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The two great lies about an iphone and the biggest gap.

elgrecomac

elgrecomac

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Jan 15, 2008
1,163
162
San Diego
Let me predicate this thread by saying I own a MBP and I bought 4 iphones for my family and myself in July. With that out of the way, here goes:

Lie #1
1. "3G is so much better than Edge". My response to that is 'Bull Sheet'. Period. I live in San Diego and I, nor my wife for that matter, have ever experienced the promised thruput of 3G. And my brother up in the Bay Area has the same complaint. And the false advertising of those iphone commercials on TV with screens snapping from one web site to another is, well, Bull Sheet, and are as misleading about 'speed' as McCain or Obama infomercials are about their capabilities. :eek:

2. "The touch keyboard is terrific". Where to I begin....it just flat out sucks. If, again, having bought 4 of these phone and ALL family member are complaining about it, we just may be onto something. Apple is known for great products, great designing, great ergonomics but the kids in Cupertino needed to check there egos at the door on this one. If you text or send emails with some frequency, you will eventually LEARN how to type with the psuedo-keyboard but never with the speed or accuracy of a real keyboard. It is, perhaps the BIGGEST and most glaring fault with the iphone. I just played with the new Android phone and it, like a crackberry, has a GREAT keyboard, which is much easier to use than the iphone. I was typing much faster on the Andriod after 5 minutes than my iphone after 3 months...and with MUCH fewer errors.

Biggest Gap(s): Flash and Cut and Paste. Come on, this is absolute Bull Sheet. This is 2008, not 1988. And when someone came along and created an out of the box solution for cut and paste, Apple squashed it immediately.
:confused:

I know I'm going to get flamed, but, folks, the Emperor is wearing new clothes, just open your eyes.
 
3G is what it is... it is ultimately the way forward for the next couple of years, until 4G technologies come of age. That doesn't mean I'm not perfectly happy with EDGE (my predication is that I own an EDGE iPhone, which I use on T-Mobile USA, and to which I upgraded from a BB). But I don't think it really makes sense for a device like this to be sold at this point without 3G data services (which you can turn off). And the 3G does have some other minor improvements (battery and GPS) at no cost.

The keyboard... my main problem, having used it for ... I guess, about six months now, are primarily that it's one of the worst places where the OS gets laggy.

Flash and cut/paste... yeah, those belong on the short list of major issues.

But what's the point in the end? The emperor / clothes analogy doesn't make any sense. You wear clothes for your own benefit but also for the approval of others. You get the ohone that makes you happy and fulfilled. Lots of people enjoy their iPhones. Most of those who don't have some other kind of phone and have fun with that. Who cares?
 
elgrecomac said:
Lie #1
1. "3G is so much better than Edge". My response to that is 'Bull Sheet'. Period.
Click to expand...

I've been doing a bit of traveling recently.

3G is way better than EDGE in

* Washington DC (VA and MD areas as well)
* Buffalo, NY
* Long Island, NY
* Philadelphia, PA
* Tampa, FL
* Virginia Beach, VA


3G is not better than EDGE (either slow or just absent) in:

* Coralville, IA
* Lakeland, FL
* Macon, GA
* Manhattan, NY


I'm getting to San Diego and Dallas next month. (You really get the same speed on 3G and EDGE there?) But at the moment, for me, 3G is better more often than not.
 
I guess the 3G does depend on where you live which really isnt a gripe against Apple, but AT&T, so blaming the phone for that is a mute point.

In terms of the other items, I tend to agree with you about the keyboard. I dont know if its the width of the phone with my small hands or just the flat keyboard, but I still have a hard time typing with it. Luckily I dont type too many emails, texts or posts on the phone that I need to worry with it, but in my mind, there is no perfect phone, so this is the best available one for me now. Sure, the blackberry and google phone have a physical keyboard, but IMHO, they are lacking in other areas, so again, for my needs the phone is currently the best. I guess each person just needs to decide what is best for them. If you need to type faster and need the copy and paste, go to another phone. I dont necessarily believe these are lies as just preferences that differ from one person to another.
 
elgrecomac said:
<blah>
Click to expand...
Sorry your family hasn't benefited from 3G. In my neck of the woods (Virginia Beach), it's DRAMATICALLY better. A voice call on the 3G network sounds sooooooooo much nicer than the sound of a voice call on the EDGE network (with the voice compression codecs that AT&T uses on EDGE), and the data speeds are wayyyyyy, wayyyyyyyyyyyyy faster than the advertised "2x faster".

