I bought the original iPhone the day it came out. LOVED IT. I told everybody it was hands down, the best purchase I had made in my life to date. It was beautiful, stable as a rock, and did everything I could possibly need it to do. I could check emails make phone calls almost everywhere I went (certainly better coverage than i had before) and listen to my music. Just an amazing device.
I now own a 3G. I upgraded thinking my love for iPhone would only increase with added GPS, 3G speeds, and larger capacity. Yet, I find that I have grown more anxious than excited about using my phone...wondering whether or not it's going to let me do what I need to do or simply let me down.
Let me explain a series of repeating iPhone frustrations that all came together to create the perfect storm of iPhone disappointment the other day:
I was out of the office all day for meetings. Knowing my emails were queing up, the minute we had our first 5 minute break, I pulled my iPhone out to check my email. The anxiety begins. Will I have signal? After all, the signal strength is so unreliable on my new iPhone than my original. So I anxiously type in my passcode to unlock the phone. Alas! I have signal...3G even! I tap the mail icon and wait for the blazing 3G goodness to work it’s magic. Yet, anxiety builds again. Will it actually connect and download all my mail before I have to go into my next meeting? I’ve come to realize that 3G isn’t as reliably fast as I’ve seen on TV. So, mail takes about 60-65 seconds to actually connect and download 10 small emails. Not exactly quick. I then tap my first message and I wait. Loading....Loading.....Loading..... After waiting 60-65 seconds for my email to download, I have to wait another 20 seconds or so before the message finally opens up? Because of the lengthy wait, I’m expecting a large email with a picture or two but I’m disappointed to see it’s only a 8 kilobyte email, with just two sentences and an email signature from the sender. Not exactly a complicated message to display...certainly not worth a 20 second delay to open. I respond to the email and send. I place the phone on the table and turn to speak to a colleague. About a minute and a half into my conversation, I hear the swoosh sound of a successful send. So my 5 minute break is up and I was able to download my email, but only had time to open 1, read it, and reply. A blazing fast phone, indeed.
My day continues, and another break. Time to check email again. This time, I'm in a different meeting and have wifi access. Hooray! No unreliable 3G speeds to contend with. My email downloads quickly and I see one of them has an attachment. It's a photo from a colleague of a prototype we're working on. He needs me to look at the photo and approve it. I think how great this is and how impossible this would have been on my old smart phone. So I tap the message and wait. Loading....Loading.... 40 seconds later, the message appears with the embedded image, but it’s too large to see. So i begin to scroll down to see the image in full, and the phone freezes. I sit and wait for the iPhone to catch it’s breath. A minute passes, yet nothing has happened. Still frozen. I’m running out of time, so I have do a forced reboot. Sigh.... By the time it reboots and lets me in, I was out of time again. My colleague would have to wait.
My day is finished and now. I'm at my office and ready to go home. I see a new podcast is waiting for me in iTunes. I decide to quickly sync my iPhone so that i can listen to it on my commute home. Anxiety builds again as I dock the phone....will this be a fast sync or one of the dreadfully long syncs that seem to have returned for no reason? So I dock the phone and I wait. And wait.....and wait....for my iPhone to sync. As I type this, I'm still waiting. It’s been about 12 minutes now. What happened to the speedy sync of days gone by?
As I climb into my car, the bluetooth system happily informs me it has attached the iPhone. I smile...something worked as it should have. I use the system to call home and inform my wife I’m coming home. My podcast fades away and the ringing sound fills my car. “Hello?” I hear. “Hey Honey, I’m on my way home!” There’s silence... I then hear another “Helloooo?” “Honey, I’m on my way home!” Silence again. She can’t hear me. The bluetooth connection has failed me again. I tap the sources, and chose “iPhone” and then quickly reselect my handsfree system and the call resumes as normal. As I wrap up my phone call, I press end and I’m anticipating my Podcast to fade back up and resume playing at the precise location. Yet, there is silence. The iPhone has, yet again, decided not to resume playing the iPod after a phone call as it often does. My iPhone day is completely ruined.
So, in closing I say: Apple, how I love thee. Your products make me happy and make others jealous. Yet, my new iPhone 3G brings me more anxiety than joy. Anxiety to whether it will do what it's supposed to do or whether it will leave me stranded. Oh how I’ve come to enjoy the little game of skill I now have to play - tapping the source button, then tapping ‘iPhone’ then quickly tapping back to hands free- all before the caller hangs up thinking they have been pranked by a silent caller. And oh how I’ve come to enjoy the ‘beep-beep-beep’ sound of all my dropped calls. Oh how fond I’ve become of the safari crashing and infinite wait for email to download. And oh how I have come to enjoy nap time while I sync my iPhone. Yes, I have come to terms with all of this. I have come to terms that my iPhone is beautiful and better than any other phone out there, yet when I'm in a hurry or need something done right here and now, my iPhone will fail me.
Thanks for letting me vent a little. Am I just too demanding or do I have a right to be disappointed? (I should mention I'm on my second iPhone 3G...already had the Apple store replace it once thinking I had a lemon).
