Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Features, iPhone
iPhone Second Impressions: On activation, UI, EDGE and answering questions
Another quick round of first impression stuff that covers some user problems with activation, EDGE speeds, Google Maps and Mail. We're working on some more focused, in-depth posts that explore individual features in their entirety, such as Safari, the keyboard, Mail, etc. For now, let's get started with trying to solve some of these activation pains and go from there.
Activation
- Readers at TUAW and across the web are reporting all sorts of activation problems, and I'm truly sorry to hear about it, but I might have some tips that could help get your iPhone on its feet. As I recall, iTunes gave me an error message during the activation process, but the iPhone still kicked me back out to the home screen once it was done, and I received the standard 'your phone is activated' email a couple minutes later. I immediately was able to receive a phone call, and SMS and make an outbound call. I was also an existing AT&T customer, so all I had to do was add the $20 iPhone Data Plan during the process. I'm not trying to brag here, just provide context; by my rough calculations, existing AT&T customers seem to be having less problems than those who are first signing up or porting over service, as those operations probably entail a bit more work in the back-end on AT&T's part.
- There are a couple tricks that might help here: First, some owners are reporting that simply soft resetting the iPhone (hold the power button at the top of the phone for a few seconds to receive the power off slider) and then booting it back up fixes the issue. Just for the heck of it, why not wait a few seconds or even up to a minute? It couldn't hurt, and it might work some network voodoo to wake AT&T up and get your iPhone rollin'.
- I honestly don't know about this one as it is simply an idea I had, but: if you have a second Mac or PC lying around with the latest iTunes 7.3 installed, you could try plugging it in to see if the activation process begins again. However, remember: this is just an idea I had, and I have no idea whether that will illicit any results or get your activation process even more borked up on AT&T's books. I honestly don't believe it could do any damage, but I certainly am no AT&T activations engineer either.
- This is another theory that I haven't seen tested or mentioned anywhere, so take this one with a grain of salt as well: If you're an existing AT&T customer with a SIM card in your current (or - hopefully - soon to be replaced) phone, you could try swapping out the iPhone's SIM card as outlined in the iPhone User Guide (not included with the phone itself). Simply open that in Preview and search for SIM; your first result should be a guide for removing the SIM card and inserting a new one. Then plug your iPhone back into iTunes to see if a new activation process can begin. Again: this is just a theory; I haven't tested or heard anyone try this as a solution for activation problems.
- Update: More readers are reporting that turning off your old phone before activating the iPhone might help with activation issues. While this tip won't do you any good if you're already caught in the limbo of AT&T's activation system, it might help if my idea of re-trying activation with a different computer is worth anything.
- It's surprisingly fast. The best speed test I've found so far for Safari on the iPhone is dslreports.com/mspeed, offering a really scaled down page with a few download size options and no-nonsense results. I'm getting, on average, about 150 kbit/sec downloads on my phone. In light of the drawbacks of EDGE's (traditional) speed, the only reason that makes sense as to why Apple and AT&T didn't make some massive announcement of a network upgrade is that they're getting hammered this weekend with iPhone activations and people tinkering around with surfing via EDGE. If they're going to announce this at all, waiting until maybe sometime next week makes sense as the iPhone storm might be dissipating to more manageable levels where most users will see this increased speed across the country. Of course, this is just speculation on my part, but the tests don't lie: users across the nation are reporting that EDGE has upgraded from its previous 20 kbits/sec speed to anywhere from 100k - 200 kbits/sec. This is great (unofficial) news.
- Call me crazy, but I think YouTube is serving up different movies based on whether you are viewing via Wi-Fi or EDGE. I've watched three separate videos via both wireless methods, one of them user generated with crummy equipment to start with, and I swear I see a higher quality version over Wi-Fi than when watching with EDGE. Whether this means there are literally two separate files encoded at different qualities or if YouTube is working some streaming + compression magic I have no idea, but I would love to hear other iPhone users chime in on this one.
