Review of iPhone UK

Today I have had my first experience with an iPhone. It is definitely in the Bleading Edge Technology category because it has plenty of serious shortcomings.

To summarise the only reason I would buy one is pose value - everyone who sees it will notice you have got the latest and greatest gadget to hit the phone market for ages. In my opinion it is a very nice gadget that will really raise the bar in terms of mobile handset design. Let it do its job and see what the competition release in response.

There is no such thing as a perfect mobile phone. I am of the opinion designers deliberatly leave features out so they can add them to the next version and you will part with more cash to upgrade. If the iPhone really did everything you would only buy one. The range will evolve and features will be enhanced.

The first problem with it is that it is not a 3G handset. If all you want to do is make voice calls this phone will do that perfectly on the 2G networks. In such an allegedly advanced phone this is unforgivable!

3G networks enable 3 very important enhancements.
1. Video Calling. 3G phones normally have a camera on the front of the phone so when you are in a call you can see your other party and they can see you.
2. Mobile TV. This is basically up to 15 special only-for-mobile channels from Sky including News Sport Music and Soaps. The channels are broadcast on demand to your handset - which would look great on the iPhone with its massive screen and with it being built for video.
3. Broadband speed Internet. The maximum speed internet connection possible over 2G is called GPRS. This is the same speed as an old fashioned dial-up modem: 56k. 3G enables 10x faster Internet access.

The touchscreen interface system is not as revolutionary as the hype makes out. It was actually annoying. I could speculate as to why, but I won't. About 1 in 4 times I touched a link or an icon the phone ignored my request and I had to try again - touching for longer or pressing more gently and more specifically on the link or icon. On a couple of occasions I would touch one place and the phone would sense my touch about an inch away from where I pressed.

I sampled all the ring tones in the shop and found myself having to move the phone nearer to my ear so I could hear them. If the phone was in my pocket there is no way the ring is loud enough for normal use - even on maximum volume. Fortunately there is a vibrate mode.

You must have heard all the hype about 'Cover Flow'. When browsing your music you tilt the phone 90 degrees and it shows all the cover artwork for your music. You can flick left and right through these to pick the album you want. When you find a track there was no way to do a 'add to playlist' feature, like holding the button on the normal iPod would. If you go through to the special screen for editing playlists the cover flow feature does not work. Common sense would also say if you were browsing your contacts and turned the phone round you could look through all the photos of your friends to find the picture of who you wanted to call. This does not happen. Cover flow cannot be used to pick between the photos and videos on your device. I am positive this will be added soon. It is such a serious short-sight. You cannot use good quality headphones with the iPhone - you have to use the supplied Apple in-ear headphones.

And there is more....... The camera is like a cheap point and shoot - reviews say the 2MP photos are poor quality. The ones I saw in the shop looked OK on the iPhone screen. There are no options at all. Most now have options like white balance, shoot mode, night settings etc. It also cannot shoot video. The iPhone does not support multi-media messaging. It cannot send MMS multi-media text messages with photos and videos etc. It only receives MMS as links which you have to open in the internet browser.

The devices come with 8Gb internal memory - which is very poor for a video device. I have outgrown my 15Gb iPod with just music! The memory cannot be replaced or upgraded for example with a memory stick as seen on most other phones and digital cameras. The battery cannot be removed - if you are on the move and it goes flat, you are goosed. You can't even get your SIM card out to put in another phone without the special tool.

Next - most gadget lovers that have high monthly phone bills travel around and need internet access anywhere. When you buy your iPhone the 18 month contract you have to sign to activate your phone includes internet data. Say I am on a customer site or in a hotel with my work laptop. It is not possible for your laptop to connect to the internet through your iPhone and the O2 network.

That's all my gripes after 2 hours with the unit in the shop - thanks to the guys at O2 in the Arndale Manchester for not throwing me out!

Last I have to mention the cost. £269 for the handset. Cheapest contract is 18 month @ £35 with 200 inclusive minutes. Total Cost of Ownership over 18 months £899 plus insurance.

My advice: Buy a PSP for games and videos @ £130. Buy an 80Gb (iPhone is 8Gb) Ipod Classic for music (can do videos but screen is a bit small) @ £150. For calls, email, internet, laptop connectivity and photography buy a Sony Ericsson W880i free on Vodafone 18 month contract @ £25 with 225 inclusive minutes. Oh and you don't really need the ipod anymore too - this is an amazing MP3 player. Total Cost over 18 months £730.

But I still came away from the store thinking I like the iPhone and it has potential - I will wait for a couple of evolutions like the addition of 3G and hope for one on a cheaper contract.

Chris

Reforming Europe

Mr Brown is still resisting calls for a referendum on the latest EU Constitution - oops I meant minor reform treaty!

I really thought when he came to power he was refusing so he could eventually make a U-turn and call the referundum telling everyone he had listened to them and subsequently improving his popularity. We were promised a referendum, and his case against one is extremely thin. I can't see any harm by calling one. And by the electorate saying no.

I feel a couple of everyday analogies will best illustrate my opinion about the governance of the EU.

First I will use Object Oriented Programming. The programmer is given a complete set of standard libraries to perform operations such as creating windows and making them function. Say for example in one application you need to change the appearance of your window by putting the popup menu on the bottom instead of the top. You can then write your own routines for displaying the popup menu. There are now two procedures for the same operation - the one that came with the computer by Microsoft and the custom one you wrote for your own application. It is my application and I am responsible for writing it so my own version will override the Microsoft one. But the parts of the default Window library that I am happy with and have not overridden will still apply. I only have to re-write the parts I wish to customise.

