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

Admittedly, I haven't measured the speed of 3G in my neck of the woods, but we've had it here for 2 weeks now and it is wicked fast. Having used Edge for 6 weeks prior to getting a 3G network, I can say the speed difference is huge. For me, 3G is very, very close to WiFi speeds. Maybe my area isn't saturated with 3G users yet? 3G is also saturated throughout my city. I have not found a deadspot yet.

I love the iPhone's keyboard. I can type faster on it than any other phone and the accuracy is amazing once you learn to trust the auto-correction.

It sounds like a lot of folks are upset with the 3G network, so that night be a definite shortcoming, but I wouldn't say that the keyboard is "one of the great big lies".

Bryan
 
aristobrat said:
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.
Click to expand...

One aspect of 3G that is superior to EDGE that may have been overlooked by the poster is that data and voice coexist. That alone is worth it to me.

I like the key board too. I have watched my finger land square on the key next to the one I want and Apple inserted the correct letter anyway. That is cool.
 
Entering the frey...and a prediction

For the San Diego resident who lives near Carmel Valley, well, so do I. I live near Camino del Sur and Carmel Mt. road, within SITE of the phoquing cell towers on Black Mountain. And my reception in my home is awful. In fact, when I get calls on my cell at home, I call back on my land line to avoid dropped calls. Reception in the north end of SD is poor from my experience. And as for "real" 3G response times up here, well, its a joke. I was in Solana Beach this morning and tried to browse the web: it too 20 seconds to paint the Yahoo home page. The Apple commercials are only 30 seconds long so I think either they are BSing us or ...they are BSing us.
Here is a test for you: go to Camino del Sur and San Dieguito Road, point your phone to the cell towers on Black Mountain and begin web browsing. Awful, just awful. And this is not an isolated item.

Now with regards to the keyboard, sorry folks, but it shouldn't take weeks or months to get good and fast on the keyboard. It lacks feel, it has, on more that a few occasions, a serious lag time issue. It is prone to keystroke errors. It is the single weakest part of the device.

Pandora in a moving car in San Diego- never with any sustained success. Its a myth from my perspective unless connected to my WIFI at home. I've tried with 3 different iphones. Maybe I bought too many. :eek:

The bottom line, I just wished the delivery was as good as what was promised. I am not a beta tester: I left Window XP in 2007. My Mac is 'insanely great' and my iphone, after almost 2 years and a few software upgrades, is a work in process. I think by the time the iphone is 'insanely great', Android and even the crackberry will be comparable in most regards including apps.
 
elgrecomac said:
Lie #1
1. "3G is so much better than Edge".

2. "The touch keyboard is terrific".


Biggest Gap(s): Flash and Cut and Paste.


I know I'm going to get flamed, but, folks, the Emperor is wearing new clothes, just open your eyes.
Click to expand...

I won't flame you - I think it's an interesting area of discussion. I'll share my viewpoint on the 3.

1. I have to agree. I have an original Edge Phone and my wife has the 3G - in the Seattle Market - she gets a good 3G connection, but her experience is just not "that" much better than mine.

2. Sorry, we difer here - I love the keyborad. I love the error correction. I can type fairly fast and easy - for a phone anyway.

3. I could care less about flash - and I miss copy and paste occasionally, but it's not a big deal for me.

To me - the phone is overall just amazing - it really is just a little lap-top in my jeans pocket. running apps like VNC and telnet - the degree of games I can play - the vast choice of music and news apps - not to mention the phone, email and web.

For me - the biggest downside is Safari crashes too much. Everything else about the phones just makes me happy :)
 
elgrecomac said:
My Mac is 'insanely great' and my iphone, after almost 2 years and a few software upgrades, is a work in process. I think by the time the iphone is 'insanely great', Android and even the crackberry will be comparable in most regards including apps...
Click to expand...

my iphone, after almost 2 years Not sure if you are talking about the iPhone or the Mac, b/c 3G iPhone hasn't been around almost 2 years, but more like (5) months.:confused:

Oh, if that's where you live you should just take all (4) of your iPhones back to the Apple Store for a full refund; and then head over to the nearest corporate AT&T Store and have them give you a full refund and have them waive the ETF on all (4) iPhones, just tell them I sent you...:eek: LOL :D

The 3G iPhone might be a bit too much iPhone for you. And from the sounds of it, you didn't check your 3G Coverage Map prior to your purchase (visit website: att.com for 3G coverage Blue map). Good luck either way! (Gawd!!!)
 
