A few odd omissions can’t disguise the fact that the iPhone has arrived to overwhelmingly positive reviews.
Before the iPhone landed in the hands of a few US technology journalists, little was known about Apple’s “revolutionary” handset. We knew, for instance, it had a glass cover on the screen for durability, no 3G and no hardware keyboard, but no-one knew how well any of it worked. But now the phone has hit American stores, is it the revolution Apple promised?
The iPhone’s core specifications are a peculiar mish-mash of up-to-the-second touches and archaic features set to disappoint early adopters. The 3.5in screen has an unusually high resolution of 480 x 320 and runs at 160dpi for finer detail. The iPhone also breaks away from mobile phone tradition by having a proper 3.5mm audio jack, although this is deeply recessed and some headphones will need an adapter.
And the camera on the back is, by modern standards, measly at only two megapixels – sufficient for opportunistic snaps but not good enough to replace a standalone camera.
Buying the iPhone in the US locks you into a two-year contract with AT&T Wireless, with contracts starting from US$60 a month for 450 anytime minutes, 200 text messages and 5000 night and weekend minutes. Every plan also comes with unlimited data downloads via AT&T’s EDGE network. But EDGE’s maximum data transfer rate is 384Kb/s, while 3G, which the iPhone doesn’t support, has a maximum (theoretical) data speed of 2Mb/s. Unlimited data bandwidth isn’t much use if it takes an age to download anything, and the New York Times is uncaring in its dismissal of the iPhone’s “slow and horrible” browsing performance.
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| The iPhone already comes with a dazzling array of applications. |
The browser also lacks other key features. There’s no Flash support, for instance, so although there’s a standalone application for playing YouTube videos, no other online video will play properly. There’s also no Java support. Fortunately, third-party developers are rushing to fill the gaps. The OS, which takes up 700MB of the iPhone’s 4GB or 8GB capacity, is a stripped-down version of Apple’s OS X, and the browser is the full version of Safari. So there’s no re-rendering of web pages, and you get the full version of each page as you would on a PC (sans Flash). This inevitably means longer load times compared to pages designed for mobiles, though.
It’s apparent there are a couple of other odd niggles, too. You can open Word documents received in emails, but you can’t edit them and there’s no way to cut, copy or paste text. And, a potential deal-breaker for some, the iPhone is completely sealed. When the battery begins to lose its efficiency (which Apple claims will happen after around 300 charge cycles), the entire phone may need to be returned and the battery replaced for a fee.
The SIM card can be changed, but only to another AT&T card, so without software hacks there’s no hope of buying an iPhone on Ebay and using a different operator’s network. Despite all that space for iTunes music and video, the onboard camera can’t capture anything other than stills, either. And speaking of space, there’s no way of installing other memory cards. MMS messages are also out of the question – the only way to send images is via email.
A mixed bag then, but there are plenty of positives for the iPhone. The lack of a proper, physical keyboard was no problem for most, with many US reviewers claiming Treo-like speeds within a week of switching on their iPhone.
And the hardware is stunning. The iPhone is only 12mm thick, making it 2mm thinner than the HTC Touch. But most important is the software – the Touch proves that gorgeous hardware isn’t the sole domain of Apple, but Apple has finally proved that touchscreen technology requires specifically designed software, not a layer of touch software overlaying an interface designed for either a keyboard or mouse or a stylus. The iPhone will never live up to the huge hype whipped up by legions of Apple fans, but with such positive initial reviews, by the time it hits the Australia (‘next year’ is as committal as Apple will be) it should have no problem matching most of it.