iPhone Review

So.. After a long time I managed to eek out some time for blogging...
This post is dedicated to my shiny new gadget... Apple iPhone...
Wah... After a loooooooooooong wait of nearly one and a half year, iPhone was finally available in Singapore starting from Oct 22nd 2008.

In this post, I'll try to review every aspect of the Phone, from the phone software to app compatibility to hardware and also try to compare it with competing phones...

First aspect.. the Hardware...
iPhone is not necessarily the best phone in terms of hardware compared to other contemporary phones. The camera is just a 2 mega pixel one compared to the samsung omnia which has a whopping 5 mpx. The phone is thinner than every other phone yet providing a battery life that is better than most phones except blackberries where iPhone falls by a small margin...
Many reviews point out that iPhone has a very poor battery life... But I would like to defend that. Yes, you might have to charge your phone in the mid of the day.. but that is only when you use your iPhone for over 4 or 5 hrs like me :)... I usually browse close to an hour simultaneously listening to iPod while commuting. When I reach office, the battery meter is usually at 75%... It's perfectly fine as nearly every other mobile phones of this class offer around 4 hrs of 3G Internet.
But because the iPhone offers the best mobile Internet experience, I would expect Apple to offer a better battery performance even at the expense of my iPhone becoming a couple of mm thicker.

The graphics chip inside the iPhone is pretty awesome and there isn't any jitter or lost frames while watching movies. So is the processor, a whopping 620 MHz underclocked to 430 or something. The iPhone is pretty close to a Windows 98 machine and no wonder, Quake III arena has been ported to iPhone though available only for jailbroken ones.


iPod
iPhone's iPod app is pretty good. If one has to compare it with the iPod, I would say that the sound quality of iPhone is slightly better at the expense of a little bass. Yeah.. the bass is slightly weaker for soft rock music and pretty awesome of hard rock genre. The user interface of the app has got to be the best in the world as it has become more easier to browse through your collection. But given the 16 gig meagre space, iPhone's UI may not be very useful as users tend to store only around 10 Gig of music(??). I would be happy if Apple launches a hard-drive based iPod touch or an iPhone to make better use of the user interface.

Though the UI is great, it still has some greatly missing features that are present even in the most basic mp3 phones. Yeah you heard me... Playlist creations on iPhone is still missing (except for the on the go playlists which can't even be renamed). the iPod still seems to be a passive app that depends on iTunes to build meta data for it. Synchronize your songs and play it on the go type of interface. The search feature found in the iPod 5.5 Generation is missing in iPhone. I would love to have this feature. This "missing thing", creating data on the iPhone seems to be pervasive throughout the iPhone. For example you can view your pdf attachments but cannot download them to your iPhone for reading it offline. (There is no finder, storage manager or file manager for that instance... more on this later...) Lyrics support is great and I like the overlay of lyrics on the album art. Apple has finally added support for lyrics added in other languages including tamil, though the rendering seems to be incorrect at times.

iPhone as a Phone
As El Jobso explained in his stevenotes, the killer app for a phone is "making calls". As such on the iPhone, its easy to make calls,. But the edge over for the iPhone is that, it makes other in-call operations like viewing your phone book, placing a call on hold, swapping between two calls, checking emails or any such task like that is made easier than every other phone. But I do have one missing feature. There is no clear distinction between outgoing and incoming calls and the call meter does not show how many outgoing minutes i've used. It's probably "Made for America" device where I believe most of the incoming calls are charged at outgoing rates. Another great feature is the grouping of phone numbers as you type it. iPhone uses the regional settings to detect how to group your numbers. For example (65 1234 5678 for Singapore) or (91 44 879765783) for India etc.,

Email on iPhone
The imap email support for gmail seems to be great, but I would prefer Google offers some kind of push email to iPhone. The mail app does not synchronize all the folders which means if you have rules set on the server to move your emails directly to a folder (or label + archive), iPhone will not notify you of a new mail.
Secondly the new mail notification tone is of very low volume and there is no continuous notification if you have not acknowledged the first. To add to it, the new mail notification tone cannot be changed and there isn't even a choice of tones which you can select. However the user interface is elegant and a majority of operations can be done at ease. I just archive my emails using the web interface now. Everything else, I do it on my iPhone.

