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RANT: iPhone 4S: is it enough that it "just works"?

miggitymac

miggitymac

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jan 7, 2009
585
1
Look at all the threads on this forum about the problems with the 4S: batterygate, the hyped-up camera taking foggy/blurry flash pics, Siri outages, rattling noises, "yellower" screens, iCloud issues, password syncing, etc. (Yes, some issues are more common than others, but I still consider all of them to be legitimate issues for potential buyers).

So what happened to being able to count on Apple for a product that "just works"? People seem to be satisfied by the fact that it only just works...as in if you overlook all the obvious issues, it still serves its function. But is that enough?

For example, people are disabling all sorts of features and services on their 4S phones to try and get a decent battery life out of them...in other words, they have to dumb down their smartphones to get a battery that will last through a day.

Is that what the standard for a company like Apple should be - it "just works...if you disable some features and services"?

Same thing with Lion: it's ok that they remapped the swiping gestures...I adapted fairly quickly to that. But wait...the default swiping setup doesn't allow you to swipe-to-navigate in Finder? You have to use the "old" swiping setup for it to work in Finder? Then why the hell didn't you make the "old" setup as the default!? And how hard could it be to catch and correct that problem BEFORE releasing it to the public? After all the QA testing and troubleshooting, how is it possible that they didn't notice that the default swiping system was completely useless in Finder?!:confused: Just works my ass!

What adds to my frustration are the revelations on how much of a perfectionist and control-freak Steve Jobs was and how he really didn't care about the money. He just wanted to make good products (compared to the "******" ones made by Microsoft et al). Knowing this, I find it sad that the company that he made and built is becoming increasingly more sloppy and content with just making money.

[/rant]
 
A couple of thoughts.

1. The more "mainstream" Apple becomes as a company the more critics they will have. People that have a beef always seem much more likely to come to places like this to complain than those who are not having any issues.

2. As the demand for Apple products swells the QC is going to suffer in order to keep up. There is really just no way around this without either a.) causing supply issues or b.) significantly raising the cost of the product. There is just no way to have perfect products on the scale that Apple produces.

3. The battery issue is a dead horse that has beaten until I'm surprised there is even something there to beat still. At the end of the day people need to decide what is most important in a smartphone....power or battery life. If we are going to go to dual core processors the battery life is not going to great. Gone are the days of the Blackberry Curve, which could get 2 days of life out of a full charge to the battery. If we want to have phones that do all that they do these days we can't expect much more than a day on the battery.

4. On your issue with gestures in Finder....yeah, that is pretty dumb. Seems like it is a pretty obvious thing that should be there too.
 
People are going to come here to complain. You don't see people starting threads saying that "so and so" works. That's just not how it works for any message board. So, the problems you see are the minority.

I can say that my 4s is great, and I have no had any of the problems mentioned in those threads.
 
I'm going to agree with the spirit of the original post. Apple is a victim of its own success to a certain degree, but does seem to be erring on the side of complacency of late. Look at all the issues with Lion too. It seems like they are in such a rush to get things out the door that they are not really finished in time. Having said that, I still wouldn't want to switch to any other phone, ecosystem, media streaming box or computer. I just wish they would try a bit harder to make things "just work" on day one.
 
miggitymac said:
Look at all the threads on this forum about the problems with the 4S [/rant]
Click to expand...

This happens every time a new gadget product comes out, regardless of which manufacturer made it. Internet forums fill and become the emotional tipping ground for a minority of vocal unsatisfied customers. I'm sure that for every unhappy person on here complaining about their 4S there are atleadt 50 out in the real world perfectly satisfied.
 
nothing "just works" and everything "just works". people just need to understand that no product is perfect yet it can still be a great product at the same time.
 
I haven't had many issues with my 4S. The screen looks fine to me, it does look a little yellow in lower light which might just be the auto screen brightness.

I agree with the poster that battery life is going to suffer when you start adding dual core processors. The battery life on the 4S is no worse than competing android phones on the market. I keep a charger at my office because if I end up using my phone a lot during the day then have to go out after work I will be cutting it close to the battery dying. Its not a hard thing to do, the 4S charges very quickly.
 
Huh interesting view. Mine just works..... I tell you what, go buy a treo 680, Nokia e61, HP 6915, treo centro then get a iPhone........ Seriously?!
 
The battery is better than any Android smartphone out there.. by a long shot. There is nothing wrong with the battery.. the problem is with people's expectations.

