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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robinthakur - Thursday, July 17, 2008 - link
And naturally, the 'competitor' that you chose, the N95 supports 4G does it? Don't make me laugh. I used to have an N95 and I upgraded to the iPhone after having used one and being uber impressed. The N95 might have a longer spec sheet anda better camera, but for usability the iPhone is so far ahead its almost comical. People seem upset that Apple got something right pretty much first time which all the other manufacturers still can't do. Just look at the mess that is Windows Mobile.Obrut - Friday, July 18, 2008 - link
Robin,1. I'm talking about N95 8GB and not N95, there is a quite big difference. But nevermind - you can pick N96. It even has built-in TV-tuner.
2. I never said N95 supports 4G. I was talking about the differences between North America and Europe for example. 4G is for my laptop and stationary phone.
Besides I never said that iPhone is a bad phone at all.
Obrut - Thursday, July 17, 2008 - link
For the clumsiness - I agree.4G is available here (Bulgaria), though we're the only country in Europe with 4G coverage (yet). I mean nation-wide WiMAX coverage over 4G equipment.
As for the install base - compare the number of Symbian applications over iPhone apps...
A-GPS - I've been using this for long time and I can't even imagine that the first iPhone is lacking this. So A-GPS - no news, welcome to the club.
Accelerometer - welcome to the club also.
Photo - 2 MP means no camera at all
Flash support - this feature is mandatory for decent browsing experience.
Battery - how usefull is a phone which you should recharge twice a day (in case you're using it for more than talk and that's the big idea with iPhone)
FM Radio, Java, etc... just read this: http://www.gsmarena.com/compare.php3?idPhone2=2088...">http://www.gsmarena.com/compare.php3?idPhone2=2088...
rubbahbandman - Thursday, July 17, 2008 - link
Epic review. This phone looked like a steal at $200, but man it really is spendy once you do the math for those 2 year contracts. For now, I think I'll hold off until I can find out what's in store with the Google phone.Griswold - Thursday, July 17, 2008 - link
There will be no "google phone". You'll just get whatever the various manufacturers do with android and last but not least the telcos feed you - no magic google bullet that will make everything glorious.And yet, there are already dark clouds on the android horizon. Open source they said? Why is it that only a handful developers under NDA get SDK updates and the rest is forced to use outdated, bugged versions?
More about it and a petition can be found here:
http://tinyurl.com/6hn7m7">http://tinyurl.com/6hn7m7
With that in mind, android could face some major delays... big chance for nokia (and their newly founded, open symbian alliance) and apple to steamroll over googles android parade before it really took off.
shortylickens - Thursday, July 17, 2008 - link
With the phone, that is. The article is exactly what I've come to expect from Anand, nothing less.I will admit I am normally an Apple hater. I lady I know at work made her husband get her this as soon as it came out. She was showing it off to everybody on Monday. I admit it was pretty darn sweet and had a ton of useful features. When I went to the AT&T site and saw I could get the 8 gig version for 200 bucks I was astonished.
Of course, AT&T will probably have some way to leech a ridiculous amount of money from me with the service, but the phone itself is great and a really good deal right now.
Bremen7000 - Thursday, July 17, 2008 - link
Maybe the webpage load times are specific to your area? Ars's findings were significantly more in favor of 3G: http://arstechnica.com/reviews/hardware/iphone3g-r...">http://arstechnica.com/reviews/hardware/iphone3g-r...And I agree with the above posters, you should know better than to complain about a specific carrier's reception without heavily qualifying it.
GTaudiophile - Wednesday, July 16, 2008 - link
I refuse to buy one until I can use it (legit) with T-Mobile.Arc 0V - Thursday, July 17, 2008 - link
Same iPhone should be on more carriers than AT&T but oh well. On the other hand I love my Verizon service. I travel a lot with family and friends, and my cousin and a friend have T-Mobile and the other has AT&T, and I can not count how many times I have service when they don't (wow lots of ands). By travel I mean like out of state constantly either driving or flying.imaheadcase - Wednesday, July 16, 2008 - link
Yes 3 articles on Iphone. Sad, pretty sad change of course for the site.When can we expect to see a preview, review, and feature set of the Ford Escort, or Bud Light with Lime? I await with anticipation!