The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group iPhone or iHype? Anthony Caruana © |
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If you'd been near a mobile phone shop on July 11 you'd have seen queues waiting for the most hyped tech release since Win95. So, what's all the fuss about asks Anthony Caruana. |
The iPhone isn't a regular mobile. It's a smartphone. If you run your eye down
the iPhone spec sheet there really isn't much that stands out from the crowd.
There's a 3.5" screen running at 480 by 320, WiFi, Bluetooth and 3G for Internet
access wherever your preferred telco offers coverage. All those features are on
smartphones from Palm, HTC, Nokia and iMate.
So where's the iPhone's appeal? It's the design. We know that taste is
subjective, but most folk, even those who don't want or need an iPhone, say that
it looks good. The front of the unit is simplicity itself with just one button.
Almost all the iPhone's functions are
handled from the touch screen. The only other controls are a volume control,
silencer (for muting the ringtone) and an on/off button. There are no slots for
memory cards. Apple has decided that
you can choose between 8GB or 16GB at purchase and live with it.
Where the iPhone separates itself from other smartphones is its user interface.
I've tested and reviewed countless smartphones
and the iPhone is very easy to use. The web browser isn't a dumbed down,
feature-stripped version
of Apple's Safari. It's the full
browser. Web pages render nicely except that there's no support for embedded
Flash on web pages. While I'm not convinced that Flash makes web browsing any
better it's a fact of life and the iPhone will need to be updated soon to
accommodate Flash.
Apple's .Mac service has been renamed MobileMe and given a spit and polish.
MobileMe is an online service provided by Apple for $119 per year that supports
synchronisation of your calendar, contact list and email accounts. It
works with Apple's iCal and Address book as well as Outlook. I've used MobileMe
to sync data from a Mac in the office to an Eee PC running Outlook on Windows XP
and to the iPhone. Changes made on the Eee
PC automatically synchronised to MobileMe, the iPhone and the Mac.
As well as making phone calls, which the iPhone does well as the speaker is loud
and clear, and browsing the Internet, the iPhone can be used to retrieve email.
I've been using it with a MobileMe
account and a POP3 account with my ISR The email client showed rich email with
formatting and it supported attachments in formats including Word, Excel and
PDF.
There's no stylus to play with as all text entry uses an on-screen keyboard. At
first, I kept trying to hit the right buttons while typing. However, Apple's
made life easy by working out what you mean to type. For example, if I type "qwbr"
the iPhone automatically substitutes "went". The letters in the garbled text are
adjacent to the correct ones and the iPhone's data entry algorithm figures out
what you meant to type. The other benefit
is that there's no stylus to lose.
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One of the chief criticisms of the first iPhone (which wasn't officially sold
here) was that there were no third-party apps. Apple's App Store is accessed
through an icon on the iPhone homescreen.
Applications can
be purchased and
installed either
while the iPhone is
connected to your
desktop PC or over
a 3G connection.
There's a wide
variety of programs
to choose from with
prices varying from
free to about $25. The iPhone isn't cheap. Both Optus and Telstra allow you to buy the iPhone outright and unlock it for use on any network. That privilege comes at a price of about $800 for the 8GB iPhone or $900 for the 16GB option. While that sounds like a lot it's not that different to the high end units from other manufacturers. The iPhone's real cost is in the carrier contracts and data plans. If you choose to buy on a two- year contract, Optus will set you back $66 per month for $350 of calls and 500MB of data. $7 of that goes towards the cost of the iPhone. With Vodafone, the $69 plan includes $310 of calls and includes 250MB of data. In addition, you'll need either an $7.88 per month or $189 upfront for the iPhone itself. Telstra's $59 plan requires a $400 upfront charge for the iPhone and includes $30 of calls and 93MB of data. I'd recommend lots of research before making a commitment. So, does the iPhone live up to the hype? At the end of the day, the iPhone is a well designed smartphone. However, hardware is only about 25% of the iPhone story. I think that the iPhone delivers the most nicely integrated software package on any smartphone thus far. The thing is, there's nothing the iPhone does that can't be done by any other phone. What it does do is make using a smartphone easy. |
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Note: Anthony Caruana© Permission
to copy or quote extracts from this article may only be done with the written
permission of the author.
Reprinted from the September 2008 issue of PC Update, the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia
