Round Robin: WMExpert Dieter's Final iPhone 3G Review!
[This is an official Smartphone Experts Round Robin post! Every day you reply here, you're automatically entered for a chance to win an iPhone 3G, Case-Mate Naked Case, and Motorola H9 Bluetooth Headset! Full contest rules here!]
The iPhone 3G doesn't have a task manager. It doesn't have a registry. It doesn't have a sliding keyboard. It doesn't have a start menu. It doesn't have Pocket IE. And most egregiously of all -- it doesn't have a stylus!
Will that be the feature that breaks our Editor-in-Chief's Windows Mobile back? Or will the ultra-modern OS and buttery smooth UI restore his childlike sense of wonder? Head on over to WMExperts to read his ultimate opinion, and -- if he deserves it -- give him a bag of hurt, TiPb style!
Be sure to comment both here and on Dieter's review -- on all of our sites -- so you can try to win as many smartphones and accessory bundles as possible!
What's next? Crackberry Kevin gets my beloved iPhone this week! Will he even know how to type on a touchscreen? (No Storm jokes!). He's asking for your assistance in TiPb's iPhone Forum, so you get another chance to win over in his thread. And I'm off to WMExperts for the (gulp!) HTC FUZE. Help me!
Editor-in-Chief of iMore, Executive Producer at Mobile Nations, co-host of Iterate and ZEN and TECH, cook, grappler, photon wrangler.
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The meter is a nifty idea, just for fun aside.
Pocket IE made my life miserable for a very very long time... Safari is what actually brought me to the iPhone, so there...
Still nice tho. The visual is nice.
Stylus ohh brothaa hahaha
I can't stand pocket IE. Safari on the iPhone seems much better after trying it.
the cut and paste function is definitely a negative, but the fluidity of the os that i've seen outweighs that. plus, there's a crazy amount of cool apps!
Agreed... I miss cut and paste. But the Apps store is just about making up for it.
Maybe once he upgrades his 1990's calculator watch he'll also upgrade his 1998 Windows Mobile device to something a little more 2008/2009, like an iPhone.
I am used to not having cut and paste now..although it would be nice to have it still for the odd times I may need it.
oh come on. No one WANTS IE. It's just there. Pocket IE? Even less!
iphone is the best and it will be the very very best if apple put more functionality in it. hello firmware 2.3!!!!
Safari and screen size is what brought me to the iPhone. I have only wanted cut and paste 2 or 3 times in the past 4 months so i guess it's not up there on my list of needs for the iPhone.
I'll admit that the iPhone has slowly won me over since its introduction, but c'mon - how can a phone that was so intelligently designed be incapable of a feature as basic as cut and paste?
I want to see a cut/ paste feature just so people will STFU about wanting a cut/ paste feature. With everything the iPhone has to offer, people complain about something that they will rarely use.
Personally I loved my iPhone until stupid 2.2 came out and has added many, many more bugs.
Many more that I can't think of but those are some main ones... Personally, SMS forwarding, mms, cut and paste (although there are some times where it would have been handy) I don't care about. But where is push notification?
I love my phone, but apple really has to do something, bug fixes should be top priority before adding more features which could cause many, many more bugs.
safari for the win
I agree about the need for cut and paste, but the usability makes up for it in my eyes. I personally find Windows Mobile virtually unusable and SLOW on every device I've seen. I've been a Palm guy, but will soon move to iPhone.
Stop complaining. Everything will be back to normal soon as 2.3 comes out. And you c'an take that to the bank. Amen.
I've said before that for me, there are 3 areas where the iPhone has it all over it's competitors:
1) IMO, the best UI on any device out there. 2) As a music player. Come on, it's got a frikkin' built in iPod, for God's sake. And iTunes is still the most convenient way to get music for most of us, IMHO. I would have a hard time leaving the iPhone platform just foe this reason only. 3) The App. Store. GOD. BLESS. ALL. DEVELOPERS. WHO. GIVE. US. THESE. APPS. Aside from the G1/Android, I don't think there's a platform out there that has something comparable. If you held a gun to my head and told me I would have to choose between copy/paste or the App. Store, I would begrudgingly choose the App. Store.. 4) When it's not crashing, Safari is the best mobile browser out there.
Okay, that's FOUR reasons, but who's counting.
Taking a step back to truly appreciate the iPhone 3G - "the One Phone to Rule Them All," Brent
The iphone just runs so smoothly, its hard not to like the iPhone. But I really want the ability to do cut and paste among many other things.
My only iPhone concern is the battery.....would be nice if the user could replace it! I am glad the BB is gone and I only have the iPhone.
Pocket IE sucks a big one and Safari rules - I think everyone, even Dieter, agrees on that. Anyone who has a WM phone and uses it often most likely uses a third-party browser. I've been using netfront 3.5 and I'm constantly surprised at how much I like it. It's no Safari... but it's actually kind of close.
those of you who has battery problem, i recommend to you to try the 2.5oz incase bat/case acc. thanks.
Battery isn't a huge concern for me...since I'm around WiFi almost all the time, if I had an iPhone I could turn 3G off and save mondo energy. Then I'd only need to turn 3G on when I'm out and about with no WiFi.
Missing cut-and-paste drives me nuts on it, too... and why is landscape qwerty not enabled across the entire UI???? its bad enough that hunting-and-pecking with an index finger starts to cramp my finger up, but why limit when-and-where we can get a usable thumb-typing keyboard?
totally agree with that meter. Right on.
