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I'm by no means implying that N95 is a perfect phone. However it sure as hell is the most advanced cellphone in the world right now, still a year after launch..

I mean sure there are some problems. Personally for me the biggest annoyance is the battery life, which could be twice as long. But yeah, at least I can pop in a new battery myself ;)

Now iPhone pros? What are they? Longer battery life and a better looking (thou def not better functioning) UI.. anything else? Yeah didn't think so..

Now the N95 pros. Well let's see.. I rather like the 5 MP camera. You have a standalone camera? Well do you also have a standalone GPS unit? Don't need one? I didn't think I'd needed one either, that is before I had one. I also enjoy having a 3,6 MB modem on me at all times. 3,5G pretty much covers this entire country while wifi hotspots are hard to find and non existent when you're on the move. I rather enjoy having broadband speeds on my laptop at commuter trains.

N95 is what you make of it. iPhone is what Steve allows you to make of it. Now if you don't need the stuff the N95 offers.. well iPhone might be better for you, thou I reckon that 400$ is still too heavy a price for that Apple at the back.
 
Needless to say I was laughing hysterically and pointing at the device in ridicule within the first minutes of using it. It has been a long time since I have had the displeasure of using such a steaming pile of crap.

1$ a ringtone.. that's innovation :p


Anyways did you laugh at the 5 MP camera. I mean the 2 MP one in iPhone is so much more impressive. Had a good laugh about the 3G chip which doesn't exist in iPhone? What about the GPS chip, I'm sure that gave you a good laugh! Flash and Java in web browser? Surely that gave you the giggles? TV out? The 3,5mm jack that you can use with any headphones?


I've been laughing at this and this a lot lately ;)
 
Anyways did you laugh at the 5 MP camera. I mean the 2 MP one in iPhone is so much more impressive. Had a good laugh about the 3G chip which doesn't exist in iPhone? What about the GPS chip, I'm sure that gave you a good laugh! Flash and Java in web browser? Surely that gave you the giggles? TV out? The 3,5mm jack that you can use with any headphones?
Your post once again proves that a device is more than the simple sum of its parts.

What's the point of using really great subcomponents if many people find the UI unintuitive and slow to use, the physical form factor to be bulky, and battery life that rapidly declines the more you use the additional features? :confused:

Um, there is HUGE number of apps available for Nokia-phones, and comments like that reek of ignorance. Just to give you an idea:[/url]
What I'm curious to know is how soon after they launched their first device Nokia and RIM had SDKs available.

Seems to me I had my first BB for a year or two before third-party apps started to trickle out...
 
Your post once again proves that a device is more than the simple sum of its parts.

Only if you can add more to it thru 3rd party apps ;)

What's the point of using really great subcomponents if many people find the UI unintuitive and slow to use, the physical form factor to be bulky, and battery life that rapidly declines the more you use the additional features? :confused:

Actually I find the s60 3rd edition UI very nice and fast to use. Bulky? Please, the iPhone is longer and wider than the N95. What goes for the battery life, yeah I wouldn't mind having some more. I guess N95 8GB addresses this 'issue'..


What's the point of having a phone if you can't even hear it ring 3 meters away? What's the point of having vibration in a phone if you can't feel it in your own pocket? What's the point of having a 2 MP camera in phone when the end result is.. well it's not impressive.

You think the iPhone's ui is intuitive and fast to use?

Calling with the iPhone:

After pressing the button below the display or the power key, unlocking the device, moving fingers across the display, tapping the Phone icon, we get straight into… The place you end up in actually depends on your luck – the Phone application comes with 5 tabs – Favorites, Recent Calls, Contacts, Keyboard, Voice mail. This handset memorizes the last tab you were in and then upon re-entering the application calls up this tab. For other applications this approach can do some good, but in a mobile phone that has dumped all hardware keys, such a solution is more than just odd. The keypad is what all phones have in common, and normally we tend to call more often than do something else with our handsets. Probably, the fact that LG and Samsung have finally awoken to this has made for pick/hang up buttons in the Prada and the Armani. These Korean makers have not forgotten what the handset is all about – calls.

