Less than one month ago, a 16GB iPhone was sent to me for development purposes. We have some clients interested in porting their web applications to iPhone devices so I needed the Apple device to test applications.
After one month testing I can say that I'm totally disappointed with the iPhone as mobile device and today I've turned back to my Nokia N95.
First I thought it was only a matter of time. I believed that, as usual, when you buy a new device you need time to take confidence with the new tools, features and shortcuts.
But I was wrong.
These are some of the most important bad things about iPhone that made me switch back to Nokia N95:
1. Low Battery Duration: a mobile phone can't last 4 hours. And the time could be a lot less if you browse internet, watch YouTube videos, using the GPS mapping system, launch applications, listening music . Everything on the iPhone is battery-intensive and can drastically reduce the battery usage. I can't recharge my phone 4 times per day. It's absurd ! My N95's battery last all day long (watching videos, navigating, using the GPS ...)
2. Poor camera quality: the quality of the camera is very low (2 MegaPixels). You can't print (with a decent quality) an image taken with 2MP camera. Nokia N95 has 5MP camera.
3. No flash and no zoom: when I discovered this I went crazy. iPhone camera DOES NOT have flash and zoom. Is useful a digital camera without the flash and zoom features ? Not at all. Th Nokia N95 has a 5MP camera that means having a real digital camera device with you !
4. No video: iPhone can't make videos. It's fun because iPhone gives you the ability to watch videos on the web via YouTube but the camera can't take a video. I travel a lot for conferences and I often need to shoot video quickly. The Nokia N95 makes great videos.
5. No MMS: Multimedia messages are very popular in Italy. They're fun and useful. iPhone can't send MMS messages.
6. Bad autocomplete features: This is one of the worst feature that makes me very unhappy. When you write text messages iPhone tries to help you autocompleting text. 95% percent the system is wrong. Then if you don't click on the popup with the suggested text it will overwrite your word. It should work in the opposite way letting me choose whether accepting the suggestion or not. The Nokia's T9 system is very powerful and useful. I can write a complete message while driving without watching at the mobile screen (it's impossible to do that with iPhone)
7. No video conference call: I'm not a fan of video calls but they can be useful when you want to see your girlfriend when you're out for business for a long time. iPhone does not support video calls.
8. no FlashLite plugin for browser: I'm honest. With the ecosystem of applications available for the iPhone you won't miss Flash Lite standalone player. But what it's missing is the Flash player browser plugin. I think that the iPhone is a great Internet device. But it's a great limit for an Internet device not to show flash contents. Nokia N95 has Flash Lite player embedded.
9. No Expansion slot: 8 or 16GB can't be enough, especially if you start installing many applications, copying videos and music. iPhone does not have any expansion slot. Nokia N95 supports microSD cards !
10. Cut and Paste: no needs to explain this feature. You can't cut/copy and paste anything !
UPDATE: 11. Modem usage: this is something I forgot to mention but it's crucial for a mobile device. iPhone device can't be used as a modem connecting it to a laptop via USB. The Nokia N95 once connected through USB to a laptop can connect to Internet working as a modem.
iPhone is a trendy device. It's cool, user friendly, with a a fabolous screen (for size and quality) and it's one of the best Internet device I've tested so far. But it's not a mobile phone.
Ciao Marco,
I completely agree with you!
just some addtions:
11. no multiple recipients for SMS: how I will do on next new year's day?? ;-)
12. Problems with web forms (i.e. no wordpress posting)! :(
13. (IMHO) few phisical buttons... no i'm not joking... button are very important in some cases... i.e. (case A) for gaming: it's really difficult/frustrating play games with buttons on the screen. (case B): unsing the phone without seeing the screen --> can you open/refuse an incoming call without seeing the screen? I cannot ... (case C): difficult writing sms in movement.
Now I'm awaiting for Nokia 5800 Xpress Music... some days ago it was on the nokia.es shop for just EUR 279.00; now searching for the same article, the nokia.es shop returns 0 items: I hope that price was not wrong, 50% less than other touch phones...
Posted by: Gianluca Panebianco | October 14, 2008 at 06:42 PM
Well, most of the complains you mentioned are about its capture functionalities. Since I always bring a digital camera, when I go in places where I might need to take pictures I totally don't see any problem with that. For the battery I agree, it is for people that stays most of the time in front of a computer or at home (like me). For the copyAndPaste and multiple sends, these are very incredible lacks but are so evident that will be definitely sorted very soon.
Posted by: christian | October 14, 2008 at 07:01 PM
Hi Marco, look at this funny PDF (I don't know if there's an english version too):
http://lacomunicazione.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/diamond_vs_iphone1.pdf
Posted by: Mauro | October 15, 2008 at 08:48 AM
Check this comparison: http://tinyurl.com/4t6h6n
Posted by: Rostislav | October 15, 2008 at 04:04 PM
>
Thank god I don't drive in Italy!
Posted by: adrian | October 15, 2008 at 11:03 PM
Apple needs to fix the terrible MMS experience on the iPhone. I try to make the case here: http://blog.mcmanus-family.com/2008/09/the-case-for-mms-on-the-iphone.html
Posted by: Drew McManus | October 17, 2008 at 01:43 AM
Marco prova l'E71 è una bomba!
Posted by: Luigi | October 25, 2008 at 03:41 AM