The yellow screen is a non-issue and has been documented many times with each iPhone release. Search for the solution (time).

Siri is in beta.

I must've missed the threads on the camera and mine takes awesome pictures so I guess I can't really talk to that one.

iCloud issues are user issues. Mostly confusion.

Not sure what password syncing is?

The problem is everybody's perception. They want to nag and complain. We have found time and time again here that people moan and whine about all things iPhone and AT&T so they jump ship to Android only to come back at the next release.. or they jump to Verizon or Sprint and then cry about the speed.

Can't please all of the people all of the time.
 
Smileyboy said:
Huh interesting view. Mine just works..... I tell you what, go buy a treo 680, Nokia e61, HP 6915, treo centro then get a iPhone........ Seriously?!
Click to expand...

Why those phones? Those are last gen phones...a more suitable comparison would be the SGSII (even though it's technically "older") or the upcoming ones like the RAZR and Nexus.
 
miggitymac said:
Why those phones? Those are last gen phones...a more suitable comparison would be the SGSII (even though it's technically "older") or the upcoming ones like the RAZR and Nexus.
Click to expand...

ok, then go get an SGSII, RAZR or Nexus and then come back... it's happened countless times.
 
DravenGSX said:
The battery is better than any Android smartphone out there.. by a long shot. There is nothing wrong with the battery.. the problem is with people's expectations.
Click to expand...

Actually Apple creates expectations in battery life by showing battery life
expectancies on their website. Obviously if someone isn't getting that expected battery life, or no where even close, then it becomes an issue for them.
 
iPhone isn't perfect and it definitely has it's issues. Battery life is terrible and the camera flips the images if you copy if to your desktop and post it on a forum or email it.

But at the same time, it's still an excellent product compared to what's out there. Even though it has less the battery life of the iPhone 4, it still outlasts a handful of its competitors. And if you are into apps and games, a lot of the apps come out on iOS first before they go on other platforms, if at all.

At the end of the day, you can go with whatever phone you choose. No one is forcing you to buy an iPhone.
 
miggitymac said:
For example, people are disabling all sorts of features and services on their 4S phones to try and get a decent battery life out of them...in other words, they have to dumb down their smartphones to get a battery that will last through a day.

Is that what the standard for a company like Apple should be - it "just works...if you disable some features and services"?

[/rant]
Click to expand...


I don't care what anybody says this is fact!
Yes your phone can do some pretty cool things BUT you won’t have any battery. This isn't a jab at Apple but all phone's. It's sad that you have to pick battery or what the phone is made to do? At least Android gives you widgets to turn these features on and off with a flip of a icon. I'm already tired of going through my setting to find the off switch for things.
 
If you were to ask iPhone users .......

When was the last time you were forced to reboot your device?

I guarantee the majority of users would claim over a month or two.

Now ask them if a reboot fixed the problem, I guarantee the majority would say yes.

This is something the majority of users on any other mobile OS can not claim. That's why the "it just works" quote still applies.
 
I buy an iPhone, take it out of the box, switch it on, follow a few prompts and dialogs, and within a couple of minutes, knowing nothing about iPhones, iTunes, computers, cellular networks or technology of any kind, I have a working cellphone. It just works.

To use it, I need no technical skills other than being able to touch and swipe, and with an interface that makes sense with a clarity that technological devices rarely possess, I can perform a wide variety of divergent tasks without having to give a moment's thought to the device or the process. It just works.

That's why iPhones have become such an iconic presence in modern life. It doesn't prevent the unfortunate, but inevitable, fact that a proportion of the production run will have faults or quality issues because that's a fact of modern production lines. But nor do the vociferous complaints raised here and elsewhere prove anything much about the proportion of production which have problems. Indeed, with millions of these devices sold in such a short time, it would be astonishing if there were not this level of faults being reported.

One thing is certain; that the majority of owners do not have any reason to log in to MacRumors, or Apple's support site, and post their thoughts. That's because they took their iPhone out of it's box, followed a few prompts and dialogs and without knowing anything about iPhones, iTunes, computers, cellular networks or technology of any kind, had a working cellphone. They found that it just works. And they are happy.
 
miggitymac said:
Why those phones? Those are last gen phones...a more suitable comparison would be the SGSII (even though it's technically "older") or the upcoming ones like the RAZR and Nexus.
Click to expand...

ok, so hit up the Samsung/Moto/ETC forums, and come back with a report of how problem free they all are. Apple is no different than any other company when it comes to issues related to large scale hardware/software deployment. Not sure where you're going with this, but it's pretty much a non-point.