Anyway, in the iPhone that Phone application is three clicks away, and then you will usually need another tap to enable the keypad or some other apps, like the phonebook or favorites.

Mobile-review


WOW! :)

Read the review (I posted a link) and then come back and talk about good UI design ;)
 
Some of you guys crack me up. Apple can make whatever kind of device they want. Just because you buy it as it is, doesn't mean they then have to change it to suit your needs. Who are they controlling?

I just bought my shiny new iPhone. Thank God it hasn't ibricked yet. Yes, I installed a 3rd party app. The ONLY reason I did this is that the new iPhone doesn't have the simplest of applications: chat. For God's sake! Even my crappy Motorola flip phone had that! So, I resorted to installing an available 3rd party application. I haven't unlocked it to go on another network. Why bother? No other network has the technology for the phone. I just switched to AT&T for this phone and so far have been impressed with their support.

I can understand Apple not supporting hacked/unlocked iPhones, but to actively target and destroy someone's hardware through an update, that they have paid for is beyond reprehensible.

So, Clonenode, I want to know what makes you think ANYONE is expecting Apple to change the phone to suit their needs??? We just want Apple to leave it the hell alone. I can understand if we were putting software on the phone that was causing problems for Apple, but no one is doing that. In fact, those that are buying the iPhone are more than likely already fans of Apple and their products. Your ignorance in believing that people that buy a piece of hardware and actually want to do with it as they wish are somehow wrong is completely stupid. Look at it this way. How would you feel if you bought a computer from Dell and Dell told you you could only install applications made by or supplied by Dell? What a pile of crap that would be huh?
 
I just bought my shiny new iPhone. Thank God it hasn't ibricked yet. Yes, I installed a 3rd party app. The ONLY reason I did this is that the new iPhone doesn't have the simplest of applications: chat. For God's sake! Even my crappy Motorola flip phone had that! So, I resorted to installing an available 3rd party application. I haven't unlocked it to go on another network. Why bother? No other network has the technology for the phone. I just switched to AT&T for this phone and so far have been impressed with their support.

I can understand Apple not supporting hacked/unlocked iPhones, but to actively target and destroy someone's hardware through an update, that they have paid for is beyond reprehensible.

So, Clonenode, I want to know what makes you think ANYONE is expecting Apple to change the phone to suit their needs??? We just want Apple to leave it the hell alone. I can understand if we were putting software on the phone that was causing problems for Apple, but no one is doing that. In fact, those that are buying the iPhone are more than likely already fans of Apple and their products. Your ignorance in believing that people that buy a piece of hardware and actually want to do with it as they wish are somehow wrong is completely stupid. Look at it this way. How would you feel if you bought a computer from Dell and Dell told you you could only install applications made by or supplied by Dell? What a pile of crap that would be huh?

I think the problem is in characterizing their efforts the way you do.

Is it Apple's responsibility to contact the hackers, get their code and test it for compatability with their updates?

The people you should be reserving your ire for is the hackers who obviously didn't do proper testing on the software they distributed.
 
They should probably update their review as 1.1.1 allows you to press the home button twice and be taken straight to the favorites (speed-dial) screen.

By bulk, I mean thick, ... fat. It feels like I'm holding a deck of cards. It looks like a brick in my pant pocket.

When it comes to the user-interface and device usability, have you seen the article where the N95, iPhone and HTC Touch were tested?
http://www.computerworld.com/action...ewArticleBasic&articleId=9037858&pageNumber=2

Seems to sum up your point that the Nokia has (by far) better features/subcomponent specs and mine that the iPhone, because of its UI, is a device that people can pick up and figure out a lot easier.

The company brought in 10 testers who had never used any of the three devices. It then asked the testers to perform a series of tasks on each device with quantifiable results, such as the time needed to find and use the on/off switch. Other tasks included setting the phone to vibrate, making a call, saving a phone number to the contact list, sending a brief e-mail, taking a photo and finding a Web site using the device's built-in browser.