I now own a 3G. I upgraded thinking my love for iPhone would only increase with added GPS, 3G speeds, and larger capacity. Yet, I find that I have grown more anxious than excited about using my phone...wondering whether or not it's going to let me do what I need to do or simply let me down.
Let me explain a series of repeating iPhone frustrations that all came together to create the perfect storm of iPhone disappointment the other day:
I was out of the office all day for meetings. Knowing my emails were queing up, the minute we had our first 5 minute break, I pulled my iPhone out to check my email. The anxiety begins. Will I have signal? After all, the signal strength is so unreliable on my new iPhone than my original. So I anxiously type in my passcode to unlock the phone. Alas! I have signal...3G even! I tap the mail icon and wait for the blazing 3G goodness to work it’s magic. Yet, anxiety builds again. Will it actually connect and download all my mail before I have to go into my next meeting? I’ve come to realize that 3G isn’t as reliably fast as I’ve seen on TV. So, mail takes about 60-65 seconds to actually connect and download 10 small emails. Not exactly quick. I then tap my first message and I wait. Loading....Loading.....Loading..... After waiting 60-65 seconds for my email to download, I have to wait another 20 seconds or so before the message finally opens up? Because of the lengthy wait, I’m expecting a large email with a picture or two but I’m disappointed to see it’s only a 8 kilobyte email, with just two sentences and an email signature from the sender. Not exactly a complicated message to display...certainly not worth a 20 second delay to open. I respond to the email and send. I place the phone on the table and turn to speak to a colleague. About a minute and a half into my conversation, I hear the swoosh sound of a successful send. So my 5 minute break is up and I was able to download my email, but only had time to open 1, read it, and reply. A blazing fast phone, indeed.
My day continues, and another break. Time to check email again. This time, I'm in a different meeting and have wifi access. Hooray! No unreliable 3G speeds to contend with. My email downloads quickly and I see one of them has an attachment. It's a photo from a colleague of a prototype we're working on. He needs me to look at the photo and approve it. I think how great this is and how impossible this would have been on my old smart phone. So I tap the message and wait. Loading....Loading.... 40 seconds later, the message appears with the embedded image, but it’s too large to see. So i begin to scroll down to see the image in full, and the phone freezes. I sit and wait for the iPhone to catch it’s breath. A minute passes, yet nothing has happened. Still frozen. I’m running out of time, so I have do a forced reboot. Sigh.... By the time it reboots and lets me in, I was out of time again. My colleague would have to wait.
My day is finished and now. I'm at my office and ready to go home. I see a new podcast is waiting for me in iTunes. I decide to quickly sync my iPhone so that i can listen to it on my commute home. Anxiety builds again as I dock the phone....will this be a fast sync or one of the dreadfully long syncs that seem to have returned for no reason? So I dock the phone and I wait. And wait.....and wait....for my iPhone to sync. As I type this, I'm still waiting. It’s been about 12 minutes now. What happened to the speedy sync of days gone by?
As I climb into my car, the bluetooth system happily informs me it has attached the iPhone. I smile...something worked as it should have. I use the system to call home and inform my wife I’m coming home. My podcast fades away and the ringing sound fills my car. “Hello?” I hear. “Hey Honey, I’m on my way home!” There’s silence... I then hear another “Helloooo?” “Honey, I’m on my way home!” Silence again. She can’t hear me. The bluetooth connection has failed me again. I tap the sources, and chose “iPhone” and then quickly reselect my handsfree system and the call resumes as normal. As I wrap up my phone call, I press end and I’m anticipating my Podcast to fade back up and resume playing at the precise location. Yet, there is silence. The iPhone has, yet again, decided not to resume playing the iPod after a phone call as it often does. My iPhone day is completely ruined.
So, in closing I say: Apple, how I love thee. Your products make me happy and make others jealous. Yet, my new iPhone 3G brings me more anxiety than joy. Anxiety to whether it will do what it's supposed to do or whether it will leave me stranded. Oh how I’ve come to enjoy the little game of skill I now have to play - tapping the source button, then tapping ‘iPhone’ then quickly tapping back to hands free- all before the caller hangs up thinking they have been pranked by a silent caller. And oh how I’ve come to enjoy the ‘beep-beep-beep’ sound of all my dropped calls. Oh how fond I’ve become of the safari crashing and infinite wait for email to download. And oh how I have come to enjoy nap time while I sync my iPhone. Yes, I have come to terms with all of this. I have come to terms that my iPhone is beautiful and better than any other phone out there, yet when I'm in a hurry or need something done right here and now, my iPhone will fail me.
Thanks for letting me vent a little. Am I just too demanding or do I have a right to be disappointed? (I should mention I'm on my second iPhone 3G...already had the Apple store replace it once thinking I had a lemon).
The day McDonald's serves me a Big Mac as beautiful as the one in their commercials, or fries as golden and perfectly straight, .. well, that'll be the day. 