As for the keyboard, it's all relative. My fingers fumble more on physical keys than then they do the touchscreen keyboard, and I have yet to use a smartphone that does "on the fly" spell corrections as well as the iPhone does.
 
I'm actually going to jump on this one because I'm in San Diego as well... I don't know where you're trying to use 3G, but for me personally I've had excellent coverage of 3G as well as a much faster speed. My co worker and I drive from Sorrento Valley down Mira Mesa blvd to Scripps Ranch every day. He has a first gen iPhone, I have the 3G. He was wanting to get a 3G and so he did side by side tests of his iPhone and mine, starting a browser and a URL at the same time while I drove. Mine connected significantly faster every single time on various websites, we tried Macrumors.com, Yahoo.com and Slashdot.org. Each page always rendered and completed much much faster on the 3G than on the edge.

As far as coverage, I have made listening to Pandora my daily activity while driving to work on days I don't drive my coworker as well as driving to class. I drive from Carmel Mountain down the 15 to Aero Drive and then I drive all the way down Aero Drive. My 3G coverage only has 2 areas that it switches to Edge in between a mountain pass and a random spot on Aero Drive. Pandora loads songs MUCH faster on 3G than it does on Edge. 90% of the drive I have a very nice and seamless connection while driving. Sometimes I forget to turn 3G on and it shows, as Pandora takes longer to load each song, and sometimes cuts out while streaming the song briefly while on Edge. I don't have that problem on 3G.

I'm not bashing you, but like I said I'm not sure where you're coming from in San Diego, but I drive all over the place from north to south and have very smooth coverage. In fact this weekend I drove to LA to visit my girlfriend and listened to Pandora the entire way and I was on a 3G connection from 15N - 78E - 5N - 405N all the way to Santa Monica and only switched to Edge twice for about 2 minutes each time. The coverage is MUCH better than it was a year or even several months ago.

As far as the keyboard goes, I think it's just a matter of preference and what you're used to. I find myself typing much faster on the iPhone keyboard with my thumbs than I have on any other phone. You might have an easier time with a keyboard, but just because you and your family are having difficulties with it doesn't mean it applies to everyone else. Myself and friends included (except for one) all think the touch keyboard is much faster than regular keyboards. *shrug* I personally really benefit from the auto correction, most of the time I just type on the fly and it seems to correct most of my errors pretty well, you just have to let it go it seems to work pretty well. I stopped trying to make sure I hit each key correctly, I just mash in the general direction of what I'm trying to spell and it just works out :)
 
I don't have a 3G iPhone so I can't comment on #1, but #2 is spot on, esp. with the latest updates. The input delay is absolutely horrible. Why does it takes secodns for it to recognize one keystroke? It didn't used to be this bad; 1.1.4 actually worked well. It is only 2.x that has the delay problem.
 
Small White Car said:
I've been doing a bit of traveling recently.

3G is way better than EDGE in

* Washington DC (VA and MD areas as well)
* Buffalo, NY
* Long Island, NY
* Philadelphia, PA
* Tampa, FL


3G is not better than EDGE (either slow or just absent) in:

* Coralville, IA
* Lakeland, FL
* Macon, GA
* Manhattan, NY


I'm getting to San Diego and Dallas next month. (You really get the same speed on 3G and EDGE there?) But at the moment, for me, 3G is better more often than not.
Click to expand...

In DC, and I could not agree more. I was in the Ocean City / Rehoboth Beach area a couple weekends ago, and Ocean City has 3G, while Delaware does not. HUGE difference, especially when streaming online radio stations and checking football stats on a couple different Safari Tabs.
 
danny_w said:
I don't have a 3G iPhone so I can't comment on #1, but #2 is spot on, esp. with the latest updates. The input delay is absolutely horrible. Why does it takes secodns for it to recognize one keystroke? It didn't used to be this bad; 1.1.4 actually worked well. It is only 2.x that has the delay problem.
Click to expand...
1.1.4 is a phone with internet browser. 2.x is trying to do much more, and we all became the unwilling beta testers.
 
CocoaPuffs said:
Yawn...next!
Click to expand...

Agreed.


What you posted were not technically lies. They may be for you with YOUR personal experience.