"People can eventually learn to use any device," Ballew said. "But that's not true usability. We wanted to see how long it took to figure out how to use the phones. That's the difference between learnability and usability."
I think this is what you're not taking into consideration when you knock the iPhones UI.

Let's cut to the bottom line: In terms of usability, iPhone blew away its two competitors. Its overall score in the usability tests was 4.6 out of 5. The HTC Touch was a distant second at 3.4, and the Nokia N95 scored 3.2.

"Testers were [typically] about twice as fast doing specific tasks on the iPhone, which is pretty remarkable," Thornton said.

The Nokia N95, however, suffered from too much complexity, even for basic tasks.

"People had a hard time turning it on," Thornton said. "Only 30% of our sample group could turn it on right away."

Once turned on, navigation was confusing to some users.

"You can access different menus from different locations, which can be disorienting," Ballew said. "And common features are hard to find -- turning the sound down, putting it on vibrate, things like that."

Functionality refers to what some consider the meat and potatoes of the device -- its applications and how complex and customizable they are. It also refers to the quality of subsystems within the device, such as the camera. In this area, the Nokia was the clear leader.

"It has a really nice feature set," Ballew said. On the other hand, he stressed, its strong feature set contributed to its relatively poor usability scores in previous categories.

"It's right on the verge of feature bloat," he said. "I mean, I'm not sure when I'd ever use the bar-code scanner. And some of the features are hard to set up." In particular, Ballew said it took four hours to set up Wi-Fi on the N95, which was a fast, simple task on both the HTC Touch and the iPhone.
 


Check the review I posted a link to. They ask people to do very basic stuff with the N95 and iPhone. People do the things with the N95 about twice as fast.. ;)

And seriously, if 70% of people have a hard time turning the device on. Well their test group must consist of mentally retarded people.

N95 feels like a deck of cards? You reckon a deck of cards is a big object? Anyways iPhone feels like a CD case.. which do you prefer to keep in your pocket? I go for the deck of cards any day ;)
 
I think the problem is in characterizing their efforts the way you do.

Is it Apple's responsibility to contact the hackers, get their code and test it for compatability with their updates?

The people you should be reserving your ire for is the hackers who obviously didn't do proper testing on the software they distributed.

I am certainly not saying that Apple has any responsibility toward any 3rd party developers. In fact, I think Apple needs to stay away from it. What irks me is that (from everything I have read), the latest update will detect any added apps or "hacks" of your iPhone and will turn it into a rectangular hockey puck. As long as my added apps aren't somehow causing direct harm to Apple or AT&T's system, then the update should either ignore those components or simply not install.

Personally, I love the Apple products. I couldn't wait to buy an Intel based Mac. I love it to death and would never dream of going back to a PC (Pile of Crap). I hope Apple continues to develop on all of their product lines. I just wish they would stay out of my hardware. I like my new phone, but I needed some things that were just plain not included, such as iChat.

I used to have a new BB and that was a sweet phone a year ago when I got it. It had almost everything I wanted. When I got the iPhone, it said that it had a maps application. Well, so did my BB. I made the rather rash assumption that they would be at least somewhat similar. NOT SO. The iPhone map is just a map. It doesn't have the GPS feature. Even though the phone contains a GPS system........ So, I have to use a 3rd party app. Will that cause the phone to brick on the next update? We'll see. Certainly hope not since it's no skin off anyone else's nose.

Andrew

P.S. Unlike most of the people on this board, I am giving my REAL name and not hiding behind some weird veil of anonymity provided by a user name. Are we all really so frightened of the internet that we can't at least use our first names? Of course, this is a topic for some other board I suppose. Oh well.
 
Hi,
welcome to the internet!
just a tip: writing in all caps means you are yelling, and doesn't make people appreciate your points any better, and makes you seem abrasive, just like yelling in real life

Sadly, a lot of people on the internet, especially in forums, don't know the meaning of the word respect. Sitting behind their shiny little screens and keyboards, all sense of decency is lost as they anonymously write insulting and disrespectful comments. Kind of a sad state of the human psyche I guess. Oh well.
 
