The iPhone is the Emperors New Clothes
First off, I really want to love the iPhone, but I can't. I received it on April 5, and today is April 24, and I hate it more than the Treo 650 and 700s Ive dealt with over the past three years.
The iPhone is a poorly designed, incredibly buggy device that technologically is a major failure on many fronts. The hardware and software DO NOT LIVE up to the hype. I always wait at least a year or more to purchase new products from Apple, but with the iPhone I should have waited three or more years.
From the lack of tactile keys that is supposed to be the best interface ever designed for a smart phone, yet results in 40% keystroke entry mistakes to the distortion that the iPhone feeds out to every audio and video device on the planet, its the worst communications device I have ever experienced.
The iPhone distorts my computer screen, the car audio system to all loudspeakers, either active or passive, including high-end shielded near-field studio monitors, from my Apple iSticks on my computer, high-end surround sound stereo system in my living room to the frigging clock radio.
The static this iPhone kicks out to loudspeakers in my home is HOUSE WIDE, and I am in a 1400 square foot home. If the iPhone is on my kitchen table 15 feet away from my livingroom stereo system, I will still have iPhone distortion come out through the loudspeakers HOUSE WIDE. This is supposed to be an audiophile device and all it does is dump static onto every loudspeaker I stand next to, in every environment.
I have a CRT monitor and I know I am going to get an SMS, email or phone call to the iPhone, because several seconds before the message is received, the entire 17-inch computer screen distorts for as long as 5 seconds, throwing it completely out of focus.
Why the heck does this iPhone not have a pop-up keyboard find function in the database? I have 6300 names in my contact database and it can take 90-seconds or more to find a name through scrolling!
Why doesnt the iPhone have the same pop-up keyboard feature as in the SMS or Safari function so I can start typing a name and have the contact app bring up the name as I type the letters, as similar to the contact find feature on the Treo? C'mon - how the heck do you not have that common-sense feature? What about a voice find feature OR VOICE ACTIVATED DIALING for the contact database?
Now this really makes me nuts - Safari goes buggy every five days, it crashes more and more frequently and then I need to reset the phone and then I loose all my presets! This is the worst part of the phone. Additionally, regardless web searching is PAINFULLY SLOW! Five minutes to bring up
www.huffingtonpost.com or
www.rawstory.com, only to have it crash when I try to enlarge an article
argh.
Why on earth does it take SMS up to 10 or more seconds to start and present my message string? Ten seconds for this app to start - gimme a break!
No video function? I can't capture video? Not even a few seconds? Argh.
I can't send a picture through SMS? Good lord.
What the heck is the deal with the recessed headphone plug that makes it impossible to use a standard 3.5mm stereo plug? Now I have to purchase a third-part adapter to use other head phones on a plane or the cassette car adapter? Cmon.
Clearly, the iPhone is the Emperors New Clothes. Its a perfect example if you throw enough advertising, PR and marketing dollars at something, millions of people will eat dirt and call it fillet mignon.
Christopher Buttner
President
PRThatRocks.com
