Filed under: iPhone
More iPhone reviews coming in -- Newsweek & USA TODAY
Two more reviews of that loveable scamp of a cellphone are out on the Interwebs, and it's more more more of the same: Steven Levy of Newsweek and Ed Baig of USA TODAY are saying it's time to start believing the hype. Both writers, like Pogue and Mossberg, point out the iPhone's weak spots (EDGE, no one-touch or voice dialing, limited apps, no video capture) while furthering the basic premise: by and large, the iPhone experience lives up to the insane advance billing. Levy's long and thorough review states it plainly early on, as he reports on the reaction to his iPhone use during a visit to Pittsburgh, PA: "[W]hen I showed the iPhone to people during that trip and in the days afterward-especially people under 25-the most common reaction was, "I have to have this," sometimes followed by a quick, if alarmingly reckless, consideration of what might need to be pawned in order to make the purchase.... And there it is: one of the most hyped consumer products ever comes pretty close to justifying the bombast."
Baig puts it this way: "[W]ith a few exceptions, this expensive, glitzy wunderkind is indeed worth lusting after... That's saying a lot. After months of hype, Apple has delivered a prodigy - a slender fashion phone, a slick iPod and an Internet experience unlike any before it on a mobile handset."
Interesting tidbits from both reviews: Levy got a call from Steve Jobs during his evaluation period, just to check on how he was doing (!), and he noted the new thinking behind Apple's buy-it-and-go-home iTunes activation plan. Baig's article includes a sidebar entitled "The Quest Begins" with the get-an-iPhone strategies of a few would-be buyers, and Baig encountered a feature I haven't seen mentioned anywhere else; when he finished watching A Bug's Life (it would have to be a Pixar film) on his iPhone, the device asked him if he wanted to clear the movie from memory to reclaim the space. Nice.
via Apple 2.0
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
BdeRWest said 8:55PM on 6-26-2007
I just watched David Pogue's Circuits video. Congratulations to Erica Sadun for making it in (her name, anyway). Pogue's finger flicks through his contacts, and her name appears right before it cuts.
Also, don't watch Walt Mossberg's video. Watching paint dry would be better.
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Ben Margolin said 9:15PM on 6-26-2007
Damn, those are pretty positive comments. And with the seemingly painless migration for existing Cingular customers, I may just have to go get in line on Friday... pretty awesome!
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terssi said 9:16PM on 6-26-2007
Some general thoughts:
EDGE: I think it's good thing that iPhone version 1.0 is slower EDGE. Why? Because it forces web developers to focus on performance and optimize their code. Don't like it: Get the updated version.
Battery: External iPod battery packs will give extra juice when needed. Same as carrying extra battery.
iPods: Interesting to see what happens with iPod. Is multi-touch coming?
iCal/Address Book for Windows: Most likely.
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John said 9:20PM on 6-26-2007
Did I read correctly in Mossberg's review that there is no copy/paste function? That is worrisome to me.
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terssi said 9:35PM on 6-26-2007
John: there is no copy/paste function?
It's hard to implement with touch-screen and no scrollbars. It would require extra menu or button (or by pressing volume up and down keys same time as selecting the text, hint Apple!)
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John said 10:01PM on 6-26-2007
I was imagining a "mode" tap of some kind, but I like iBalla's idea of a tap-and-hold and context-menu more.
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corvettetracy said 10:05PM on 6-26-2007
This looks like a great device, and I expect to see more features pop up on it in the near future with software upgrades. Just wait a week or so till the hype starts to die down, then BAM. A cool new feature (video recording?) will suddenly appear, accompanied by front page headlines.
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Evan Parker said 10:11PM on 6-26-2007
Jesus Christ people, step away from the Kool-Aid.
The iPhone is an extremely cool device, and probably the best phone on the market now. However, statements like "thank goodness this thing is EDGE, this forces developers to optimize code" are just plain dumb. Lack of EDGE is a clear weakness in a device this expensive and this reliant on the Internet for its full functionality.
I sure hope it doesn't turn out that the battery life stinks, because then people here will be praising Apple because it "makes them get off the phone to enjoy life more often".
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Fred said 10:47PM on 6-26-2007
I'm with ya Evan. Pogue says 55 seconds to 2 minutes to load a page? That's not acceptable. I think the phone is awesome and I'll be getting one around X-mas time, but lets not fool ourselves that it's perfect.
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Quix said 10:58PM on 6-26-2007
"I sure hope it doesn't turn out that the battery life stinks" - Evan
Based on the reviews posted so far, battery life does not "stink."
It's a real shame about the lack of 3G and GPS. Those additions to me would have made the iPhone the perfect device. Now I have to do some soul searching and decide whether to jump in now or wait for the 2nd gen, which hopefully will eliminate those very obvious weaknesses.
Unlimited data at the price points announced today would have made the iPhone irresistible if only it were 3G.
