Anand Reviews the Apple iPhone 3G
by Anand Lal Shimpi on July 16, 2008 8:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Mobile
MobileMe
It’s only been in the past couple of years that I started to understand exactly what it is I do for a living. I’m a writer, woo! I happen to write a column for CPU Magazine every month, I’m constrained for space there since it’s print (750 words or less, or your pizza is free). Last month I wrote an article titled Apple Takes on...Google?
The article talked about Apple’s foray into the world of web applications - it was sort of prep-work for today’s iPhone 3G review. You see, alongside the firmware 2.0 and iPhone 3G announcements, Apple also introduced something called MobileMe at this year’s WWDC.
.Mac is now MobileMe
MobileMe is Apple’s own web-based application suite, featuring an email client, address book, calendar application and support for file and photo sharing. In essence, this is Apple’s answer to Google’s online applications - except you have to pay for them.
MobileMe Push Email
A MobileMe account costs $99 a year, but what that gives you is the ability to sync your email, address book, calendar, files and photos across any computer (Mac or PC) and iPhone, in real time. You also get 10GB of storage, and the big kicker - push email support.
The concept of push email is simple: when an email is sent to your push-enabled email account, the notification is sent directly to your device (computer or iPhone) and you receive the email instantaneously. Normally, the greatest frequency you can check your email account on an iPhone is every 15 minutes, which can be a problem if you depend on responding to emails as soon as you get them.
Push email on the iPhone, without Exchange. Awesome.
I do sorely miss push email from my Blackberry days, MobileMe gave me my first taste of that in over a year. It took less than 10 seconds from the time I sent an email to my @me.com account to when I got it on the iPhone, which is just sweet.
The push email support for MobileMe alone is almost reason enough to cough up the $99 per year, but when you realize that works out to $8.25 per month just for email you really have to ask yourself whether the push email is really worth it. Honestly what needs to happen is push email support from Google, that would make the iPhone a real alternative to the Blackberry from a consumer standpoint. Granted enterprise users now have push email support with Exchange, but for the rest of the world it’d be nice if there was a free alternative.
MobileMe is a nice online application suite and is incredibly easy to setup, allowing all of your Macs, PCs and iPhone to remain in sync but honestly for me it just doesn’t make sense. My iPhone and main machine are always synced, and it doesn’t really matter that my notebook isn’t since I have my synced iPhone with me wherever I go. The $99/year MobileMe account would be nice, but it’s far from a necessity.
The ability to keep tons of files synced between all of my machines is also a plus, but honestly my upload speeds aren’t fast enough to make this terribly practical for things like videos and music. For small files, I don’t want to have to manually copy them to my iDisk, I want to mirror my Documents folder by default.
Yes, this is a web-application, it looks very good but unfortunately I've had connectivity issues over the past few days. It's not as speedy as I'd want for $99 a year.
MobileMe is a great way of getting a glimpse at the totally networked future we’re not too far away from, there are just too many shortcomings for me to justify giving Apple another $100 every year on top of the annual iPhone upgrades I seem to be doing. Give me Push Gmail and I’ll be set.
Alternatively, if Apple provided web-versions of Pages, Numbers and Keynote, as well as real time document syncing between all of them (ala Google Docs), then the $99 fee starts becoming more attractive.
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Sunrise089 - Friday, July 18, 2008 - link
Wow I wish I had first comment here so I could get a response.In Anand's otherwise near-perfect review, he talked about Exchange support but didn't cover my #1 iPhone question: does Exchange support work without the $45 Enterprise Data plan? I can't for the life of my get a conclusive answer if the Enterprise plan is required for exchange, or just required if the iPhone is going to be purchased or paid for through a business.
araczynski - Friday, July 18, 2008 - link
i'm still holding out for the day the iphone comes with some real screen resolution.if the N810 can do much better than this, why can't the almighty apple?
sleepr0 - Friday, July 18, 2008 - link
Lets see:- The 3G doesn't fit the old cradle and the cradle is not included - $15.
- Old cover doesn't fit - $20.
- Unlimited data up $10/month.
- Text up $5/month.
- Cellular triangulation works nearly as well as GPS.
