3G iPhone: The Pros and Cons

The iPhone has been one of the greatest technological advances in phone and Internet technology to date, or at least the most popular. Not only does it allow the users to check email, surf the web, and add applications via the phone to its own hard drive, it also allows for easy to follow texting formats and voicemail options. These advances in technology are definitely impressive and revolutionary for our culture as well as the future of technology, and consumer-driven America is definitely eager to try it out. The first introduction of the iPhone to America saw astronomical results to every AT&T store around the nation. Thousands and thousands of people all across the country waited in line, and re-visited the stores in anticipation of their brand new iPhone. Then with its newest release of the 3G iPhone boasting faster internet and application downloading, bug fixes, and better battery power a new wave of previously unconvinced users converted and finally bought the new 3G iPhone. One of them happens to be me.

I received my brand new iPhone 3G as a birthday present, and was definitely excited to try it out. I had previously owned the standard Cingular cell phone when it all first came out, then I upgraded to the Sony Ericson T637, and finally got the pink L7 Slvr and thought I moved up in the world. I've never been one to jump on the technology bandwagon, but have instead sat back and researched new products via friends evaluations, and sometimes I read a little about the product on various websites. The iPhone fascinated me, and so I read up about as much as I could about problems and bug fixes, and even had friends that had "hacked" their iPhones to introduce non-apple brand applications and desktop backgrounds onto their phones. However, with some rumors circulating about "hacked" iPhones being rendered useless after fraudulent software was found during a routine upgrade, I felt the best idea would be to play by the rules and wait for a newer version with more features to come into stores.

So finally this year when news of the release of the 3G, the better faster version, hitting the market I knew my time had come! Then when I was surprised at my birthday with the gift of the new phone, I was definitely excited. However, every brand new item coming out to the market has its flaws, and its missing capabilities. I have compounded a list of things I think that would make the iPhone a much better product, but maybe a more pricier phone. Here are the things I have noticed and wanted in my own iPhone:

1. Video recording
When I had my L7 Slvr, I had the capability to record a 30second video and save to my 1gig card I bought when I bought the phone. If I selected a poorer quality video it would record for longer, but I always chose the higher memory option for recording. This was very useful and made my daily life fun and interesting, because I could play back messages and videos my friends had sent me, and also send them some as well. It helped me record and enjoy experiences that were beforehand impossible to do in such a compact and quick manner. Ah how I miss it!

2. Texting pictures
With the L7 Slvr I enjoyed many baby pictures, funny signs, and shared moments via the send picture through text application. It was the quickest and easiest way to communicate the size or color of something rather than going on my own personal opinion. If there was a question if something would fit somewhere, or what kind of style it was, I could always just send a picture to the recipient and decide for themselves. The downfall of the iPhone is the forced sending pictures through email. I was really saddened when I found out this option was not available for my phone to send pictures in a text to other multimedia phones. Some of my friends don't use their e-mail, or have a computer on hand wherever they go to check their email, but almost all of my friend carry their phones, and pretty much all of them can receive pictures. Sending pictures through texts is a much more convenient way to communicate in the working world rather than over email when a computer isn't necessarily available for emails all the time. If someone wants to send me a picture I have to log onto a website, remembering my password and username given to me by the link I click on in the text, and then log all that in to a website that may or may not upload properly. This is one of the biggest issues I have with the iPhone since it's a seriously convenient option that seems to have gone overlooked.

3. Complete dependence on a computer for upgrades.
The other day my phone would let me call out, ring twice, then hang up. I had no idea what was going on since my bill wasn't late, so I figured it must need some software upgrade or something. Not only did the computer NOT upgrade my software, but it had to completely restore the phone for some various reason and erased all my contacts. Other phones didn't need software upgrades, and kept all contacts on a neat little SIM card that I could easily download them from.

