Anand Reviews the Apple iPhone 3G
by Anand Lal Shimpi on July 16, 2008 8:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Mobile
Clutter Awaits!
The iPhone doesn’t support third-party background tasks, and as I applauded in the original review, its whole goal is to kick applications and data out of memory as quickly as possible to maintain the fastest interface possible. This approach is partly necessary to ensure that the iPhone can appear to be faster than other smartphones built on similar hardware, but it also makes sure the phone can scale with the number of applications you have installed.
Theoretically, it shouldn’t matter if you have zero or forty applications installed, performance should remain identical since all they do is take up space on the iPhone’s writable flash yet don’t remain resident in memory. I didn’t notice any performance degradation as I kept adding applications to the iPhone 3G, but admittedly I could only find around 21 that I wanted to have installed.
You can now have multiple home screen pages, you swipe to view additional pages. My second homepage is just App Store applications.
But even with only 21 applications installed, the iPhone’s home interface quickly becomes cluttered. You quickly have to reorganize the iPhone’s home screen to optimize for frequently used first and third party applications.
The original iPhone’s interface worked because it was so simple, something many considered a detriment given that the iPhone lacked basic smartphone or cellphone features. My thinking was that Apple honed in on the top 10 features that it wanted to get right and focused on perfecting those, which it absolutely did with the original iPhone. The problem is that with the 2.0 firmware and the app store, the iPhone takes a dangerous step towards becoming more like Windows Mobile. The balance between program functionality and UI was tilted far in favor of UI with the first iPhone, but with multiple screens of applications and very little connecting them together, the tides are beginning to turn.
By no means am I taking issue with the app store, it’s clearly an important part of Apple’s strategy and as you’ll soon see, there are a number of applications that will actually help make this phone even better. The problem becomes what happens when you’ve got so many applications that you use on a regular basis that navigating between them all becomes an issue?
Apple helped addressed this on the desktop through the use of the Dashboard in OS X 10.4. The Dashboard provided one simple interface for things like notes, weather, stocks, the calculator and more, unfortunately porting that to the iPhone wouldn’t really work given that you’re constrained by screen size. The concept however, I believe, is similar to what Apple may need to do going forward.
When all of the applications you needed to run fit on a single home screen, things were fine. Once that number grows significantly, we start to straddle the line between feature-packed and cumbersome. Apple’s iPhone interface is far from the mess that is Windows Mobile, but it’s headed in that direction. I do hope, for Apple’s sake, that the next iPhone update actually encompasses more than some minor hardware/physical changes.
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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.