HAHA.. i think they are just desperate because not many programer likes to make them 3rd party softwares

& yes.. apple should open up for 3rd party stuffs
 
Check the review I posted a link to. They ask people to do very basic stuff with the N95 and iPhone. People do the things with the N95 about twice as fast.. ;)
That's the whole point. The review you link to is someone's personal review of the iPhone. The link I gave was to a usability survey conducted by research scientists (subsequently published by Computerworld).

The research scientists designed their test to be objective between the devices being tested. As the first lines of the review you point to reads "Attention. If you are an Apple fan, stop right here, don’t read any further. Take care about your nerves.", I'm guessing that objectivity wasn't one of their main objectives.

When it comes to your claim that "people do things with the N95 about twice as fast...", the only speed claims mentioned involve using the N95's shortcut keys to access voice mail, speed dial, etc. I see no speed claims on how long it takes to do other real-world tasks, such as sending an email, taking a picture, putting the phone in silent mode, pulling up a web page, or sending a SMS. :confused:

And seriously, if 70% of people have a hard time turning the device on. Well their test group must consist of mentally retarded people.
Or maybe they weren't quite sure which of the following clearly labeled :)rolleyes:) buttons actually turns it on?

Like I said, the N95 is one of the best pieces of equipment out there. That does *not* make it easy for the average person to use, and I think the article I linked to proves that point a lot better than your article does.

So where's the power button? Is it...

One of the buttons on the front?
61111-525-393.jpg


Maybe one of the ones on the left?
61114-525-393.jpg


Or how about the right?
61113-525-393.jpg
 
everyone email sjobs@apple.com and let them know that they broke the DMCA by not allowing unlocked phones to stay unlocked! Not only that but they made these iPhones completely useless! (at $4-600/phone, with 1% of people unlocking them, thats nearly $60,000,000 in damages!) LAWSUIT
 
yeah i believe to photoshop... good eye i zoomed in on the immage and you can see the pixels change around the letters and some of the images..

this is not a photoshop job. the 'changed' pixels you're referring to around the letters are just JPEG artifacts.
 
everyone email sjobs@apple.com and let them know that they broke the DMCA by not allowing unlocked phones to stay unlocked! Not only that but they made these iPhones completely useless! (at $4-600/phone, with 1% of people unlocking them, thats nearly $60,000,000 in damages!) LAWSUIT

Maybe you need to reread stuff again. It's not against the DMCA to break encryption / reverse engineer software in order to unlock a cell phone. It doesn't say anything about it being illegal for said cell phone manufacturer to relock the phone.
 
This evening I went to Nokia's store in NYC to look for an iphone alternative. I'm fed up with the whole iphone/Apple/ATT BS crap and would like to get out all this.

I was going to check out the E61i but after playing with it for an hour there's NO way that I can ever move from my iphone to that User interface - it's a total mess, is slow to navigate, complicated to figure out and just plain user-hostile. The keyboard, which people have raved about, felt awful to me too. In terms of functionality, it beats the iphone in most respects, but without a sleek, smooth UI to take advantage, it's more trouble than it's worth.

just had to say that i broke my iphone after about a week of having it...not thinking i could afford another i started thinking about a cheap replacement. i couldn't find anything as satisfying as the iphone. hell, even picking up my friends razr to make a call was awful as i inadvertently tried to scroll with my fingers. I instinctively did this a few times with other phones before realizing what it was i needed to do....

suffice to say, i bought another iphone :) locked or not, this phone is unreal and way ahead of ANYTHING ELSE ON THE MARKET.
 
Like I said, the N95 is one of the best pieces of equipment out there. That does *not* make it easy for the average person to use, and I think the article I linked to proves that point a lot better than your article does.

So where's the power button? Is it...

I'm not saying that the iPhone doesn't have a more intuitive user interface than say the N95. But in my opinion, it's not a great catastrophe if you need a little time to adjust to a new interface. You really need to be retarded if you can't find the power button on the N95. Could it be the round button, with the universal symbol of power buttons? Hmmm.