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terssi said 11:06PM on 6-26-2007
@ Fred:
That 2 minutes for Yahoo start page is somewhat bogus. I can fetch same page under 30 seconds with my Nokia and lousy 128bit/s connection. (The page is under 150 kb, so do the math)
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Anthony said 11:30PM on 6-26-2007
My copy/paste implementation would be a gesture to get into copy/paste mode. Then use multi-touch to "grab" text. Once copied the stored text could be pasted with a touch.
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Michael said 12:25AM on 6-27-2007
I am SOOO Sick and tired of everyone complaining about the price of the iPhone. I have been using "cell" phones since 1987. Doesn't anyone remember how things were then. In 1994 I purchased the Motorola Micro Tac Elite. It was the smallest phone on the market. It did only ONE thing... it was strictly an analog mobile phone and it was $600... and of course you HAD to have extra batteries because... they only had about 30 minutes talk time. But it did have a two line dot-matrix display.
I paid $500 for my Sony Ericsson K700i, $700 for the DG version of the Razr. And these were the going prices.
Then you consider phones like the Nokia owned Vertu line. They start at around $4000 (four thousand US dollars) for phones that dont have a camera dont have gps... dont have anything.. they are just really well made hi-quality phones.
I think people need to wake up. If you want something nice.. something new, something revolutionary, then you should not complain that you will need to pay a little extra for it.
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radpanic said 2:11AM on 6-27-2007
HOW DO YOU SELECT A LINK ON A WEBPAGE? You know, "click" on the link. You can zoom, but how do you "click"? Anybody know. I have watched every video and read every review and I still dont know.
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basscadet said 3:04AM on 6-27-2007
the point of having all in one devices is that you don't get to carry around many boxes and have everything in one. Problem is, by having extra batteries in external packs (or as user replaceable batteries as everybody but Apple make them) means ppl will ... be carrying 2 separate items again... at a higher price as well
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David McLeod said 6:42AM on 6-27-2007
@radpanic - Yeah! That is exactly what I would like to know! I haven't seen or heard anything about it but not being able to follow links from a homepage would be pretty lame.
So the question again is: How do you 'click' and follow links when browsing teh web on your iPhone?
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Kevin said 6:55AM on 6-27-2007
#12 - Are you an idiot? Pogue, the reviewer, said it took him two minutes to load the Yahoo page. Who cares what your freaking Nokia does?
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terssi said 7:19AM on 6-27-2007
@Kevin:
iPhone should be a lot faster with real EDGE speeds. At least 4x faster.
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darkjeremiad said 8:49AM on 6-27-2007
I use tMobile right now. and I have a Windows Mobile 5 Smart Phone. I just timed it and the yahoo page (which looks like crap on the IE Browser included) takes 155 seconds to load on IE and 109 seconds to load on Mozilla Mobile (which can actually render the page almost the same way it looks on my computer)
on Cingular (my roommate's provider) Yahoo Mobile (the page designed for tiny cell phones) takes 60 seconds to render on his Motorola Razr. The real boost comes from having access to a wifi hotspot.. thats where smart phones shine. My question is why they dont say anything about including use of AT&T's wifi hotspots (what few there are)
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B deR West said 9:41AM on 6-27-2007
I posted this over at Cult of Mac, but thought everyone here might appreciate it too.
Coolest things I’ve read/seen so far (but not heard widely spread on forums) from my obsessive reading of reviews/watching of review videos:
-The keyboard clicks (presumably if you so choose). See David Pogue’s video.
-Huge movies can be deleted en-phone after watching them. See USA Today’s review (”Movies can eat up a lot of space. When I finished watching A Bug’s Life, iPhone offered to remove it from the device to free up some.”)
-Works with (at least) Bose SoundDock (presumably it then works with iPod Hi-Fi. The reviewer said he couldn’t get his Belkin cassette adapter to work. I have a cigarette-lighter power adapter and an 8mm minijack I use in the car. I think that will work just fine… I hope). See again USA Today’s review (”I was able to play music through my Bose SoundDock speaker system. To combat interference, iPhone offered to switch to “airplane mode.” — it’s awesome it knows to do that)
Other than that most of the other reviews out there (WSJ, NYT, USA Today and Newsweek) were just the same old schlepping of PR info all of us obsessed fans have heard to death. Although Newsweek concentrates a little more on battery life, and offers the jewel that Jobs called him “just to check up on things.” That’s hilarious, and it makes sense. Apple gave them the phones. It’s a perfect way to see if reviewers are having problems.
I found David Pogue’s (NYT) review to be the best all-around, although I suspect he focused mainly on issues garnered from the 300+ comments on his blog when he asked his readers what answers they’d like to see.
Walt Mossberg’s video review (WSJ.com, AllThingsD.com) was useless. He rambles, says “um” a lot, and even splices in speeded-up and semi-soundless versions of the four TV ads instead of filming himself using the phone. Bad form, Mr. Mossberg. Bad form.
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