- Google Maps usually impresses me with its speed when viewing satellite images over EDGE. Simply viewing the standard map and searching for a location is almost always snappy over EDGE (sometimes there seems to be a delay, but not often), and even downloading satellite imagery is usable.
- This was probably demoed and I just don't remember, but I'm talking to enough iPhone owners who didn't know this that I felt it warranted a mention: you can pinch to zoom in and out of either Google Maps views. This is fantastic.
- Traffic reports are usually pretty snappy, again even over EDGE.
- The Bookmarks feature of Google Maps (accessible by the blue book in the address bar) is a great way to save frequently used routes and quickly get at the addresses of contacts.
- At first I was slightly disappointed that I can't hook the iPhone's Google Maps up to my actual Google Account, but after exploring that Bookmarks feature, I deem it a non-issue, at least for me.
- Some readers are asking about doing operations like deleting more than one Mail message at a time. While you can slide your finger across any single message to invoke that red delete button for just that message, hitting the Edit button at the top of any message list will invoke red buttons to the left of every message in the list. While this isn't exactly the same as holding the Command key on a Mac, selecting a bunch of messages and hitting the delete key once to trash them all, this is the quickest way I can find to perform large deleting operations.
- This seems to be the UI for any situation where you have a list of items that can be deleted; there's no way to select a few of them at random and hit one delete key - instead, you enable a 'delete mode' which makes it easier to delete more than one message, but still one at a time.
- I'm slightly disappointed at the lack of the 'One Inbox to Rule Them All' like Mail in Mac OS X has; if you have more than one account synched to the iPhone, you have to drill down into each account's inbox to view any new messages, drill back out to the accounts list and then drill back into a new account and inbox to view that account's new messages. It's clunky, but it's also becoming inspiration for me to consolidate email accounts.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Derek C said 10:46AM on 6-30-2007
David, have you found if it's possible to open a Safari link in a new window/tab? I've tried everything but no luck. Hopefully in the next software release :)
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Felix said 10:49AM on 6-30-2007
Hello everybody,
nobody seems to have looked at how much of the dynamic webpage stuff the iPhone Safari actually supports - and thus, where the limits of "apps" for the iPhone (as Apple calls it) are.
If you have an iPhone, I'd appreciate your support in finding out what limits there are for web app developers on the iPhone.
Helping out takes you less than a minute and is as easy as visiting
http://www.wapapp.de/JSTestSuite.html
with your iPhone and following the instructions in the green boxes. Once you've performed all the tasks on that page, a click on "Send debug output" will provide me with all info I'm interested in.
Thanks in advance for anybody who can help out!
Best regards,
Felix
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Dave Chartier said 10:49AM on 6-30-2007
#1: AH, I knew I forgot something. Yea, I noticed that too. For now, I'm still pretty darn happy with how zippy Safari seems to be, although this must be due to what feels like a lack of any kind of caching system. For now, I'm just happy Safari doesn't develop a bloated cache and bring down the rest of the iPhone. Now all Apple needs to do is fix that issue with Safari on the Mac...
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Eleventeen said 10:54AM on 6-30-2007
I had the same activation experience as you did, and I am an AT&T customer that was replacing a phone (thank god I didn't have to do the 9.99 extra line BS.)
It was about 7:30 before I was able to get home and hook up, I wasn't eager enough to sit outside the AT&T store and try to activate like some people were. When I first plugged in, iTunes wouldn't log in, but I refreshed it and it popped up. Going thru the screens was quick and painless, until I got to the last screen which said that it couldn't be activated and that I had to wait. I went to the restroom and came back only to see that the screen on the phone said it was activated. Strangely, the phone that this replaces was able to make calls too. I have yet to check it this morning.
Regarding mail, I don't know, maybe this is a Gmail bug, maybe it's bug in the iPhone mail app, but even after checking 'only download new mail' in the Gmail POP preferences, my iPhone still insisted on downloading *EVERY* single email in my inbox...and I've been using Gmail since they rolled it out. I haven't yet tried to sit down to do the mass delete.