Bernie-Mac said:
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"
Click to expand...

+2

Haaahaa, that's true! Honestly, everytime I need to use my old phone (e.g., pool or gym)
I wonder why on earth did I not buy an iPhone earlier. Mechanical keyboards are so 1972!

The touch keyboard that comes with the iPhone is 500% better than anything else out there. (period) :eek:

Ditto for 3G of course!
 
elgrecomac said:
For the San Diego resident who lives near Carmel Valley, well, so do I. I live near Camino del Sur and Carmel Mt. road, within SITE of the phoquing cell towers on Black Mountain. And my reception in my home is awful. In fact, when I get calls on my cell at home, I call back on my land line to avoid dropped calls. Reception in the north end of SD is poor from my experience. And as for "real" 3G response times up here, well, its a joke. I was in Solana Beach this morning and tried to browse the web: it too 20 seconds to paint the Yahoo home page. The Apple commercials are only 30 seconds long so I think either they are BSing us or ...they are BSing us.
Here is a test for you: go to Camino del Sur and San Dieguito Road, point your phone to the cell towers on Black Mountain and begin web browsing. Awful, just awful. And this is not an isolated item.

Now with regards to the keyboard, sorry folks, but it shouldn't take weeks or months to get good and fast on the keyboard. It lacks feel, it has, on more that a few occasions, a serious lag time issue. It is prone to keystroke errors. It is the single weakest part of the device.

Pandora in a moving car in San Diego- never with any sustained success. Its a myth from my perspective unless connected to my WIFI at home. I've tried with 3 different iphones. Maybe I bought too many. :eek:

The bottom line, I just wished the delivery was as good as what was promised. I am not a beta tester: I left Window XP in 2007. My Mac is 'insanely great' and my iphone, after almost 2 years and a few software upgrades, is a work in process. I think by the time the iphone is 'insanely great', Android and even the crackberry will be comparable in most regards including apps.
Click to expand...

I'm the SD user... I agree with that it's definitely not as fast as they show in the commercials. They don't show the flaws in the commercials ever. That being said, I was comparing Edge to 3G. Every single time it always comes out a lot faster than on Edge. I'm not sure what you're expecting for speed, it's not meant to be as fast as WIFI, but it's definitely faster than Edge.

Regarding poor reception in your house... it has to do more with 3G than it does with your phone, disabling 3G while you're inside your house within walls will give you much better reception on Edge than on the 3G network.

It's unfortunate you think that the keyboard is a terrible feature, it's still an opinion and not a fact however. There are plenty of people that find the keyboard to be a great factor, and I'm one of those people.

As far as Pandora goes... I'm not sure what to tell you. I've had perfect reception everywhere I've gone except for when it switches to Edge which is like I said perhaps once or twice per trip and no more than 1-2 minutes total. Trust me, I wouldn't listen to Pandora if it was a terrible stream. I loaded a ton of music just in case and I haven't had to turn on my regular music yet since it's been working so well. And I drive all around San Diego. I live very close to you and rarely see my phone switch to Edge from 3G while out and about everywhere.

I'm not saying this because I'm an apple fanboy or anything, I will admit it does have its share of flaws such as copy + paste. I'm just saying I'm in the same part of town as you and have minimal problems with what you're mentioning as far as connectivity. Perhaps you've bought several flawed phones? It wouldn't be right, but I'm just saying perhaps its a possibility.

I would still highly recommend turning off 3G when you are going to be inside your house for more than 5 minutes and are expecting calls. 3G just does not work inside of walls as well as Edge does.
 
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...

actualy i had an ipod touch 1.1.4 and it has some major delays sometimes i would be typing not knowing if it was typing then all of a sudden it all typed in and i had made errors because the spell check couldnt correct it

so its not just a 2.x error
 
Agree that there are two big lies about the iPhone, I just disagree on what they are:

1. The whole internet in your pocket--Nope. If I can't load every page, and use every service, it isn't "the whole internet."

