iPhone disappointment

Well after being a Windows Mobile user for some years, I decided to try an iPhone, mostly because I'm cheap and AT&T gave me a better deal on the iPhone than the Tilt. I have to say I'm unimpressed. Like most of my experiences with Apple technology I'm a bit awed by the look and feel, but totally disappointed with the functionality and reliability. My biggest complaints are:

1. Missing features that even the most basic cellphones have such as beaming a contact to another phone. Sending and receiving MMS. Taking a video instead of just photographs. Only bluetooth profiles supported are handsfree and headset. These sorts of omissions are absurd.



2. Few user settable options. Although Windows Mobile perhaps went overboard in allowing you to set options, the iPhone goes too far the other way. When getting my e-mail, I want it to GET my e-mail and not just tease me with a 2 line preview. A two line preview doesn't help much when I'm 35,000 ft over the Pacific ocean. I have found no way to change that behavior. There seem to many defaults like this that can't be changed in any obvious way.



3. In my experience Apple and Reliability are two words that just don't belong in the same sentence. This is based upon having a family that has owned too many iPods and now my experience with the iPhone. Sometimes it just hangs. It drops calls. It wouldn't connect to a network in Singapore without a lot of work (45 minutes on the phone with AT&T support), and even then it was unreliable in connecting to networks elsewhere in Southeast Asia. Now that I'm back, it refuses to update my e-mail.



4. Battery life is abysmal. If you just leave the phone in standby with all data options disabled, it might go 2-3 days between charges. If you talk much that time decreases. If you actually use the data features (which are hard not to given the mandatory data plan and that most applications rely on the data connection) then you likely won't make it to the end of the day on a single charge.



5. The device is slow. Sometimes it takes many seconds for it to respond to something. Even my grossly under powered Cingular 8125 (HTC Wizard) was much more responsive.



6. Apple's tight fist around applications is just a royal pain. No turn-by-turn navigation software. Most applications require a data connection, which is great if you have one. But if you're in an area that you can't get one, or are roaming internationally and don't want to get killed in data charges, most applications are useless. Apparently the assumption is that you'll be connected all the time. That's a pretty big assumption in my opinion, especially given the spotty AT&T 3G coverage. No background applications.

All in all I'm pretty disappointed with the phone. I think it is probably fantastic hardware crippled by immature software and poor marketing and business-policy decisions. Hopefully Apple can fix these problems before the next generation of iPhone comes out. At the moment it seems more suitable as a game platform than a usable business tool.