One thing to remember about Paul Thurrott is that he dings Microsoft just as often as he dings Apple. If you listent to his podcasts, you'll hear that.

I can't help but agree with some of his statements about the iPhone. FWIW, I love mine, but there are some definite "WTF?" experiences with using it. The lack of 3rd party support, the lack of cut-n-paste, no custom ringtone support, and yes, limited access to online mail contacts (I'm a GMail user) still make me scratch my head in wonder. Hopefully, we'll see some of this added in near-future updates.

In the end, though, I think users need to be realistic about the iPhone and drop the fanboy attitudes / basher attitudes and look at the device for what it really is. It's the most amazing cell phone I've ever used, the best iPod Apple has ever designed, and a smartphone with a lot of unrealized potential. I have no doubt that Apple is going to continue to improve upon the platform through software and hardware revisions. The hardest part, however, is getting users to be patient enough to wait for it.

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hes right .. it needs some work .. if it worked 100% of the time i would actually pay for it .. as it is i have my email go to google which pushes to yahoo then back to my iPhone .. works that way and i get NO spam.

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The weakest point of the iPhone is the absolute bottom of the barrel mail implementation. I've talked people out of buying an iPhone because they needed robust email support. Apple had no excuse for using the solution for mail they have and need to seriously get onboard the Google train like everyone else has. Who the hell uses Y! for contacts or mail anyways?

For all of the pluses the iPhone has (and I love mine), the biggest and absolutely inexcusable fault is the mail app. This needs to be Apple's first overhaul if they have any hopes of broadening outside of the power user community.

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Pointing out how bad other phones suck does not make his comment invalid or change the facts. Paul is just stating a fact and some how Mr. David Chartier feels offended by it. I understand syncing with Yahoo is a feature but is it wrong to say it would be better if.... Your article title slams Paul for no reason. It seems 2/3 of your article agrees with him. I can only assume you either have a personal vendetta against Paul or you are using this headline to drive traffic.

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jeez great post title tuaw. i agree with #1. i value thurrott's comments. i find that both his comments on his blog and his comments on his podcast on twit are very balanced. he complains when things need complaining, but praises things when they should be praised. he's as fair to apple as he is to microsoft and i think tuaw should lighten up a bit.

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I guess few people realize that AT&T and Yahoo (because of Southwestern Bell, who purchased AT&T and kept the name) have a relationship? In fact, Yahoo is the preferred e-mail handler for most of the consumer e-mail traffic that comes with your AT&T internet service account. That might also have something to do with the iPhone/Yahoo syncing, since AT&T had to guess that their biggest source of initial buyers for the iPhone might probably be customers already and thus have Yahoo address books to sync.

What they didn't count on was the huge numbers of people switching to AT&T from their current service. Those people will have address books that are not yet on AT&T's system.

With that said, I'll be that Google integration is coming soon. Probably we will see more than just address book and e-mail integration there. I'm willing to bet that you will see the Google productivity suite on the iPhone soon.

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Stephen,
Well in the course of praising Vista's new Mobile Device Center (used for synching smart phones), Paul always gets a dig in at Microsoft's old Active Sync utility which he says was just awful. If you read and listened to Paul on a regular basis, you would see that he is an equal opportunity critic.

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Just an FYI, Windows Mobile 6 phones do Sync with Windows Live. Doesn't make Paul's complaint any more legitimate, but your counter argument is wrong.

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"To his credit, Thurrott is pretty positive throughout the rest of this segment of the review series."

So, as long as his review is positive, it's ok. But not if he lists some shortcomings. This implies being positive about the iphone is the only justified review you can give it.

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I get my personal domain email, my gmail email, my .mac account email and my yahoo email on my iphone and haven't had any problems with any of them.

Don't know where the complaints are coming from.

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this might be the last post on here I ever read. is this guy serious?? its posts like this that give apple users a bad name...some of them just really are pretentious aholes...

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"Apple had no excuse for using the solution for mail they have and need to seriously get onboard the Google train like everyone else has. Who the hell uses Y! for contacts or mail anyways?"

Looks like *someone* didn't read the original post.

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#10: I've been plenty critical of various aspects of the iPhone both in the past and in this post. I merely wanted to give Thurrott credit for the rest of the interview to avoid painting him as nothing but a critic of the iPhone.

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I actually think the guy had a pretty even handed approach, and I think he did a pretty glowing review. The thing I hated? The backhanded "war in Iraq" comment. I'm so tired of this. Look, it's an unpopular war we get it. I don't like it, you don't like it. Keep it out of my gadget reviews!

