Not worth the money!

 

I find it interesting that people complain about 2 things with the iPhone.

1)It costs TOO much &
2)I have to use AT&T

Well let's do a little comparison here. If you wanted to buy one of several smart phones without a contract (giving you the freedom to choose your provider) here's what it would cost you (yes I know that you dont get a choice of provider with the iPhone nor a discount):

Samsung BlackJack: $350
Blackberry Curve: $449.99
Blackberry Pearl: $399.99
Blackberry 8800: $499.99
Palm Treo 680: $449.99
Palm Treo 750: $549.99
Motorola Q $429.99 (store.motorola.com)

The iPhone isn't SOOO much more expensive if you think about it. It works 1,000 times better with my IS than my Blackberry ever did and I'm actually paying $40 less per month ($480 per year) with my iPhone plan than I was with my Blackberry.

 

Yeah people ****** about how expensive ti is but dont realize when you buy it, you buy it out-right. Sure it doesn't work on any other carrier except ATT, but neither does any verizon phone. Plus, you can ALWAYS unlock a phone, even the iphone, just takes some hacking

Plus, if you have a smart phone, sell that sucker and buy an iphone even cheaper. I paid 300 for mine since I sold my blackjack for $200.

 

I got the iPhone the day it came out...activation was absolute hell. I have a business AT&T account, and it took customer service two days to realize that the reason my iPhone was 'incompatible' was because for some reason they decided to exclude all AT&T business accounts.

But otherwise, I absolutely love the phone. Well worth the money. If you are a hardcore PDA user you may have some complaints, but for someone that just wants an amazing PHONE (not computer replacement), it's perfect.

And as for bluetooth pairing, it was so simple... The iPhone also has an easy option when bluetooth is on to switch between hands free and handset, allowing you to take a personal call if need be, which was my biggest complaint about using bluetooth.

 

I can't comment on the compatibility with the IS, but here's what I think of the phone..


It could have been a lot better..

THE BAD..

1.CAN'T CHANGE RINGTONES! (someone should be fired) (I used to be able to swap mp3 ringtones in my old 5 year old flip phone with motorolla phone tools, but I can't with a six hundered dollar phone.

2.Can't play pod casts that are downloaded on the phone! (large pod casts dont work, only if you sync them, cannot download in realtime, there is NO reason why this should happen)

3.Cannot save mp3's from browser...

4.Brags about OSX yet there are ZERO OSX applications for it.. I doubt they will let users sync them to their iphones. So the only apps are web based..

5.NO FLASH.. Flash run's on my iMac 233 mhz, why not my 600mhz iphone?!?

6.Worst customer service ever by ATT and APPLE, I called apple, they had no idea about the basic features of iphone and itunes. Don't even know their own products. ATT experience was horrible, I was lied two twice, we even had a friend wait in line for us, we were the first people in, and guess what? "They never got any in that shipment!" So I got to wait a week, which isn't a big deal, but it would have been nice to know before waiting forever in line.

7.Cannot play files by browsing the file structure.. you better put everything in playlists. This is a simple feature most MP3 players have, like my $99 samsung.

8.iTunes is a piece of work.. Dosen't detect or launch half the time. I'm running Vista and everything else works pretty good.

9. CAMERA phone.. has ZERO features! No zoom, nothing.. No motion video capture..

10. Cannot record AUDIO! I guess I'll be taking my little $99 samsung mp3 to class since the $599 iphone cannot record audio. Oh wait , but I phone runs OSX so can't someone just make a record program, and use a USB mike or something? NO, because apple most likely wont allow us to run our own OSX programs.

11. Select your wallpaper! You only see the wallpaper screen once, every where else it's just a black background. Get used to a black background.

12. The price, %55 markup, when most stuff is only 10-15% in the same industry.

13. NO GPS! Realtime google maps with a gps would have been great, but no.. You get to manually type in the from and to addresses, so you'll have to pull over and get street signs or business names.

14. Six hundered bucks and the phone only uses EDGE technology, which isn't the fastest for data transfer. There something called ___3 or something like that, that's much faster. You'de think Apple would use the state of the art technology.