Internet on iPhone
Though much hype has been around the missing Java/Flash support, you don't find that a great problem as you tend to get a "ad-free" experience without flash. The screen is large and the UI is designed just for casual browsing and it's great. There is however no support for syncing iPhone bookmarks with Firefox or with foxmarks online servers. You can however firefox bookmarks to IE using a variety of plugins available (just Google for it). The app's quality is however not great as it crashes a lot and feels "un-apple". Sometimes while it crashes, it does not even re-open the windows which I was browsing the last time. 3G is great in Singapore and though the advertised limit is 3.6 Mbps, I get around 1.2 Mbps download speed, which is more than enough for browsing on a mobile device.
Singtel offered a generous 1GB @ 3.6 Mbps for my plan though there are plans upto a download limit of 50GB for the same cost at a lower speed (1Mbps). However I use only around 350 MB per month browsing two hours a day over 3G. Because iPhone does not support tethering your device with a laptop i would not rate the Internet on iPhone to be one of the best. Jail broken iPhones however do support tethering. Apple is notoriously not supporting this feature as AT&T's crippled 3G network will be hogged even badly. Still in this field, iPhone seems to be an American device rather than a International device.

Singtel's Network
Singtel's 3G network is quite ubiquitous except for some underground stations and as such I've never experienced call drops neither did my iPhone switches to EDGE while browsing. Because the city is also WI-FI enabled at many MRT stations, iPhone seamlessly switches between 3G and "Wireless@SG" network seamlessly. However, unless you complete your browser authentication, other apps using Internet connection seems to fail. That is if you are sending a mail and iPhone switches to WIFI, you have to close the mail app, open safari, authenticate the wireless access via browser, close browser and open mail again. Or switch off WIFI or forget Wireless@SG network as I do.

Third party app support
The ecosystem around iPhone development seems to be so hot that Stanford is offering iPhone development classes for teaching students on how to write apps for the iPhone!!! The quality of the third party apps seems to be pretty good, kudos to the SDK. Free as well as low cost games are too good. This could basically stem from the fact that Apple blocks out useless apps from the App Store. However, there ain't no fring or skype for iPhone unless you jail break it. Which means you cannot make a skype to skype free voip call with your iPhone though technologically it is possible. Again, Apple is crippling iPhone because AT&T wants to.

What I expect from Apple in the forth coming firmware releases
iPhone still does not have skype or VOIP via 3G. I think this will be available only when Apple divorces AT&T.
iPhone badly needs a file manager. Though there is an app called "AirSharing" and a lot many, I simply cannot integrate it with other iPhone apps. For example it's not possible to store email attachements for later reading.
Bluetooth A2DP - The crippled bluetooth profile needs a great revamp. As of now bluetooth filesharing, printing files through a bluetooth printer etc., are simply impossible. bluetooth serves only for hands free phone calls as of now. You can't share anything over bluetooth. Very bad Apple, very bad...
iPhone still does not have a "copy/paste" functionality. you cannot simply copy text from safari and email it. This is a must have feature for a smart phone.
iPhone still does not have mobile TV support. Even an app will suffice, but unfortunately there ain't one.
More features in the iPod app including playlist creation, sorting the list of songs by any column right on the iPhone and such are missing. Custom equalizer is also missing in the iPhone.
iPhone tethering is badly needed atleast for countries like Hongkong and Singapore where Singtel offers around 50GB monthly data limit and nearly 100,000 iPhone owners (in a country with 4.5 million population).
A larger storage could be a "nice to have" feature.

Hope the review was interesting. Leave your comments...

--
Mugunth

Review on Windows Vista -- Part II

As some of you might remember, I wrote a review on Windows Vista when I purchased by new Dell Laptop. Should be around 9 months back and it is here. With 9 months of hardship, with this beasty operating system (yes Vista is 15GB and XP is 1.5GB), I called Dell support for my legal downgrade rights. Yes!, I own Windows Vista Business, and this is what the customer support agent told me.

