Review By: Aira Review Date: 17 Jan 2009
From the moment Apple announced its iPhone at Macworld 2007, the tech world hasnt stopped asking questions. Because Apple has kept many iPhone details under wraps until very recently, weve been forced to speculate. Until now. Is the iPhone pretty? Absolutely. Is it easy to use? Certainly. Does it live up to the stratospheric hype? Not so much. Dont get us wrong, the iPhone is a lovely device with a sleek interface, top-notch music and video features, and innovative design touches. The touch screen is easier to use than we expected, and the multimedia performs well. But a host of missing features, a dependency on a sluggish EDGE network, and variable call qualityit is a phone after allleft us wanting more. For those reasons, the iPhone is noteworthy not for what it does, but how it does it. If you want an iPhone badly, you probably already have one. But if youre on the fence, we suggest waiting for the second-generation handset. Even with the new $399 price for the 8GB model (down from an original price of $599) and $499 for the 16GB model, its still a lot to ask for a phone that lacks so many features and locks you into an iPhone-specific two-year contract with AT&T. Well be more excited once we see a version withat the very leastmultimedia messaging and 3G.
Design
On with the review: the iPhone boasts a brilliant display, trim profile, and clean lines (no external antenna of course), and its lack of buttons puts it in a design class that even the LG Prada and the HTC Touch cant match. Youll win envious looks on the street toting the iPhone, and were sure that would be true even if the phone hadnt received as much media attention as it has. We knew that it measures 4.5 inches tall by 2.4 inches wide by 0.46 inch deep, but it still felt smaller than we expected when we finally held it. In comparison, its about as tall and as wide as a Palm Treo 755p, but it manages to be thinner than even the trend-setting Motorola Razr. It fits comfortably in the hand and when held to the ear, and its 4.8 ounces give it a solid, if perhaps weighty, feel. We also like that the display is glass rather than plastic.
Display
The iPhones display is the handsets design showpiece and is noteworthy for not only what it shows, but also how you use it. Well start off with its design. At a generous 3.5 inches, the display takes full advantage of the phones size, while its 480x320 pixel resolution (160 dots per inch) translates into brilliant colors, sharp graphics, and fluid movements.
Menus
In true Apple style, the iPhones menu interface is attractive, intuitive, and easy to use. In the main menu, a series of colored icons call out the main functions. Icons for the phone menu, the mail folder, the Safari Web browser, and the iPod player sit at the bottom of the screen, while other features such as the camera, the calendar, and the settings are displayed above. Its easy to find all features, and we like that essential features arent buried under random menus. Fluid animation takes you between different functions, and you can zip around rather quickly.
Much has been made of the iPhones touch screen, and rightfully so. Though the Apple handset is not the first cell phone to rely solely on a touch screen, it is the first phone to get so much attention and come with so many expectations. Depending on what youre doing, the touch screen serves as your dialpad, your keyboard, your Safari browser, and your music and video player. Like many others, we were skeptical of how effectively the touch screen would handle all those functions.
Touch screen
Fortunately, we can report that on the whole, the touch screen and software interface are easier to use than expected. Whats more, we didnt miss a stylus in the least. Despite a lack of tactile feedback on the keypad, we had no trouble tapping our fingers to activate functions and interact with the main menu. As with any touch screen, the display attracts its share of smudges, but they never distracted us from what we were viewing. The onscreen dialpad took little acclimation, and even the onscreen keyboard fared rather well. Tapping out messages was relatively quick, and we could tap the correct letter, even with big fingers. The integrated correction software helped minimize errors by suggesting words ahead of time. It was accurate for the most part.
The Apple iPhone features a virtual QWERTY keyboard.
Still, the interface and keyboard have a long way to go to achieve greatness. For starters, when typing an e-mail or text message the keyboard is displayed only when you hold the iPhone vertically. As a result, we could only type comfortably with one finger, which cut down on our typing speed. Using two hands is possible, but we found it pretty crowded to type with both thumbs while holding the iPhone at the same time. Whats more, basic punctuation such as periods or commas lives in a secondary keyboardannoying. If youre a frequent texter or an e-mail maven, we suggest a test-drive first.