3G is definitely fast in every use I have experienced
Typing is definitely faster coming from a Treo 750 with an actual keyboard, I type a lot faster on the iPhone.

However your last comment IS the only factual thing you mentioned.

No Flash and copy and paste.
 
Gonna have to disagree with you on #1. Dont know how the 3g out where the OP lives, but the 3g coverage here in South Florida is great. And 3G over here is like 5-10X faster than edge. When im on 3g, which is almost 98% of the time, web pages load almost like they would when im on my computer, when im on edge it feels like i went back to like some old crappy phone that takes forever to load webpages using like WAP.

#2, obviously you can type faster on a keyboad, but i used to have a RAZR without a keyboard, and im typing really fast on my iphone, so maybe your just a ****** texter.

And OP, go back to 2nd grade. Opinions are not facts.
 
CocoaPuffs said:
1.1.4 is a phone with internet browser. 2.x is trying to do much more, and we all became the unwilling beta testers.
Click to expand...
Well 2.0 really didn't add anything except for the App store and ActiveSync, both of which I could do without. I haven't really found very much useful on the App store, mostly just a lot of junk.
 
Those are the only complaints you have about your (4) iPhones?:eek: Come back when the "Honeymoon" is over, b/c it sounds like you're sugar coating everything. The title is misleading for me and your claims don't float my boat...:(
 
danny_w said:
Well 2.0 really didn't add anything except for the App store and ActiveSync, both of which I could do without. I haven't really found very much useful on the App store, mostly just a lot of junk.
Click to expand...
You should have stuck with the free Razr then.
 
3G does what it do.. when it do.

In some ares its just better then other...fact

I thought the keyboard would drive me crazy but i type fairly well on it, and love not having to look at one while watching a movie is great!

the best part of the iphone is more and more features keep coming!
 
3G has been far faster than Edge in all cities that I've been in around central and north-central Texas - Dallas, Waco, Fort Worth, Austin, etc...
 
kkat69 said:
What you posted were not technically lies. They may be for you with YOUR personal experience.
Click to expand...
I disagree. The iPhone is nowhere near as close to as fast as it is on the tv ads when it comes to switching in between apps, and in website speed.

I agree with some of the poster's other commentary, too.

The iPhone keyboard is a joke. It's just not possible to type on it as quickly as you can on a treo or bb keyboard when composing real emails with full words and sentences. Treo has the best solution for switching between keyboards with the alt button. iPhone is so slow in that regard. Half the time it pops you back to the regular keyboard, and half the time you have to hit the button to do it.
No spell check
no cut and paste
the thumb magnifying glass to insert is horrible when compared to a d pad and tabbing across words like you can on a computer or treo.

iPhone is just not ideal if you're going to be doing a ton of emailing.
 
The two great truths:
1) 3G is amazing, a lot faster that Edge
2) The keyboard takes getting used to but when you do, you wonder how to do without it. I had my girlfriends nokia musicxpress thingy for a few hours and it took me literally 5 minutes to text "ok see you then"
 
anjinhamarota said:
I type faster on my iPhone than on any other phone I have ever used.
Click to expand...

Same here; much, much faster than on my BlackBerry Curve, because you only need to 'touch' the keys, rather than 'press' them.

littlewaywelt said:
The iPhone keyboard is a joke. It's just not possible to type on it as quickly as you can on a treo or bb keyboard when composing real emails with full words and sentences.
Click to expand...

Not in my experience. I find the iPhone keyboard a joy to use. Keystrokes, combined with auto-correct ["...No spell check..." What?!] is fantastically fast. Much better than my BB. I use both intensively: I have an iPhone for personal use and a BB for work. I would take the iPhone every time, if I were given a choice.

Each device has its fans, and so I'm not dissing the BB, but in my opinion, based on a year of experience of using both side by side every day, the iPhone wins hands down.
 
3G is faster than EDGE here in the Chicagoland area...considerably faster.

Yeah, sometimes I wish I had a real keyboard to :/.

Copy and Paste is NOT a big gap. There's not as many people asking for it as you might seem. Remember, there's 15+ million iPhone/iPod touch devices out there. (similar to how everyone I know hated the new facebook and there were so many groups on it [more than any other subject]...but add them up and it doesn't even make 10% of facebook).

Flash can be a gap. Either way, it's already done...Apple just needs to say yes or no :/.
 
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