Since I have nearly always used Nokia phones, the interface feels kind of natural and easy to use, most of all logical. I know what's where and what happens when I do something. The good part is, wheter I'm using a low end 1100 or a high end N95, they both have familiar features and once you spend some time with a Nokia phone, you can pretty much use all of them.

If I bought a Samsung or a Sony Ericsson phone today, I wouldn't expect to master the interface immedeatly. If it takes a coule of days to get used to, I wouldn't say the phone sucks.

My point is that very good usability is only positive, but I would not give up many of the beautiful features of a modern smartphone, just beacuse some lame featured phone is a bit easier to use. And I would not let Apple tell me what carrier to use and what I can or can't do with my phone
 
II can understand Apple not supporting hacked/unlocked iPhones, but to actively target and destroy someone's hardware through an update, that they have paid for is beyond reprehensible.

I saw a blog recently, that went something like this:

Even Microsoft doesn't purposely brick your computer if you have a bogus copy of Windows. They just install the security updates and go on. (However, only paid-for copies are allow to upgrade.)

The least Apple could've done, was to see if the current code was theirs... if not, then warn the user and STOP. There was no reason to continue and brick the phone.
 
The link I gave was to a usability survey conducted by research scientists (subsequently published by Computerworld).

Makes no difference what so ever who hands the phone to people.


We handed our iPhone to random people, showed where the Phone application was and offered them to practice in dialing phone numbers. When they mastered this operation, we asked them to type 333-33-33 on the Nokia N95 and do exactly the same thing on the iPhone. The dispersion in the results we witnessed was quite remarkable. It took them about 5 seconds (best time – 4 seconds) to dial with the N95 and nearly 10 seconds with the iPhone (best time – 9 seconds).




Like I said, the N95 is one of the best pieces of equipment out there. That does *not* make it easy for the average person to use, and I think the article I linked to proves that point a lot better than your article does.

No, seriously it's very easy to use and again you have to be retarded if you have problems turning it on. :rolleyes:

Active Standby is there for all the common things like messages, calendar, www, maps & music. Those are like 1 click away and then the more advanced functions are hidden inside the Symbian menu (which is again 1 click away). Then there's also the multimedia menu (again 1 click away). It's so simple :)
 
big difference between osx and whatever os those ****heads can dream up
 
everyone email sjobs@apple.com and let them know that they broke the DMCA by not allowing unlocked phones to stay unlocked! Not only that but they made these iPhones completely useless! (at $4-600/phone, with 1% of people unlocking them, thats nearly $60,000,000 in damages!) LAWSUIT

Calm down.

I believe that the locked phones can still make emergency calls. They're not completely useless.

Besides, I believe that the user agrees to not reverse engineer or otherwise tamper with the phone's software, so Apple really hasn't done anything legally wrong. They're just taking care of the customer's breach of contract.
 
I read your posts, and all I can say is this!

SIMPLE:

IF YOU CAN'T AFFORD AT&T SERVICE AND NEED TO HACK YOUR IPHONE TOO BAD, GO TO ANOTHER CARRIER. TMOBILE WILL BE HAPPY TO TAKE YOU. GET YOUR NOKIA PHONE AND HAVE A GOOD LIFE.

IF YOU CAN'T AFFORD THE IPHONE OR WANT CUSTOM HACKS STOP COMPLAINING BUY A DIFFERENT PHONE.

IF YOU DON'T LIKE APPLE'S POLICIES....GO BY ANOTHER VENDORS

BASICS 101


I did. And I have AT&T already. So stick the whole "Can't afford" right where it burns after mexican food. What a great way to treat potential customers. With people like you pitching apple products, I may never buy another. My windows mobile phone has mp3 ringtones, and I can download any one of thousands of 3rd party apps and games, as well as run java midlets.

I would own an iPhone this very second were it not locked down.

But as long as apple has policies like these, I will shy away.
 
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