Lessons learned from my iPhone experiment
Wednesday, September 23, 2009 at 12:25AM About once a year I need a new phone. Not because the old one dies, but I get bored and start looking for something new. This year was no different as I approached my one year of replacing my Treo 750 with a Treo Pro I was in search of a new device. For months, I had ignored everyone from friends to my Mom getting an iPhone. Finally a few weeks ago about 15 minutes before the AT&T store closed I decided to grab one and give it a try.
I lasted almost 3 weeks before I terminated the experiment due to a few different issues. But before I did, I learned some interesting things.
I didn’t mind paying a small amount for useful apps – The under $3 applications make it so easy to not ponder too much about the decision to try it. The integrated application store is clearly what makes this so easy. I ponder, if micro transactions were easier all across the web would people be willing to part with their money more often?
Free applications are a powerful business tool – Just before walking into a restaurant the other night I made a reservation with Open Table’s application and just as we walked in it popped on the managers screen. News papers, Chipotle, Fandango there all there. Like the web made having a web page a requirement for a business the iPhone is having a similar effect in the mobile world. Today it’s the iPhone, but I suspect that’s just the catalyst that is helping people get comfortable with that type of interaction.
Not all phones have signal equality - It’s not new that different phones will have different reception patterns but I have never seen a phone in this price range be so inferior. Last weekend we had a chance to drive from Colorado to Utah. On multiple occasions my iPhone was the only AT&T phone in the car that was without signal. I travel a fair amount, and I have always enjoyed the fact that I arrive and my phone just works. I’ve had my other phones work on a boat, in remote areas and in other countries and never had I noticed such a difference to other AT&T phones as I have with the iPhone.
AT&T has a mini monopoly - I can only imagine the executive meeting where they decided to stick it to customers that wanted to jump on the iPhone parade. I knew about the data plan requirements, I was used to that. I also knew that they didn’t allow tethering. But I didn’t know that the international data plan I was paying $60 a month for jumped to $150 for no other reason than I had an iPhone. This is one aspect of the iPhone I won’t miss and it’s clear AT&T is milking every $ they can from the early iPhone adopters.
Google maps tracking was very jerky – Visiting a number of cities I don’t know well I became a big fan of the Windows Live search application and using the Track GPS feature that would follow you on a map and give you close to real time navigation. The only quirk I found on my Treo Pro with this was it was sometimes slow to acquire the GPS signal. iPhone has the Google maps application that is ok, but in practice I found it to be very jerky when it was trying to track your progress. So much so if you tried to use it for navigation you might not know you passed a turn.
Apple’s figured out application interaction – Sometimes (when it was working) I would use the iPhone to clear stuff out of my e-mail inbox. With just a swipe of my finger I could quickly delete an e-mail, bring it up, using two fingers to make the text larger. The multi select and delete had to be one of my favorite features. I also really liked how you could easily resize e-mails and web pages it made the mobile device really feel usable.
Connected Everywhere? Not yet! – Apple may have great insight, but iPhone may be ahead of its time assuming that users will be connected everywhere. I was shocked on my first airplane trip when I started to delete a few e-mails only to get a cryptic error message saying it couldn’t move the message. It turns out that “offline” isn’t in apples vocabulary. I believe we will get there eventually, but today occasionally connected is still a necessity.
Physical Keyboard vs. More Screen Real Estate – This is a tough one for me, I really liked the large screen area the iPhone had. In fact today being back on my Treo Pro I kept thinking how small the screen space is because of the keyboard. That said, there’s nothing like the feel of real keys when typing a message no matter how short the message is. The iPhone soft keyboard grew on me and I got better at it, but it still felt really clumsy compared to a real keyboard. Also, the correction algorithms that try to suggest spelling and word completion are very poor on the iPhone compared to what I’m used to on my Treo. At the end of the day though, I would trade physical keyboard for more screen space.
What’s with only supporting one Exchange Account - This isn’t just an Apple thing, Windows Mobile does it too. It’s great that devices are starting to support multiple e-mail accounts but there needs to be support for multiple Exchange accounts as well. It’s clear that Exchange e-mail support was an afterthought for the iPhone. Beyond just the multiple account support, I found the error messages cryptic, and 3 or 4 times I had to completely reset my mail account to get things working again. This seemed a little better in the recent 3.1 upgrade but not much.
It was small but made a great reader - Having the larger screen I was able to use the iPhone for reading e-mail, RSS feeds, FaceBook, News Papers and books. In fact, I really liked the Amazon Kindle reader. While some like the non-back light of the Kindle, for me the iPhone or iTouch represents just the right size for a carry anywhere device for reading stuff.
So between the coverage issues, the e-mail issues and the outrageous international data pricing I decided I could live without for now. Don’t get me wrong, I really liked the phone, it seemed to make me more productive. But something about having to keep resetting my e-mail and sometimes it causing the phone to not take inbound calls got on my nerves. So for now I’m a free agent, on the roam for a new phone. Maybe one of the new Windows mobile phones releasing in October will be interesting or maybe I will go through withdrawals and live with the iPhone quirks – Stay tuned!
Reader Comments (7)
Check out the HTC Touch Pro 2 coming out with Win Mobile 6.5 on Oct 18th from AT&T. It is already available from Verizon, Sprint and TMobile.
Why not try something entirely different from iPhone and Windows Mobile? What do you think about Palm Pre/Pixie? And various Android devices?
@geo Yeah will certianly check it out, HTC does seem to be the most progressive, but I'm skeptical that with 6.5 Windows Mobile will catch up enough, I think it will take one more release - but willing to be proven wrong!
@Sachin - I played with a pre at a store and it just didn't do much for me - the keyboard while nice that it was there didn't seem real usable, granted, it was a single experience so need to give it a try again.
Android is worth another look. It is really too bad you can't rent phones to try for $5 a day :)
Sounds like AT&T was most of the problem, not really the phone. I would never switch to AT&T from Verizon. I've heard nothing but horror stories about the coverage. AT&T's exclusive hold on the iPhone has to end eventually.
@Dempsey - I used to be VZ for phone and laptop card - now just use VZ for Laptop card becase their international support was terrible - it's rummored to be getting better - VZs laptop data coverage/speed has always been better than AT&Ts
AT&T I don't think can be blamed for most of the iPhone coverage issues that I saw - the other AT&T phone in the car for example in my recent road trip had much better coverage and were equal to my VZ laptop card. I believe there must be something with the design of the current iPhone that causes some of the coverag issues.
Agree I don't see AT&T holding an excusive forever
Dave,
I agree about coverage. In fact, I exchanged my first iPhone 3GS under the assumption that it had a bad radio. I could go from ||| 3G to | Edge while sitting at my kitchen table! Sure enough, a new iPhone worked better. But still I have intermittent "where did the signal go" issues. I've had many more dropped calls than I have ever had on Sprint and my HTC Windows Mobile phones in the past. And my family often has signal when I have none.
The iPhone really does need to bulk up. A physical keyboard and a stronger radio will be a real plus in the future.