As a second example I refer to the structure of any company. The top boss and the board of directors will determine general company policy - for example the normal working day is 9AM to 5PM. However the IT department may have 24 hour operators so the standard working day for this team is different from the rest of the company. There is a specific policy for one department because the standard policy would not be suitable. That department manager has authority to deviate from the company standard when appropriate, and I don't know of many CEOs that would object to this scenario.

What our government is going to do within Europe is the opposite of the above. I approve of the single market so our companies can easily trade with customers in Europe. The argument for Europe having a single larger voice in international affairs is great. Having a united front is fine if it is united. Unfortunately discussions at every European summit come across as anything but united. What benefit to us is a larger voice if it doesn't say what our electorate thinks it should? But common sense has gone out the window in allowing Brussels the last say on British policies and laws.

What I strongly disagree with is our country being governed in the same way as all the other countries in Europe. The UK is one of the most technologically advanced countries in the world. The majority of members in Europe are developing countries. France is a socialist state. Governing a third world country or a socialist country is very different to governing an advanced capitalist country. One size fits all never works. Did we not learn anything from the collapse of the ERM in 1992? I also note even with Maggie's rebate that financially we gain nothing as we are one of the main net contributors to EU finances. It is daft that 40% of the EU money is wasted subsidising French farmers.

Lastly the government in Brussels is not elected by or accountable to the UK electorate in any way. They know very little about the operation of our country. Some European figureheads have even specifically been rejected (Neil Kinnock, Peter Mandelson, William Hague). The UK government that is elected and that understands the operation of the UK will become completely powerless. This is dangerous.

At present we have plenty of EU laws imposed on us. I question the benefit of many of these. After this treaty things will be much worse.

As this current treaty stands we would be better staying away and forming similar agreements with the Europe that is created as benefits us. I would rather be a United State of America with whom we have far more in common. There have been too many times over the last few years where Tony Blair has taken a different stance internationally to Europe and I have agreed with him on most of them.

I have written to my MP for an explanation exactly what the benefits are of being in Europe and adding my voice to the calling for the referendum. Will post here when/if I get a comprehensive reply.

Chris

Vista again!

I still enjoy a good laugh every time I think of Microsoft's launch campaign for Vista! Remember that "The Wow starts now"! What wow? Looking back it wasn't even a pop. Or a squeaky bit of wind. (Sorry for being a bit rude!)

Do you know anyone who is using Vista? I don't. I have considered switching to it a few times but within a couple of days come running back to XP. One of the main issues I have with Vista is it regularly re-writes its boot program to my boot sector. I think it is triggered by Microsoft Updates. But becuase I am evaluating Vista I am multi-booting and using a third party boot manager. The fact Vista always screws this up and I have to restore it from CD to get back to my XP installation puts me off trying it!

I havn't mentioned my Dad on here before. He is very clever and is the fountain of all knowledge. But he really struggles with computers. He believes a computer should do what he wants, how he wants. And it never does. The reasoning for pressing the Start button to stop the computer still beats him.

Because he is a computer amateur he is probably one of the most vulnerable users to all the virus and phishing scams. I have set up all his computer security as high as I can. I have explained to him to watch for anything suspicious and tell me if anything changes on his computer. I have also explained to be extremely warey of pop-ups telling him of a problem and telling him to click somewhere or install something. This is how he has been caught in the past by a trojan.

He has a new digital camera and enjoys checking his emails. Someone at work had told him you can put your photos onto a DVD as a movie and play it on your friends televisions and he wants to do this. I can't find any simple software to do this on XP but Vista does it natively. The Vista interfaces for photos and videos are significantly enhanced over XP. I have asked him to try and upgrade. Though it is noticably slower, his PC can run it. He hasn't switched yet.

I have waffled a bit above, but I have two serious points to make:

1) A learning computer operating system.

This is a vision we were promised with XP. That the computer learns what tasks you do most and automatically tunes itself to help you. Problem is it doesn't work with XP. And it has got worse in Vista. Every few weeks when I visit home I have a list of messages, changes or new icons that Dad has noticed - as I asked him to. They are nearly all made automatically by the computer learning or applying updates. They do not help at all. They cause confusion. Why when he is learning how to work the computer do the goal posts keep moving?

There is really no excuse on Microsoft's account. Computers are fast, have plenty of idle processor time and always on internet connections. How can basic self-tweaking algorithms perform such a bad job of knowing what a user wants? And why is it impossible to turn them all off and lock the computer down to a consistent state?

2) Multiple Users with proper roles still not anywhere near implemented.

Since Windows NT Microsoft has allowed multiple users to have a different personal environment. Users can be an administrator or a standard user. I've have discussed Vista security on this blog months back so will avoid repeating myself. What I want is for the standard user to be let alone to work. They can use Word, surf the net and use the applications that are on the PC in peace. Save all the annoying windows nags (which have increased three-fold in Vista) for when an administrator logs in.

Why is it not possible for me to make any change as an administrator and apply it to all the users? If I install a wireless network when I am the administrator it should work as soon as a standard user logs in. When I am setting up the machine I have to log in as every user account and setup things like the networking and Office settings.

I know windows is not meant to be a fully multi-user operating system. Only one person can work on the machine at a time. It is not possible for a less powerful machine to connect remotely and run programs on a powerful machine while someone else is working on it. However on the launch of Windows XP it was claimed that each member of the house could have their own account, own documents, own favourites etc. But it still does not work.

Usability of computers should have moved on by now. Microsoft has had generations of operating systems to make this work. Why have such basic features still not been delivered? And why are amateur users still struggling to learn Windows way of doing things?

Chris

Update: I am discussing stand-alone Vista in a home or small business environment. Central management and configuration are different if your Vista machine belongs to a Domain.