2. Push Notification will be available in September--I can handle if it's not ready yet. That would be fine. But not only did they promise this, and not deliver, but they haven't even addressed it yet, and November is nearly here! At least tell us why it isn't there yet!
 
It looks like ATT's coverage for 3G is not there yet in the states, but improving over time.

I don't have an iPhone yet, but from what I understand, 3G coverage is great in and around Tokyo.
 
I still wonder if the number of users is what bogs down the 3G network in places like San Diego and New York. I live in a relatively smaller town (350,000 people spread out over 225 square miles) and the newly installed 3G network is outstanding. I get 5 bars of 3G everywhere I drive and in most parts of the building I work in. It's not until I get 8 or 10 rooms deep into my building before my 3G coverage drops to 3 bars, and my building is made out of thick brick and mortar. Never had a dropped call either...

Bryan
 
#1: where i live, Perth Australia, the 3G is not too fast but its got good coverage. On the other hand edge is ridiculously slow and the coverage is almost non-existent. I either have 3G or GPRS so for me 3G is great.

#2: everyone i know with an iPhone says the keyboard and the predictive thingo is the best thing ever and as a teenager we spend alot of time texting so we would know if it was ****. Maybe retardation runs in the family?

Why don't you get an android if there so great?
 
Try and have a serious discussion and the fool from down-under gets personal

I tried to explain as best I could my position on the iphone but leave it to chunder-filled Aussie to get personal. Sad to see. :(

As for buying an Android, well it is a 1st generation product and I avoid those like the plague. It was the reason I DIDN'T buy the 1.0 version of the iphone. But I find open source solutions intriguing (Firefox and MySQL to name a couple) and may jump ship when my contract is up in July of 2010.
 
elgrecomac said:
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.
Click to expand...

No one said you were getting Flash, and if you thought about the logistics of implementing full flash support on a touch device you would understand why the iPhone doesn't currently support it - besides the fact that it will make the iPhone much less secure - risking people's data, which no one wants.

Cut and paste is a known issue. Stop beating a dead horse. Apple have said it's on the way.

1. Just because your 3G network is garbage, does not mean that 3G is garbage. Think about it. I was promised 3G would be faster than Edge, and guess what, it's WAY faster than Edge. If you think you were lied to, imagine how Apple feels, since it's 100% AT&T's failure to provide a reliable network.

2. I type faster on the touch keyboard than a real keyboard. I don't have to clean dirt out of the buttons of the touch keyboard. The touch keyboard disappears when I'm watching videos, surfing the web, reading email, checking my calendar, etc, and only comes up with I need it. Therefore the touch screen is superior to a physical keyboard. The keyboard works as well as a physical keyboard, and since the vast majority of people have adapted to the keyboard quite fine, it seems you're among the minority who doesn't like it.

I realize you're upset about the shortcomings of your iPhone, but most of your complaints speak less about the iPhone and more about the fact that you should have done your research before you bought it (like trying out the keyboard before you bought it, for instance).

And just a more general note to those who say the iPhone doesn't deliver the whole internet. First, look at other phones, look at their mobile browsers. That alone ought to make you realize you're getting a lot. Secondly, you don't want the whole internet, because the whole internet is filled with mis-matched codecs, unregulated standards of coding, and dangerous (often malicious) third party plugins. More importantly, it's a phone - how much of the full internet do you really need/want on a screen that size? Reality check?
 
Bryan Bowler said:
I love the iPhone's keyboard. I can type faster on it than any other phone and the accuracy is amazing once you learn to trust the auto-correction.
Click to expand...
This is the key. If you're typing and watching each letter as it pops up to make sure it's correct (which you'd know simply by feel on a physical keyboard), you're going to be typing very slowly and hate it. The virtual keyboard is a different animal. To get decent rates you need to just flail away on it like you would a regular keyboard. The auto-correct is amazingly accurate. I can watch the garbage I type in with my giant thumbs that barely looks like the words I intended get transformed into legible text. Very impressive.

My only real complaint is that the keyboard when vertically-oriented is really cramped for my hands, so I can't type very long on it. I wish you could switch to the horizontal keyboard in more situations.
 
elgrecomac said:
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.