We also found it somewhat tedious to scroll through long lists, such as the phone book or music playlists. Flicking your finger in an up or down motion will move you partway through a list, but you cant move directly to the bottom or top by swiping and holding your finger. On the other hand, the letters of the alphabet are displayed on the right side of the screen. By pressing a letter you can go directly to any songs or contacts beginning with that letter. But the lack of buttons requires a lot of tapping to move about the interface. For example, the Talk and End buttons are only displayed when the phone is in call mode. And since there are no dedicated Talk and End buttons, you must use a few taps to find these features. That also means you cannot just start dialing a number you must open the dialpad first, which adds clicks to the process. The same goes for the music player: since there are no external buttons, you must call up the player interface to control your tunes. For some people, the switching back and forth may be a nonissue. But for mutlitaskers, it can grow wearisome.
Criticisms aside, the iPhone display is remarkable for its multitouch technology, which allows you to move your finger in a variety of ways to manipulate whats on the screen. When in a message, you can magnify the text by pressing and holding over a selected area. And as long as you dont lift your finger, you can move your "magnifying glass" around the text. You can zoom in by pinching your fingers apart to zoom out you just do the opposite. In the Web browser, you can move around the Web page by sliding your finger, or you can zoom in by a double tap. And when looking at your message list, you can delete items by swiping your finger from left to right across the message. At that point, a Delete button will appear.
Thanks to the handsets accelerometer (a fancy word for motion sensor), the iPhones display orientation will adjust automatically when you flip the iPhone on its side while using the music and video players and the Internet browser. Also, a proximity sensor turns off the display automatically when you lift the iPhone to your ear for a conversation. All three are very cool.
The January 2008 update added new customization options for the iPhones home screen. By pressing and holding any icon, all of the icons on the display will start to wiggle. You then can move the icons around and rearrange them at will. By moving them to the right, you can also access a second menu page, and you can add or remove on the "dock" at the bottom of the display. Its clear that with this new feature, Apple is readying the iPhone for more applications, particularly as the company prepares for the upcoming SDK. To stop the icons from wiggling, just press the Home button.
Exterior features
The iPhones only hardware menu button is set directly below the display. It takes you instantly back to the home screen no matter what application youre using. The single button is nice to have, since it saves you a series of menu taps if youre buried in a secondary menu. On the top of the iPhone is a multifunction button for controlling calls and the phones power. If a call comes in at an inopportune time, just press the button once to silence the ringer, or press it twice to send the call to voice mail. Otherwise, you can use this top control to put the phone asleep and wake it up again. You can turn the iPhone off by pressing and holding the button.
The Apple iPhone speaker is located at the bottom of the phone.
Located on the left spine are a volume rocker and a nifty ringer mute switch, something all cell phones should have and which is a popular feature of Palm Treos. On the bottom end, youll find the speaker, a microphone, and the jack for the syncing dock and the charger cord. Unfortunately, the headset jack on the top end is deeply recessed, which means you will need an adapter for any headphones with a chubby plug. Is this customer-friendly? No.
Unfortunately, the Phone does not have a battery that a user can replace. That means you have to send the iPhone to Apple to replace the battery after its spent (Apple is estimating one battery will keep its full strength for 400 chargesprobably about three years worth of use). The cost of the replacement is $79 plus $6.95 shipping. No, you dont really need a removable battery in a cell phone, but like many things missing on the iPhone, it would be nice to have, especially for such an expensive phone. And just what are you supposed to without a cell phone during the replacement period? Contrary to earlier reports, the SIM card is removable via a small drawer on the top of the iPhone, but other AT&T SIM cards will not work in the iPhone. Thats especially troubling, as it completely defeats the biggest advantage of using a GSM phone with a SIM card. Some people have multiple phones and like to change the SIM card between their different handsets. Also, you cant use the SIM card to import contact information from another handset.
Features
The iPhones phone book is limited only by the phones available memory. Each contact holds eight phone numbers e-mail, Web site, and street addresses a job title and department a nickname a birthday and notes. You cant save callers to groups, but you can store your preferred friends to a favorites menu for easy access. You can assign contacts a photo for caller ID and assign them one of 25 polyphonic ringtones. We should note, however, that theres no voice dialing and you cant use MP3 files as ringtones. Other basic features include an alarm clock, a calculator, a world clock, a stopwatch, a timer and a notepad. Theres a vibrate mode but its a tad light.