15. Unlimited data plan... Dosen't mean unlimited data for your PC.. Even though it's the same thing, just recieving IP packets. So if you want wireless PC internet access via a dongle you get to pay another $59 per month for doing the same thing your phone does but on your pc... At least until someone makes a hack so that the phone acts as a simple router, but that will be unlikely since no one can make OSX apps for it.

16. Better order your accessories online, because the AT&T stores don't know much about the phone, and worse yet if you go the mall they might not even have anything for the phone. I went to the AT&T kiosk in some mall and they didn't even sell the iPhone or any accessories, because it was a "high theft rate item", and this is near Hermosa Beach.. You'de think they would at least carry chargers.

17. No insurance, AT&T won't insure it.

The good.

1. screen is awesome.. I love to point around.

2. flip thing is cool.

3. iPod function is very good, besides the basic features mentioned before.

4. Google maps

5. it's very useful

6. The good still outweighs the bad, that's why I still have the phone.

7. I like the alarm, it even has a snooze, and a M-F setting so it's not waking me up on the weekends.

8. Contacts are cool.

 

For at&t is 3G=HSDPA which is only in a few markets. Unfortunately for iphone users, it will never work on their phones....until apple updates it (iPhone 2.0?)

 

raceonusa... I couldnt determine if you were happy with your phone or you hate it? lol

One GREAT thing about this phone is Apple's ability to update it. No other phone on the market will be constantly updated with new apps/fixes/improvements that the iPhone will have. Expect for them to add ringtone capabilities shortly as well as iChat and MMS.

I remember I tried to update my Blackberry to the latest operating system and it was a pain in the rear. With the iPhone all I will have to do is connect it to iTunes and the updates are applied!

BTW... Vista sucks (and no I'm not a Mac fan boy, I use both PC and Mac neither is superior to the other, each has their share of problems)

 

I like the phone, but the ringtone thing/no GPS/dongle charge really sucks, if they changed those 3 things I would be soo happy.

I'm pretty sure the ringtone thing will change soon, I'll keep my eyes peeled for a hack for the data dongle thing, and maybe someone will release an aftermarket GPS thing.


Ahh yes 3G that's the name of the superfast wireless thing.. It's gotta be downwards compatible so a 3G that switches to edge or something slower should have been do-able.


Yeah I agree Vista is horrible too.. When I have multi tabs windows open with flash running, sometimes my vista IE7 will just sit there for a minute or more in (hour glass mode). This is with 2 gigs or ram too, I think I will go buy 2 more gigs this week to see if it fixes the problem.

 

Guys with iPhones. Here is a link on a hack to get custom ringtones (need a mac):

http://www.hacktheiphone.com/iphone_...tallation.html

The EDGE network is being upgraded so it will be about 2.5G

 

Try Firefox before you run out and spend $$$ on additional RAM... it's so much better than IE7 (safer & faster!). http://www.firefox.com

 

Not just a mac, but an Intel based Mac... if only I had one of those... lol

 

CUSTOM RINGTONES for WINDOWS USERS:

http://cre.ations.net/blog/post/cust...-using-windows

There are video instructions at the bottom.

 

I went to look at the custom hack for ringtones.. and found something much cooler..

Here's a remote desktop app that works with iphone..

http://cre.ations.net/creation/webvn...on-your-iphone


Unfortunately running on the regular AT&T network it's very slow, but when I get home on my wireless network I'll give it another shot. It would be an excellent way to manage torrent downloads, your website, or something remotely.

 

All 3G phones are backwards compatible with EDGE and 1xrtt, but I think the HSDPA to EDGE is not seemless where EVDO rev 0 or a is seemless with 1xrtt, though I might have it backwards.

 

EDGE already is 2.5G depending on who you talk to, but either way, 3G is the way to go. I bet the next version of the iPhone will have 3G capabilities and various other upgrades for the business-minded crowd.

I have EDGE in a major market with great signal, and it is painfully slow. I can push and pull email relatively quickly if there are no large attachments, but its is pretty worthless other than that. I'm looking forward to upgrading.