Personally, I am taking a wait and see approach to the iPhone right now. I know I want one, I just don’t know if I want one badly enough to be able to get past the compromises in the first release (no choice of carrier, no 3rd party apps, retrograde mobile data network). My opinion may change, which is why I’m interested in other people’s reactions.
My friend Jeff posted a short but enthusiastic review over on his private live journal before he even left the Apple store.
- The out of box experience was pretty much enough to get Scoble to declare that it “lives up to every bit of hype” But he himself has also been taking a wait an see attitude. His son and wife have iPhones, but he’s waiting to see if he wants to unload his Nokia N95 for one. So far, the pleasure of using the iPhone seems to overcome the fact of it’s limitations vs his Nokia N95.
- Scoble’s friend, Dave Weiner also has a review. Dave is old and crotchety (in a mostly good way), and so he is not so easily seduced by the sexy young thing he’s got his hands on. As a music player, it doesn’t work like his old iPods. He finds the default font choice (or zoom factor) in the web browser to be nearly unusable for most websites. I think this last one is a tough one. It sounds like he had no idea about the multitouch interface, and isn’t enthusiastic to learn about it.
- Thomas Hawk’s first big post on the subject is about the experience of waiting to buy an iPhone, rather than the device itself (not an uncommon theme).
- Moving further afield. Someone points out that only 7% of facebook users polled indicate they plan to buy an iPhone. More later on not reading too much bad news into this statistic.
- Back to the blogging mainstream. John Gruber on Daring Fireball shares his first impressions. He’s 95% enthused, 5% maddened. Most interesting to me, his frustration with text editing in the e-mail app, and the keyboard layout putting the backspace key in a weird place.
That’s it for now. I need to run and it’s going to take more time to dig up some less mainstream takes.
The comments on Matt’s Mullenweg’s blog entry about his frustration with AT&T being slow to activate his iPhone contain another glaring AT&T screwup:
When I purchased the phone AT&T knew I had a Business account, yet had not a clue that the phone would only work as part of a consumer account. What a joke!
Don McAskill complained about this a few days ago, but an AT&T customer buying an iPhone from an AT&T store shouldn’t have to rely on a blog to know this is an issue.
There is some clear skepticism going around about the rumor that Apple will be annoucing plans for the European iPod release this Monday. For example:
Even if, as they state, the phone wouldn’t be available in Europe until January 2008, it’d be suicide for Apple to make such an announcement. American iPhone sales would immediately drop dead.3G Euro iPhone Announcement Monday? No Bloody Way! « Mike Cane’s Blog
I share his skepticism, but not to the same degree. The iPhone is certainly popular amongst geeks who will devour every bit of news about it, but clearly, with the press coverage it’s received in the US, the market appeal is much broader. Most of those people aren’t going to give a half a damn about what Apple does in Europe.
For another thing, the people who are buying the first release of the iPhone are people who don’t want to wait 6 months or more for the next version.
A Eurpoean announcement of a more capable and flexible phone could create some ill will in the US, and might depress sales somewhat, but it won’t kill them. By announcing soon in Europe, Apple can build on the buzz from cross-Atlantic news reporting.
As I mentioned before, iFixit.com has documented their successful iPhone Disassembly.
I was suprised to learn that it does in fact have a SIM card, so my previous information was wrong. Hopefully this means that you’ll be able to use your iPhone on another use GSM provider like T-mobile (provided there are other US EDGE providers). I can’t see any justification for keeping the iPhone locked since it isn’t carrier subsidized, other than compatibility issues (visual voicemail, etc)
Matt Mullenweg posts about his disappointment with the iPhone so far. He can’t use it, because AT&T hasn’t activated it yet.
it’s been hours now and still no activation, which means I have a very expensive paperweight, which is worse than not having it at all.
Photo Matt » iPhone Disappointment
Even worse, he’s an existing AT&T customer. Nice of them to take care of him so well.