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Brian Holdsworth said 10:56AM on 6-30-2007
If you are an existing AT&T customer, try TURNING OFF your old phone before you activate the iPhone. Having two devices on the network both trying to use the same account is a good way to confuse AT&T.
I did this procedure with 2 iPhones and both completed the activation in under 3 minutes.
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Ed said 10:56AM on 6-30-2007
Surely its faster to delete mails with the iPhone method (in terms of number of actions)?
Holding down the control key and selecting each message seems to be one more action than the iPhone version... With the iPhone version you select the "edit" button then tap each delete button - with the Mail version you hold a key, select each mail then press a button...
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Patrick Carmichael said 10:56AM on 6-30-2007
One of the links in the article says "dlsreports.com" rather than "dslreports.com." You may want to fix that. :)
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Dave Chartier said 10:58AM on 6-30-2007
#7: Woops! Thanks, fixed.
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Dave Chartier said 11:00AM on 6-30-2007
#4, on Gmail: are you sure you have your Gmail preferences online set properly? There are two options: enable POP for ALL mail, or enable POP for just new mail from now on. I'm thinking your issue might be with this setting instead of the iPhone's Mail app.
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Runciter said 11:03AM on 6-30-2007
Don't know if you were using data on your previous mobile, but if you were getting 20kpbs previously, you mobile must have only been GPRS capable. Long time ATT (blue) user and my Treo 650 and 680 (EDGE/GPRS only) have been routinely getting ~120/150kpbs. Didn't really notice a speed change for me (NoVA).
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runciter said 11:04AM on 6-30-2007
Err... kpbs = kbps
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Neil Christie said 11:14AM on 6-30-2007
David, your words in this post make it seem like you think it's your fault or your responsibility that the activation process isn't going to plan. It isn't.
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Tom said 11:15AM on 6-30-2007
In all of the talk, I haven't heard anyone give any details about how iPhone deals with Wifi networks. Does it give you a "network X is in range" message? How about entering passwords? Anyone?
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Brian Allen said 11:15AM on 6-30-2007
EDGE speeds in my experience have not changed. I have always had download speed between 140 - 170. It has been basis to 160.
I have even been able to Video iChat on many occasions, but the limit there is not the download speed. The upload speed is the weak link on EDGE. You can get 50, but you are more likely to get 30 to 40.
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bradah said 11:19AM on 6-30-2007
I'm still in an "out of coverage" area even after ATT has acquired Dobson. I did, however, read on another forum that you can still sign up if you get a nationwide plan through ATT. A guy talked to an ATT rep. and was told this (it's not being promoted) but is possible. In this way, the iPhone will just piggyback off another carrier.
Can anyone confirm/deny this? I live in the northeast.
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Brian Allen said 11:22AM on 6-30-2007
I would guess that AT&T has only improved trunk speeds from the towers and not improved EDGE speed.
The limit on EDGE speed is primarily the number of the channels the device can open up to communicate on to the tower. Given the iPhone can work a call and data connection together, I would expect the iPhone to be limited to around 170-180. To get the 200 to 230 range, the device really needs every channel working the data connection like the data cards do.
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devon said 11:24AM on 6-30-2007
Can the iPhone output video like the iPod Video using something like DLO HomeDock?
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Michael K said 11:34AM on 6-30-2007
Has anyone had issues with Safari crashing on certain sites? It has crashed on me on the TUAW site, ESPN.com and the iphoneapplicationlist.com site. Anyone????
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Leo said 11:36AM on 6-30-2007
Hmm.. I'm trying out some websites on safari, and right now everything works pretty well. However, I can't double click!! This means that when I tried to open an email on a web based email page, it wouldn't open because I couldn't double click
Am I just missing something, or is it right impossible to double click / right click in Safari?
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michael said 11:38AM on 6-30-2007
Could someone help me? Everytime I send an email (gmail) from my iPhone it sends me a CC back and I have the CC setting turned off in the phone is it something in gmail?
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