Also note that Apple does not use the phrase "it just works" as any sort of guarantee or warranty. It's a marketing catch phrase. If you feel compelled to hold everything a company does to its catch phrases, that's your problem.
 
If these threads that have been popping up on other forums (BB, Android, ect) people would come back here and report phone X is a POS. I know nobody want's to think they made a bad choice and I'm sure apple will correct it, but the 4s is basically a 4 with a iPad 2 chip and a 8mp camera that took them 15mos to come up with. I can see where some would be disgruntled.
 
za9ra22 said:
I buy an iPhone, take it out of the box, switch it on, follow a few prompts and dialogs, and within a couple of minutes, knowing nothing about iPhones, iTunes, computers, cellular networks or technology of any kind, I have a working cellphone. It just works.

To use it, I need no technical skills other than being able to touch and swipe, and with an interface that makes sense with a clarity that technological devices rarely possess, I can perform a wide variety of divergent tasks without having to give a moment's thought to the device or the process. It just works.

That's why iPhones have become such an iconic presence in modern life. It doesn't prevent the unfortunate, but inevitable, fact that a proportion of the production run will have faults or quality issues because that's a fact of modern production lines. But nor do the vociferous complaints raised here and elsewhere prove anything much about the proportion of production which have problems. Indeed, with millions of these devices sold in such a short time, it would be astonishing if there were not this level of faults being reported.

One thing is certain; that the majority of owners do not have any reason to log in to MacRumors, or Apple's support site, and post their thoughts. That's because they took their iPhone out of it's box, followed a few prompts and dialogs and without knowing anything about iPhones, iTunes, computers, cellular networks or technology of any kind, had a working cellphone. They found that it just works. And they are happy.
Click to expand...

The same could be said for damn near every consumer electronics product on the shelves.
 
miggitymac said:
For example, people are disabling all sorts of features and services on their 4S phones to try and get a decent battery life out of them...in other words, they have to dumb down their smartphones to get a battery that will last through a day.
Click to expand...

Seriously? I would assume you're talking about the "hidden" System Services settings that people have come to find drains the battery when they're on? If so, please tell me which of these things you need on a daily basis and how they make your "smart" phone any less "smart" when they're off???

I have one thing under System Services turned on...Cell Network Search. Now, please explain how Compass Calibration being off is making you lose sleep? Because your phone doesn't know magnetic north from north??? WTF? Who cares? Unless you're planning on going on an expedition, why do you need that? When you're using Maps for directions, do you think it NEEDS to know magnetic north??? No. It's just gonna give you directions and you'll get there just the same.

Same goes for Diagnostics & Usage. It's not doing anything other than sending info back to Apple. Plenty of people will leave this on and they'll get the info they need. Turn it off! It won't make your phone any dumber.

Location-Based iAds...do you really care if you get ads in apps that are tailored to where you are? Good grief...if I could get no ads at all, I'd be all for that!

Setting Time Zone...I rarely travel outside my timezone, so this is a non-starter for me. This is the one I can see being useful to someone that travels a lot. If you don't? TURN IT OFF!

And Traffic. If I'm worried about getting good traffic in a maps app, I'm going to use another, better app than the stock Maps app. So...again...turn it off.

Jeez. Some people just can't live unless they're complaining. :rolleyes:
 
juswest said:
The same could be said for damn near every consumer electronics product on the shelves.
Click to expand...

I wish, but no, it can't. A perfect, albeit dated, example is setting a timer on a VCR - different manufacturers tried hundreds of different ways of doing it, with all sorts of different interfaces and still never made it a simple, transparent task.

Virtually all consumer electronic devices require a level of understanding, technical expertise and familiarity with the task in order to make use of them. Navigating to a destination via a waypoint on a GPS can be a nightmare of options, selections and stumbling around a poorly designed interface and still not result in success. Even the humble TV has a multitude of interfaces, menus and settings that users have to become familiar with in order to use the set.

Apple is far from perfect, and their vision is based around the vision of one single individual, which is certainly not ideal, but their real skill is to take the essence of what consumers need to do and simplify it into a product the consumer doesn't need to have to learn or understand before they can make it work.
 
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