Skyfire browser is a winner for me when it comes to internet experience watching youtube just like on a PC, I nearly have every program with fluid flowing graphics, so I am sticking with my T32GPS. When you have cut and paste option you do end up using it, and rely on it. But each phone has its pluses and minuses, if it was not for developers that are developing programs with fluid flowing graphics the PPC experience would be mild, it is all about the balance between entertainment and functionality.
i want an iphone really bad
im perfectly fine with just about everything on the iphone except the lack of cut and paste :S
Frankly, Dieter's muddled review reminds me a lot of Windows. He might be better off focusing on a quality experience instead of "power" and "openness." Cut & paste? As an owner of old jeep without backup lights told me, "Son, jeeps don't need to back up."
In what bizaro world does a VistaMo device win out over the iPhone? Great, there are tons of form factors. Too bad that most are horrible and in the end you're only going to buy one and live with it for a while. After you're done shopping what does that choice do for you?
The UI is Palm OS bad. If it were any good then why is HTC perpetually spending money on Extreme Makovers: Mobile Edition to give it iPhone looks?
While multitasking is an issue it is still possible. After all, a user can listen to the iPod while doing other things, except talking on the phone. So if it's possible with the iPod it's possible for other apps, just not yet.
WinMo over the iPhone? Only from a very narrow point of view if one is so inclined to think that way. For me, I have no plans to go backwards.
safari really is the best mobile browser out there. Smoother than most. Pocket IE was truely a pain.
The problem with Windows Mobile is that it's still Windows. It may be a smartphone, but it isn't very user-friendly. Sure, the iPhone OS may have flaws, but it's ease of use in almost every regard makes it so much better for my use. I'm surprised it's even a question at this point.
People talk about PocketIE like its the only browser on WM. Yes it sucks. Yes it is probably the worst browser for Windows Mobile. But, nowhere near as bad as Blazer on PalmOS. Rene should even agree with that. Anyone using WM will be using a 3rd party browser. Opera Mobile, not Mini, provides an experience about the same as Safari just not quite as fast.
Also, Rene, I think your little Dieter Meter is a little off. He didn't really care for Mail because it takes too much clicking and waiting to get around in it. He didn't like that you can't sync Notes and Tasks via Exchange. Finally, there's no quick way to find a contact. Did you actually read his review???
Why won't apple give us cut and paste or tasks. There's always been a lot of mention on TiPB about why they won't give us flash and though I'd much rather have it I can definitely see their reasoning for it. But cut & paste? I mean come on. For tasks I use Todo and it works just as well if not better than any tasks program Apple could put together for a future update. Love the Toodledo sync...
Nothing about a Weirdows Mobile phone could ever be faster than the iPhone because I would have to stare at one of those pieces of sh*t for two hours just to figure out how to turn it on.
They're just bitter because they've been arguing with us Apple people for two decades and now know they've been proven wrong once and for all while more and more of their people continue to jump ship every day. C'mon, they know what phone is better.
iPhone is it for me. I admit it is not the best communication device, but it is the most intuitive, fun of all the smartphones.
I listened to the round robin podcast and was struck by the comments that the iPhone is not a "communications tool." Dieter and Kevin need to broaden their view of what communication means. It's more--a lot more--than crunching emails and sorting through thousands of contacts to be "productive."
Trust me, the Dieter is correct when he says that the iPhone is not a tool. It's a phone with a lot of slick toys. That's not a bad thing - the toys are really nice and everything on the iPhone works very well, but it's not a tool.
Case in point - anyone do any surveying? GIS work? Inventory? Census data gathering? All of these fields use WinMo as a TOOL to get things done. The configurability of Windows Mobile. Just take a look at these puppies:
http://www.trimble.com/mgis_fcgps.shtml
The ability to adapt WinMo to a wide range of hardware configurations and to tweak it to do any number of things is its strength, as Dieter pointed out. As long as Apple controls every aspect of both hardware and software development, will the iPhone ever become a TOOL like the above Trimble products?
No.
Tasks I can live without (but would like embedded), but copy/paste absence is ridiculous. C'mon guys!
@PhilR8 The iPhone can do all those things with 3rd party apps.
What gets me is the complaints about not having things like todo lists and such when there are many different ones to choose from in the app store. Voice dialing? It's in there. I get that it's not as "open" and configurable as winmo, but it's not "closed" either. A lot of the configuration in winmo is a hassle and even confusing to many people while the iPhone just works. It's not as much closed as it is just a different approach.
@Mike: The iPhone can change hardware configurations with third party apps?
PhilR8 Says: "Trust me, the Dieter is correct when he says that the iPhone is not a tool."
He said "communications tool" which is what I was referring to. Your examples are specific industry applications that have nothing to do with communications. Granted, Windows can be configured for all manner of specialized devices but that is irrelevant to the smartphones in this comparison.
Great info. Thanks.
YEAH! We need our iPhones to do surveying, and GIS work, and Inventory, and Census data gathering!
I'll sell my so ul for this phone.
DieterMeter...Brilliant!
pretty cool visual
Hah. The iPhone has no competition
I kinda miss the 1.1.4 days
When will 3g be unlocked
Not soon Jordan,
Wish the iPhone was on T-Mobile or Verizon
I comment on these 18 times a day
It's a good thing I have ATT so I dont need to worry about any unlocking woes. I think I might jailbreak it though.
PSssh
UI really wanna win
I wanna win!!
Everyone's got their own opinions.
Being a WM user, I definitely think there is more room to personalized a WM phone over the iphone from the today screen to programs to full-on turn by turn gps etc... but i think the media capabilities of the iphone are mUCH more fluid. i don't do hardcore registry tweakig. Honestly, as an average user, the tweaking business can be confusing and I'm afraid to brick my phone. I like how the iphone actually has less tweaking to make it as fun as it is... i might switch and return my htc fuze for it... maybe i can win one from here?
Wooo! Let's go! I wanna win me some prize-age!