The calendar offers day and month views, and you can use the calendar as an event reminder or a to-do list as well. The interface is clean and simple, though inputting new appointments involves a lot of tapping. Theres no Week view, however. We were able to sync our Outlook contacts and calendar and our Yahoo! e-mail address book with no problems.
Bluetooth and wireless
The iPhone offers a full range of wireless functionality with support for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity. The Wi-Fi compatibility is especially welcome, and a feature thats absent on far too many smart phones. When youre browsing the Web, the iPhone automatically searches for the nearest Internet hot spot. Bluetooth 2.0 is also on board, which delivers faster transmission and a longer range than Bluetooth 1.2. You can use Bluetooth for voice calls, but you dont get an A2dP stereo Bluetooth profileanother item thats not necessary but would be nice to have.
Though Apple CEO Steve Jobs has explained the iPhones lack of 3G support by saying the chipsets take up too much room and drain too much battery, wed like the option anyway. Yes, the Wi-Fi network is great when you can get it, but AT&Ts EDGE network just doesnt cut it for all other surfing. EDGE Web browsing is so slow, it almost ruins the pretty Web interface. More on this in the Performance section.
Messaging and e-mail
For your messaging needs, the iPhone offers text messaging and e-mail. As on many smart phones, a text message thread is displayed as one long conversationa useful arrangement that allows you to pick which messages youd like to answer. The January 2008 update added the ability to send a text message to multiple recipients. It was a welcome addition, but truly, that capability should have been there from the start. If you use another function while messaging, you can return to pick up that message where you left off. We just dont understand, however, why Apple doesnt include multimedia messaging. Sure, you can use e-mail to send photos, but without multimedia messaging you cant send photos to other cell phonespretty much the entire point of a camera phone.
The iPhones e-mail menu includes integrated support for Yahoo, Gmail, AOL, and Mac accounts. You can set up the phone to receive messages from other IMAP4 and POP3 systems, but youll need to sweet-talk your IT department into syncing with your corporate exchange server. Its rumored that Apple will update the iPhone to support ActiveSync but Apple hasnt confirmed that as of this writing. Yet the iPhone does offer a way to connect with your VPN. You can readbut not editPDF, JPEG, Word, and Excel documents. Worse: you cant cut and paste text when composing messages.
iPhones iPod
Sandwiched between all the iPhones features lives Apples most amazing iPod yet. The display, interface, video quality, audio qualityall of it is meticulously refined and beautiful. Unfortunately, its trapped within a device that will cost you more than $1,000 a year just to own. CNET recently reviewed a Rolls-Royce that had a top-notch umbrella hidden inside its passenger door. Buying the iPhone for its iPod feature is a lot like buying that Rolls-Royce for its umbrella. Regardless, the iPhone is an exciting glimpse into what Apple hopefully has planned for its sixth-generation iPod. Apple has redeemed itself following the Motorola Rokr E1 debacle.
On paper, the iPhones iPod doesnt offer any features not already on a fifth-generation iPod: podcasts, videos, music, and playlists are all here, and content management with iTunes is identical. The difference rests entirely in the iPhones interface. Weve used other MP3 players that use touch interfaces, such as the Archos 704, iRiver Clix and Cowon D2, but the iPhones unique integration of multitouch technology and a graphic user interface put it in a category all its own.
From an iPod perspective, Apples biggest triumph with the iPhone is the fact that it has returned album artwork back into the music experience in a way that goes beyond a token thumbnail graphic. Physically flipping through your music collection in the iPhones Cover Flow mode really brings back the visceral feel of digging through a CD or record bin. Its a tough feeling to quantify, but the real music lovers out there will appreciate how well the iPhone reconnects their digital music to a form that is both visually and physically more vivid. Even iTunes users who may already be jaded about using the Cover Flow mode on their personal computer will be surprised at how the experience is changed by using the iPhones intuitive touch screen.
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| Sound Reception: | | | Ease of Use: | | | Features: | | | Reliability & Durability: | | | Style & Design: | | | Value for Money : | |
Good: The Apple iPhone has a stunning display, a sleek design, and an innovative multitouch user interface. Its Safari browser makes for a superb Web surfing experience, and it offers easy-to-use apps. As an iPod, it shines.
Bad: The Apple iPhone has variable call quality and lacks some basic features found in many cell phones, including stereo Bluetooth support and 3G compatibility. Integrated memory is stingy for an iPod, and you have to sync the iPhone to manage music content.
Recommend: Yes
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