phones turn out
 
barkomatic said:
I keep in a case which makes it look like a blackberry and use black headphones which makes me feel a *little* less like one of the sheeple.
Click to expand...

I use junky black headphones on the bus, which also goes to a rehab center and a community college (not much difference). Anyway, I'm hoping my decoy headphones will cause the tweakers to pass me by.
 
barkomatic said:
That's actually one thing I don't like about the iphone--the fact that so many people have it. Pulling it out I feel like a sheep-
Click to expand...

If you bought it for features and because it's actually useful to you, then you have no reason to feel like a sheep. I have no fear pulling mine out because I actually utilize it. If I were just flashing it around for the sake of flashing it around then yes, I would feel like a sheep. :)
 
aww, I thought this thread was about something totally different.


bigfoot.PNG
 
evillageprowler said:
Hi folks,

I went to a small party last night in Manhattan. There were 12 adults there. Someone noticed that we had six iPhones in the room. 50% was a pretty high number, and I struggled to find a single good reason for this. We're all different people in terms of fondness for gadgets, academic background and professional skills. I also found a fairly broad spectrum of reasons for why each of us got the iPhone.

Another thing I noticed was that each phone (I think) was the new 3G model, and that we use it predominantly with 3G turned off.

I've owned my iPhone (white 16G 3G) for ~ 2 weeks now. I was deciding between the N95-8G (or N96) and this new iPhone. What made me decide to buy the iPhone was that I felt I'd simply be more inclined to use its broad range of features than I would on the other smart phones. Sure - certain things about the iPhone bothers me (no MMS, no video capture, ho-hum camera and no flash). But, the truth is that I can accept its shortcomings because I get so much use and value from the iPhone despite the shortcomings.

That the small party have a 50% acceptance rate really does not surprise me. The iPhone, in spite of its shortcomings, is an immensely useful gadget that is also fun and easy to use.

EVP
Click to expand...

Why would you pay $10 more (minus texting) for the 3G plan then turn the feature off? Just curious
 
M-5 said:
"Why would you pay $10 more (minus texting) for the 3G plan then turn the feature off? Just curious"

Because you can't purchase an iPhone 3G sans the 3G plan at AT&T.
Click to expand...

I do use 3G, but only when I feel I can benefit from the throughput enhancement. Otherwise, it is just a drain on my battery. Just like I enable WiFi and Bluetooth only when I need to use them.

EVP
 
barkomatic said:
That's actually one thing I don't like about the iphone--the fact that so many people have it.
Click to expand...

I actually am glad so many are out there now. I feel like if I leave it sitting on my desk at work, it's not as likely to disappear now that they are a little more common (not that I don't trust my co-workers :eek:, but ya know, just an example)
 
evillageprowler said:
I do use 3G, but only when I feel I can benefit from the throughput enhancement. Otherwise, it is just a drain on my battery. Just like I enable WiFi and Bluetooth only when I need to use them.

EVP
Click to expand...

I keep them turned off so that my battery lasts two days. I like this better than I like 3G or WiFi. i don't need to use the phone on WiFi while I am at home, I have four computers here all on WiFi. I think this is what the majority of owners do.

I also have two white 3G phones. I bring them with me while I am working since I spend my 12 hour shift in my car. One of them plugs into my PowerJolt and that one stays on 3G while plugged in, has email enabled and location services on. The other stays in my pocket till needed and functions as a phone/MP3 player.

If I want to download an app while I am out, I'll simply turn on 3G to download the app, then turn it off.
 
barkomatic said:
That's actually one thing I don't like about the iphone--the fact that so many people have it. Pulling it out I feel like a sheep
Click to expand...
That's a pretty dumb statement to make considering it sound like only certain people should have the iPhone.

I could care less if there everybody was using the iPhone.
 
A side angle to the OP:

It's been fun watch my friends slowly switch to iPhones - you can see it on Facebook when they install the Facebook app - dead giveaway.
Interestingly the 1st person who I knew got it after me after the 11th, was a female friend who isn't really into tech or gadgets to my knowledge, and she loves Mostly male colleagues getting them bar her.

Now that you can actually get that many in one room, it's crying out for multiplayer games, beyond poker. Even the pong game demoed would be cool in a retro way. My hope is that there's a lot waiting for techcrunch 50 etc in september, and they'll come out then, but it's likely many companies haven't got the coding done. There's a market for it, and your example shows an event where the critical mass is large enough for more phenomena to show - e.g. sharing videos and music using datacase or Bonjour app , gaming etc.
 
I guess I'm the OP. :)

t0mat0: I would advise you (or anyone else) not to use my party as an example of critical mass for any specific type of multi-person event. Aside from using the iPhone for photo, voice and "desktop" productivity, my friends and I differ wildly in the other reasons for having gotten the gadget. I suppose if we put our heads together we can think of a collaborative event centered on iPhone usage.

Two of us like to have up-to-date sports scores. One of us uses the Greek keyboard to type scientific formulae. One of us got lost in Peter Cooper Village and had to use the Maps function to find how to walk to his car (yes, this was me!). Another guy was probably busy texting his wife (who was home with the newborn). I can't even begin to guess some of the esoteric uses of the gadget from the women in our group.

EVP
 
i have yet to see 1 person with a 3g iphone, only the first gen. :confused: but then, i don't run into alot of cool people or go around asking if they got one, lol!
 
Odd, I've never ONCE seen an iPhone here in Tokyo. I thought I saw one once, but it was just white slider with tapered edges.
 
well, that's coincident. of course, new yorkers like iphone. I own 1st. Gen. I still love it. I am not surprising anymore who own iphone or iphone 3G whatever because I see it everyday in here my town (san francisco). I just wonder how many gadgets do you carry when you go out usual day? me?

1. iphone with Ultimate Ears 4vi earphone
2. laptop (macbook or sony vaio FW new model)
3. camera (sony DSC H50 black)
4. sometimes ipod touch
5. backup HDD

I think that they are too much. don't you think?
 
I only know one other person with a 1G iPhone, he talked me into getting one but I decided to wait until after the 3G version came out (thanks to AT&T's leak back in December!!) since I have been using my Samsung Sync with 3G and OperaMini. So when it was released I got one. That is all I know of with an iPhone.
 
Where you live has a big influence. My best friend came to visit me three weeks ago. He's in Connecticut and I'm in San Francisco. He couldn't believe how many iPhones there were. On the bus there were four just in the front of the bus. He said he hasn't seen any near his house in New Haven, but in San Francisco he saw them everywhere.
 
It's getting crazy now with the price drop. Although the plan is $10 more, a lot of users were already paying $30 for a data package. This is one thing I dislike about the ones who say "but you are paying more" but were the same ones that got surprised when the iPhone 2g data plan was $20 and came with 200 msgs. I also rather pay more, but in increments then less per month, but more up front.
 
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