- 3G not significantly faster than Edge and all the new users will take a load off of the Edge network, freeing up bandwidth and making Edge a bit faster.
- Battery life worse.
I'll wait for Version 3, thanks.
wvh - Thursday, July 17, 2008 - link
Why do you buy a new phone when you are happy with your old one – it has pretty much the same functionality anyway? What is wrong with all those people who buy something just because Apple (or whoever) releases it? All these morons queueing up, did they all accidentally happen to break their phone the day before?It's a nice in-depth article, no remarks there, I've just heard enough already about this consumer hype. It's just talking people into fake needs.
Blast me for being negative, but you know I'm right.
michael2k - Friday, July 18, 2008 - link
The problem is that people aren't happy with their old one, and it doesn't have the same functionality, so that is why they queue for the iPhone. So essentially all your base assumptions are wrong.There is nothing wrong with these people; there is something wrong with the RZRS et al they already own, because they were broken the minute they bought them. No accident, they were just made that way.
Giacomo - Friday, July 18, 2008 - link
No, actually you aren't right. You could be, if we were here to make free-philosophy, but that's not the case, we're here to talk about hardware (and related).So then, you are accusing the mass of an excess of "hype" around the iPhone, and well, while it's definitely true that many of those people will buy it for "trendy" purposes, there are surely others (like me) who are about to buy it because they just like it and could benefit from it. In my particular case, I have lost my iPod Mini (...) and my cellphone is at its 4th year of life, with the keyboard almost died (intense 20.000+ sms usage in these years). The iPhone, by simply being, to me, an iPod which calls and writes sms, is great to have both the devices in the "main" pocket.
Full comfort over the whole year (no matter what clothes I'm wearing, the front/right pocket does ALWAYS have my cellphone inside, and thanks to the iPhone, the iPod as well), a brilliant keyboard for my heavy SMS usage, and I could be happy without anything else. Plus, there's something else actually, and I'll surely enjoy.
If we had to think like you in your post, we should all tell you: Why do you read Anandtech? You can live with a 5 years old PC without problems nor upgrades, if you just use some Office, browse the web and check your mail. If you game, well, that's energy consuming, money-wasting, time-wasting, and you should quit. But, of course, none in here would say that to you, neither would I.
Regards
Giacomo
scottwilkins - Thursday, July 17, 2008 - link
First, I've had AT&T for years. Never stepped in a store, and never talked with them about a purchase. They were very helpful and darn quick about replacing my wife's phone when it died. AT&T is the easiest to work with (and I work with most of them because I support a lot of folks on different networks) Plus, the AT&T signal in the places I go beats out all others hands down. So for you to say their signal is bad is very objective and quite stupid, since you did it only probably in one room and not overall.Also, your indications that other phones can't do what the iPhone can do are all false. One thing the iPhone CAN'T do that many many other phones can do is change. It can't change it's interface to suit other purposes, it can't change it's battery, and it can't change carriers. The 3G's only add over the old iPhone is 3G and GPS. All other features are software, and now available on the original iPhone. So an upgrade is useless until you contract is up.
Apple is a closed box. I prefer freedom.
michael2k - Thursday, July 17, 2008 - link
Uh, with a soft interface and touchscreen, the iPhone is just about the only device where it's interface can change as needed; you get two buttons when in Camera mode, 20+ in Calculator mode, 26+ in note-taking mode, etc.Ryl3x - Thursday, July 17, 2008 - link
I will buy at lunch. I read alot of reviews over the web including sites that dedicate themselves to phones. I found this to be one that i could relate to. Thanks.DeesTroy - Thursday, July 17, 2008 - link
My younger brother works for Garmin. You almost certainly won't get voice directions, at least not for free. The licensing agreements with the few companies that make the maps used in mapping software (e.g. Navteq) are very specific about what you can and can't do with the maps they provide. The mapping companies currently charge significantly more if you want to do voice directions. Nokia's purchase of Navteq makes a huge lot of sense given what one can do with maps, a GPS, and Internet all in one package. All of this is probably part of the reason that Garmin is getting into the phone business with the nuvifone.