This is an automated email sent from Dell Chat. The following information is a log of your session. Please save the log for your records.
Your session ID for this incident is 84530.
Time Details
04/01/2008 05:38:32PM Session Started with Agent (Jaemi_Jaaffar)
04/01/2008 05:38:32PM Mugunth: "Windows Vista -"
04/01/2008 05:38:40PM Agent (Jaemi_Jaaffar): "Hi Muguth"
04/01/2008 05:38:46PM Agent (Jaemi_Jaaffar): "thank you for contacting dell"
04/01/2008 05:39:19PM Mugunth: "Hi... I just saw this, http://download.microsoft.com/download/d/2/3/d23b9533-169d-4996-b198-7b9d3fe15611/downgrade_chart.doc"
04/01/2008 05:39:24PM Mugunth: "from Microsoft's website..."
04/01/2008 05:39:48PM Mugunth: "that, OEM versions of Windows Vista Business can be downgraded to XP Professional..."
04/01/2008 05:40:18PM Mugunth: "I wanted to know two things... regarding this..."
04/01/2008 05:40:32PM Agent (Jaemi_Jaaffar): "ok"
04/01/2008 05:41:13PM Mugunth: "Is it possible to re-convert that XP to Vista at a later stage... (say when drivers are available)..? and will my current copy of Office 2007 (activated under vista) work on XP?"
04/01/2008 05:43:43PM Agent (Jaemi_Jaaffar): "Mugunth let me check 1 moment"
04/01/2008 05:44:04PM Mugunth: "ok..."
04/01/2008 05:50:39PM Agent (Jaemi_Jaaffar): "Muguth, ive check"
04/01/2008 05:50:48PM Agent (Jaemi_Jaaffar): "the 2007 can run under XP"
04/01/2008 05:51:05PM Agent (Jaemi_Jaaffar): "however for your system 1420 is build for Vista"
04/01/2008 05:51:11PM Mugunth: "Yes.."
04/01/2008 05:51:22PM Mugunth: "but drivers for nVidia is not working well..."
04/01/2008 05:51:25PM Agent (Jaemi_Jaaffar): "the driver for the CXP will not be availbe completely"
04/01/2008 05:51:35PM Mugunth: "CXP means?"
04/01/2008 05:51:39PM Mugunth: "XP?"
04/01/2008 05:51:57PM Agent (Jaemi_Jaaffar): "yes XP"
04/01/2008 05:52:09PM Mugunth: "which all drivers are not available?"
04/01/2008 05:53:28PM Agent (Jaemi_Jaaffar): "The Motherboard controller"
04/01/2008 05:53:42PM Agent (Jaemi_Jaaffar): "the dell notebook system software"
04/01/2008 05:55:22PM Mugunth: "wont the drivers for vostro 1400 work on this?"
04/01/2008 05:56:50PM Agent (Jaemi_Jaaffar): "it will but the vostro is not 100% similar to the inspiron in term of the system board"
04/01/2008 05:57:18PM Agent (Jaemi_Jaaffar): "it will work as already being use by many system"
04/01/2008 05:57:26PM Agent (Jaemi_Jaaffar): "but with the reservation"
04/01/2008 05:58:20PM Session Ended
If you require further assistance, please visit us at support.ap.dell.com


Firstly, I was offed, by the sudden disconnection by the agent. Secondly, though Microsoft offeres legal downgrade rights, the OEM builders do not. Though they say we are selling Windows XP even after June 30 or whatever stupid date, these idiots are selling XP only on low end PCs.

The next most important point is that, support for the operating system is not available through Microsoft for OEM copies of Vista. They replied me that, for OEM copies, please contact your PC manufacturer. The OEM manufacturer told me that, I did not purchase operating system support and hence, I've to resort to forums and newsgroups for getting support. If I've to resort to forums, why the hell should I spend so much money on this stupid PC? A mac comes with hardware and software support for slightly higher price. The higher price is warranted by the high quality software. This windows box I got came with a useless laptop integrated webcam driver that does displays a picture in picture of the same frame and will not allow me to turn it off unless I buy the "pro" version. Contrastingly iChat is a great app that allows a variety of customizations and backdrops, ppt/pdf sharing like a video conference and so on... Same goes with nVidia driver. It knows nothing but to crash. I naively thought that BSODs were a "feature" of Windows 95/98. With Vista, Microsoft introduced this "cool" feature yet again. My XP machine never BSODed. However vista is not as stable and it's primarily because of the faulty nVidia driver.

Here are some screen shots of the driver problem.

"The display driver nvlddmkm stopped unexpectedly and has recovered". What the hell is expected out of the end-user? Bang your heads on the keyboard and restart?