One other thing, the whole "you give Apple users a bad name, "pretentious blah blah blah" Look, you give love a bad name, ok? There are pretentious Windows users too. And hey what about those Amiga douchbags? Everybody is snooty about their choice, it's human nature, give it a rest.

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Wonderful job with the flame bait, guys. This was a piss poor jab at someone simply because their site focuses around Microsoft.

Not only is Gmail not Gmail on your iPhone, its a god awful implementation since all your sent messages appear in the inbox as well. You'd think with all the Google partnerships inside the iPhone already that something could have been done about the iPhone.

Which gets to Paul Thurrott's point. There's a poor implementation of syncing contacts and e-mail, especially in comparison to the wide range of options elsewhere.

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So you complain that Thurrott singles out a minor issue with the iPhone amongst all its pluses, by singling out a minor complaint in an overall "pretty positive" review? Duplicitous much?

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You know, I reviewed the iPhone on my blog, and I made exactly the same point. Syncing of Yahoo!'s data and Yahoo! having "push" IMAP e-mail should put the other services, especially Gmail, to shame. Why don't any of the other clients offer it for the iPhone? Don't say that Paul Thurrott is crazy for claiming that, that is a very valid point that I totally agree with.

To be honest, I think it's good to see someone actually criticizing the iPhone. EVERYONE that's reviewed it (particularly this blog) has been so deep in Apple's fanboy pocket that they can't be objective enough to criticize things in the iPhone (except for maybe the developer's not having access to stuff).

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I'll try to summarize my post to see if it makes more sense:

Paul Thurrott is complaining that Yahoo! is the only web service Apple designed the iPhone to sync with, as if Apple had the option to sync with other web services like AOL or Gmail. The problem is, Apple doesn't have this option - AOL and Gmail haven't opened themselves up for synching with any services or devices, Apple or otherwise.

I believe he's misrepresenting the situation, either by accident or intention - it doesn't matter. I felt it was important to clear the air because the choice of Yahoo! *is* at the heart of some debates over the iPhone.

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"Who the hell uses Y! for contacts or mail anyways?"

Actually, *I* use Yahoo for my mail and contacts and have since the late 90s, before Gmail and some other providers came out. I was going to switch everything over to Gmail once GCal came out, but syncing up my contacts and events between Outlook and Yahoo is much easier via Intellisync than through the other workarounds people have devised for Outlook and Gmail. I love that my contacts on my iPhone sync up with my Yahoo contacts easily - it takes one less sync to get my phone and my email address books matching up. I only wish that my Yahoo calendar synced up with the iPhone calendar, too - that'd be my killer app.

All of that being said, I realize that I was fortunate when they announced full IMAP support from Yahoo when they announced the iPhone. If I used Gmail or some other service as my main email and contacts provider I'd be pretty disappointed with their implementation on the iPhone, too. Since I use Gmail for a secondary account, and host a tertiary account with Google Apps for Domains, their POP implementation on the iPhone works just fine for me.

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David,

It's true that AOL and Google haven't opened themselves up yet to synching and "push" IMAP and great things like that, but that doesn't mean that it's impossible. It takes people to complain about it to actually get it happening.

We know that one of the things you don't like about the iPhone is that it doesn't open up access to developers. Apple would make the statement that they can't because it would make the network vulnerable, but that doesn't stop you guys from professing your wishes for open development access. It's the same in this case. Apple (et al) may claim that it's not possible to have other non-Yahoo! clients provide this kind of service, but Paul is still pointing out something from a user's point of view. If I was a new user to the iPhone and didn't know anything at all about Apple, or AT&T, or any of their partnerships, I would consider the fact that none of the other e-mail clients support "push" IMAP and synching to be a con as well.

By attacking Paul for making as plain of a comment as any other user would make (and given some of the other comments in this post, it's apparent that many other users have the same gripe that he does), you are essentially acting like Apple would act in responding to him, which in that case defines you as an "Apple fanboy" blogger, and it's obvious from these comments that people don't like reading "Apple fanboy" blogs. What Paul Thurrott understands is that no matter what excuses Apple makes, if you still go ahead and point out the obvious anyway, it will build pressure on Apple to get AOL and Gmail to open up their systems to the iPhone.

I think that you should issue a public apology to Paul Thurrott and retract this post, because a post like this makes TUAW look bad and definitely hurts the professional quality of this website.

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