Apple iPhone Review

Permalink: Apple iPhone Review by Franz Bicar

If there is a device that really changed how people looked in general at technological devices, it’s got to be the iPhone. After its official release in the US on June 29, 2007, the iPhone has become one of the most notable and the most popular mobile device in the market. Given its high price range and rather lack of functionality, it didn’t hinder the iPhone from claiming Time Magazine’s Invention of the Year Award.

So, what really makes the iPhone tick? What is with this device that has drawn a lot of people to its popularity?

You’ve probably already seen pictures and videos of Apple’s iPhone. And you may have noticed that the phone looks really cool with a sleek and slim design. That’s probably one of the reasons behind its popularity. The handset measures 115 x 61 x 12 mm, which is a normal smartphone size, only a little wider and a lot slimmer.

It weighs in around 145g with a gorgeous 3.5″ TFT display. Looking at the iPhone, you will definitely appreciate its design. Nothing sticks out and that smooth combination of flat surface and the sleek chrome framing surrounding the glass face of the iPhone is the most appealing aspect of the appearance of the phone. Of course, with Apple products, that came as no surprise as Apple is known for their elegance and beauty of style.

The whole geometry of the iPhone makes it pretty comfortable to hold. It fits in the palm nicely and, even when in portrait mode, it can be operated with one hand. As we already pointed out, the handset is a bit wider than usual but its slimness makes up for that. The iPhone will fit almost perfectly even in the tightest pocket.

Seeing pictures of the iPhone, most of you will agree that the display is the best and most important part of this device. Given the lack of a physical keyboard, the 16M color TFT display is basically everything you’ve got to control the handset. First of all it’s very attractive and bright. Secondly, it measures good 3.5″, running at 480 x 320 pixels resolution.

The visibility under direct sunlight has what it takes to impress. In outdoor conditions the display remains completely readable and maybe just the viewing angle leaves a little something to be desired.

As for its features, we must not forget one of its claimed innovations. The sensors. First, we have the light sensors which is placed there to save power by adjusting the screen’s brightness to the surrounding lightning conditions. It does its job, but because it’s automatic it may sometimes irritate you by being slightly inadequate. But no fears there as you have the option to turn that feature off.

On the other hand, its orientation sensor works as it is supposed to. Its very handy whenever you flip and rotate your phone. From portrait to landscape, the screen flips accordingly. This allows quickly changing the way a picture is taken/shown, or a web page is displayed. It also provides you with a nice widescreen layout when viewing videos.

Lastly, its proximity sensor allows the phone to turn off the screen whenever you raise your phone to your ear. This prevents your cheek from turning on or off certain applications.

Every action of the iPhone is performed with some sort of eye-candy animation - everything is animated in some way. Things don’t just pop up; they slide in with a swoosh. It looks great and it doesn’t get in your way.

The iPhone offers a great time with its touch-controlled interface and even the most boring function turns out to be fun. When it comes to touch navigation, the iPhone offers probably the most intuitive and user-friendly interface interaction seen so far.

The virtual keypad of the iPhone is definitely a mediocre performer. Its main flaw is the lack of any tactile feedback when you touch a key - a quick vibration for every key press would have come in handy.

The iPhone is really not that special. Except for these mentioned innovations, the phone is just a phone. It even lacks a few functionality that some other people deemed necessary in such a revolutionary device such as this.

The phone as an eyecandy is the best description for this phone. Functions that other people looking for include MMS, a letter-by-letter search in the phonebook (although you can do the search when you’re sending messages - its just surprising why they left this out in the phonebook), its inability to send to multiple recipients, no drafts folder and no delivery reports - a feature which is otherwise old as the GSM mobile phones themselves.

As mentioned, the iPhone can be described as an eyecandy for mobile phone users. This is more evident with its music playback. Browsing tracks is made incredibly easy and it’s a shame the iPhone doesn’t let you create your own playlists. It is of course doable, but only on your personal computer, which is sort of inconvenient.

Audio quality is crystal clear. If you like iPod, you’ll most definitely enjoy the iPod application and the whole iPhone in general.

The iPhone camera is simple. The built-in 2 megapixel camera is ok for indoor pictures with good lightning and no need of manual settings. But if you ever need to tweak some settings, you are in for a disappointment as there are no settings that you could tweak. A definite disappointment if you ask me.

But in general, these auto-adjusted “point and shoot” pictures come out nice and in comparison to other 2 megapixel phone cameras the iPhone actually does just fine.

The camera of the iPhone is unable to record video. If you’re getting your hopes on shooting your own videos with your iPhone and then uploading them to YouTube, just like you’ve always dreamt of, forget about it. It seems iPhone has compromised video recording capabilities with its “cool” features offered.

The iPhone supports Wi-Fi 802.11b/g, USB v2.0 and of course Bluetooth v2.0. The Bluetooth functionality doesn’t include the A2DP profile for listening music on stereo headphones and, what is more, it can only be used to connect to a wireless headset. This means that you can not exchange data with other Bluetooth enabled devices. This is a decision beyond everyone’s understanding, given the huge popularity of Bluetooth file transferring nowadays.

Another thing that has been left out is 3G. That is indeed a very confusing decision from Apple.

Other features of the iPhone include the Safari Browser, which is one of the best mobile browser seen on a mobile phone. The iPhone doesn’t have a built-in GPS receiver, but the Maps are actually pretty accurate and can show you the desired route between user-defined points with turn-by-turn directions. You also have Stocks, Weather and Notes. Technically, the iPhone has support for Word, Excel, and PDF documents but only in read-only mode. And the only way to transfer documents to the iPhone is mailing them to yourself. The iPhone doesn’t have an IM application either.

All in all, the iPhone, for me, is definitely NOT the best phone ever. It does provide innovative tecnology that you can go wow over. But I will definitely stick to what other people are saying - that some functions that are really important should be there. I’m not surprised by this however, Apple is notorious for innovations and trying to do something new, trying to deviate from the norm, which to me is pretty cool. But these left-out functions are inexcusable. I will stick to what I mentioned earlier, the iPhone is an eyecandy to the general mobile phone public. But not to worry, I’m sure the initial public response has reached the higher-ups, so let’s prepare ourselves for a newer version that could possibly support what the public has been clamoring for.

Sources:
http://www.engadget.com
http://reviews.cnet.com
http://gizmodo.com