Click on the picture to view it large, you could see pixellated images of my desktop. the pixellated desktop dissolves like the powerpoint's dissolve animation... Cool feature... lol... ;-)



Hey, comeon, where is my wallpaper? And why should this driver crash when I play Quake III deathmatch??? Ok, I don't expect my PC to be rock solid and allow me to play Crysis or BioShock. But I should be able to play atleast Quake III Arena, a decade old, yet popular game.

This display driver problem is augmented by the new Desktop Composition Engine. Previous versions of Windows, if I understand correctly, used GDI to render the desktop. Windows Vista uses Direct 3D which in-turn taxes the graphics processor and the driver heavily. This nVidia driver is not able to support that intensive graphics which is why the rate of crash is higher in Vista. May be in Windows XP, if the display driver is very badly written, only games crash. Here, the WDM, the desktop composition engine crashes and makes life miserable.

I also posted a video on youtube on how badly a desktop can look with such a poorly written driver.
Here it is...



Probably, I'll switch to a mac after Mac OS X 10.6 is released if it's announced in WWDC 2008 or else by July. Sick with vista in 6 months... :-(

My next phone would be a Motorola...

I've been using a mobile phone for the past four years, of which my first one, the Samsung R 220, which costed me a hell lot of money in 2003, died of in 1.5 years... I was quite displeased, though I got a new Sony Ericsson K 500i, which was kind of the first phone with mp3 ringtone during its time...
Pretty happy... But, unfortunately, after about 10 months, the joystick started giving some problems...
I went to a Sony ericsson authorized service center, and asked them to replace it free of cost. But they were very adamant. They told, 10 months is close to 1 year.. and so your expiry date is nearly over. We can't service it free. Moreover, if we take your phone now you will get it only after 1.5 months if you want to avail warranty as the mobile has to be shipped to main office or some nonsense...
So I paid some hefty 900 Rs for replacing my joystick, which failed in another 3-4 months. Meanwhile, I replaced my battery once... (another 1500 Rs)...
It so happens that mobile phones are manufactured by these companies with planned obsolescence in mind. Somehow or the other, every mobile, (atleast Samsung and Ericsson in my case). After my k500i died, I wanted to try a different brand of phones of which Nokia didn't facinate me much coz they are usually bulky. I went with the Motorola's thin version the L7 in 2005 or something... and within 4 days, I had a battery problem...!
I was furious with Motorola and called them up. As I had a very bad experience with Sony Ericsson's warranty center, I went to the Motorola's service center to pick up a fight or something. But they quitely got my mobile and voila replaced the battery with a new one and asked me to come again if the problem persists. But unfortunately I still had the same problem and I went to their service center (Bangalore MG Road), again. this time they got the phone and replaced the RF Board and now I ended up with a strange problem of calls getting disconnected every 30 seconds. I got sick and went back to the service center and yelled at them, why is it that your company is making all third rate products. They mollified me and told the problem was not with Motorola and it was with the service person's mistake and they completely changed the inner circuitry. From that day, my phone did not give any problem and I'm using it for more than two years till now...

The service center people at Motorola were kind enough to replace every part immediately (not only for me). Another guy whose, charger was not charging got a brand new charger almost immediately. Their service was very good.

Now, one day, I unfortunately washed my mobile in Washing machine along with my wallet and a hell lot of costly items. I thought that's the end of the phone.





But to my surprise, the phone worked!!! Three days in sun and that's it!!! I was just amazed by the quality of the products that Motorola has built into their mobile phones. Is this what Motorola's six sigma is all about??? Even the battery works great and it's amazing... 15 minutes in washing machine and still working...!
The L7 also looks just cool... razor thin and kind of beautiful piece of engineering... not only outside but also inside... Batteries are also excellent and I've not changed the battery so far...
But yes, Motorola phones user interface sucks and i think that's probably the main reason why people don't buy it.
typing a sms into this L7 is a nightmare...
I wonder why Motorola is not investing a seperate Human Computer Interaction group to analyze the issue with their current mobile phones...
But anyway, when this phone dies off, I'll probably get this cool Motorola E6 one...

If you have/had any experiences with Motorola L7 please comment here...

Mugunth


(PS: I'm in no way associated with Motorola.. This blog could be taken as a happy customers' feedback..)