2. "The touch keyboard is terrific". Where to I begin....it just flat out sucks.
Click to expand...

I also live in San Diego and I use my iPhone in both Edge and 3G areas. The 3G is undeniably faster for me. Performance will obviously vary on what parts of San Diego we're talking about, but I and my friends are very happy with the 3G performance.

The touch keyboard is pretty nice...for a touch keyboard. I definitely prefer it over using a numeric keypad on my old phones. It's as good or better than mediocre qwerty phones but it's nowhere near as good as a Blackberry.

So I guess your best option is to get a Blackberry. Me, I'm going to stick with the iPhone. It sounds to me like you didn't do any research on your purchase and came here to complain. The iPhone isn't a brand new phone anymore and you've had plenty of time to test it to see if it's appropriate for you. Issues with the touch keyboard and cut and paste shouldn't have been a surprise for you.
 
elgrecomac said:
I tried to explain as best I could my position on the iphone but leave it to chunder-filled Aussie to get personal. Sad to see. :(
Click to expand...

ok, I may have got a bit personal, but don't take me as a representation of all the people in Australia. But seriously i don't know anyone who has an iPhone and doesn't like the keyboard apart from you, except i don't really know you only of you. The only people i know who hate the keyboard are my friends who don't have an iPhone but have used mine for like 1 minute and haven't gotten use to it yet.

Anyway all of the things you are complaining about could have been found out before buying or at least before the return date expired, so you only have yourself to blame.
 
milani said:
No one said you were getting Flash, and if you thought about the logistics of implementing full flash support on a touch device you would understand why the iPhone doesn't currently support it - besides the fact that it will make the iPhone much less secure - risking people's data, which no one wants.

Cut and paste is a known issue. Stop beating a dead horse. Apple have said it's on the way.

1. Just because your 3G network is garbage, does not mean that 3G is garbage. Think about it. I was promised 3G would be faster than Edge, and guess what, it's WAY faster than Edge. If you think you were lied to, imagine how Apple feels, since it's 100% AT&T's failure to provide a reliable network.

2. I type faster on the touch keyboard than a real keyboard. I don't have to clean dirt out of the buttons of the touch keyboard. The touch keyboard disappears when I'm watching videos, surfing the web, reading email, checking my calendar, etc, and only comes up with I need it. Therefore the touch screen is superior to a physical keyboard. The keyboard works as well as a physical keyboard, and since the vast majority of people have adapted to the keyboard quite fine, it seems you're among the minority who doesn't like it.

I realize you're upset about the shortcomings of your iPhone, but most of your complaints speak less about the iPhone and more about the fact that you should have done your research before you bought it (like trying out the keyboard before you bought it, for instance).

And just a more general note to those who say the iPhone doesn't deliver the whole internet. First, look at other phones, look at their mobile browsers. That alone ought to make you realize you're getting a lot. Secondly, you don't want the whole internet, because the whole internet is filled with mis-matched codecs, unregulated standards of coding, and dangerous (often malicious) third party plugins. More importantly, it's a phone - how much of the full internet do you really need/want on a screen that size? Reality check?
Click to expand...

Bravo!

Very well said.
 
the one major problem i have with the internet is any idiot with a computer can publicly complain about nearly anything..


..no matter how ignorant or ridiculous his claims are
 
"""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."""
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------


X2:D
 
im not really following how there was a promise with the keyboard other than it would be on screen.....and how one persons opinion makes it into a lie.:confused:
 
Ummm...you're way off-base.

#1 Push Notifications (Where. THE. F. is it?!)

#2 Cut & Paste. I need this; it decreases my productivity.
 
Palm once did some research showing that about half the population will prefer tiny keyboards, and half will prefer touch or stylus text entry. Some people need tactile feedback to type fast and feel comfortable doing it, and some don't. Even though all the new Palm devices (Centro, et.al.) have tiny keyboards, there are those who still hold fanatically to PalmOS devices without.

This thread seems to show that Palm's market research was probably dead on, even applied to Apple's market. About half here love the iPhone's virtual keyboard and get used to it fairly quickly. And about half hate it, even after several months of trying to get used to it.

Apple will have to deal with that psychological split in its potential customer base.

.
 
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