4. No easy way to add contacts
For all these "how too" guides and easy step-by-step instructions, I could not, for the life of me, figure out how to transfer the contacts from my L7 Slvr to the computer, then to a program that iTunes would recognize. None of the programs I found would work consistently with iTunes or with a program I could transfer to one that worked with iTunes, and even after contacting their manufacturer, I still didn't receive any helpful information. As a result, I've just been lazy and only added the contacts of people that called me.

5. No easy way to delete all contacts
In the process of attempting to add all these contacts to the iPhone, I accidentally loaded my gmail email addresses of everyone I'd ever emailed before. This was completely useless seeing as the need for phone numbers on a phone is a more reasonable choice. So in my efforts to delete all these emails that were listed as contacts with no phone numbers, I had to go online. I found out that you have to plug in your iphone to the computer and wait for iTunes to come up. Then once iTunes has come up you have to go all the way to the advanced tab, and check the option that says something like 'only download these contacts' and select a menu that you have blank. That's the only way to mass delete the stored contacts that I have found other than completely resetting the phone.

6. Having to go through iTunes
From my limited experience with the iPhone, its becoming more and more obvious that you have to go through iTunes to do anything with it. I think the apple company was aiming for simplicity with only having one program for this product to work effectively, but really this monopoly on its software could seem more like a hindrance rather than a convenience. With iTunes many long upgrades and quick times annoying accompanying upgrades, sometimes there's a waiting period to upgrade the iPhone's own technology while waiting for iTunes itself to upgrade.

7. Low volume
The iphone, much like the ipod, also has a less than stellar volume capability. With most cellular phones though, its going to be hard to get a phone with loud enough sound to reduce the background noise. This volume issue is just something that's been plaguing the apple products for a while now which are easily remedied with certain speakers when playing music, but not so easily remedied when wanting to make a phone call. The volume isn't too low to even hear a call, but having the option of being too loud is always a plus rather than the limitation of the low volume.

8. Poor battery life
Most cellular phones have sucky batteries, but for a local small business owner battery life is important. As with any phone someone uses all day to run a business, the battery is eventually going to run down, but some say the iPhone must be charged every day if it is to be used constantly in a business setting, in which it is otherwise very efficient. For day to day use, or heavy internet usage, the phone battery seems adequate. We'll never get the week long battery we've all been hoping for I bet.

9. Limited accessories for headphones and attachments
The other issue with the iPhone is its limited attachments and carrying cases. Due to its larger size, and with it more capabilities, there seems to be a lack of market for materials that would make it easier to carry the headphones, and phone charging accessories. So far there is a very limited supply of actual iPhone targeted carrying cases which you can only get in AT&T stores or off of amazon, and you're lucky to find one that can reasonably carry everything that isn't a purse anyway.

10. No mass texting options
I know this sounds like I'm being nit-picky, but really on holidays and nights where you want to find out where everyone is, a mass texting option would be really useful. In other phones I could write the message first, then send it to multiple people by selecting their names in the contacts list. With the iPhone you have the name of the person you click, then it shows you a message history in chat bubbles, which your color is green and the responding person is white. There is also no way to copy and paste a text to another contact that I have discovered so far for all you forwarding friends out there.

PROS

Even though it seems like they missed out on a lot of convenient fun options for the phone, there are plenty of ways the apple people made up for it. Even with its lack of options for multimedia messages, it has more than enough boredom killing applications. As I see it more people need to start using their email addresses anyway!

1. The camera
The camera on this phone has amazing quickness, and most of the time the pictures come out crisp. The only time they're blurry is if you move after you click the shutter button while you're holding it, not as you're clicking it like most digital cameras. The picture storage and easy browsing of the pictures is also very convenient. With the screen being so detailed, even the minimized pictures are easily discernible.

2. Text message storage
Its so convenient to have text messages stored with their replies under the persons name. More often than not, I'd want to go back and see what I'd replied to someone, and with other phones that would be really difficult if I didn't know exactly when I had replied. With the iPhone, you can just browse up and down using the scroll all through all the texts you have sent that person. It leaves out all the guesswork, and with the gigs of storage on the phone, deleting messages for space isn't something you'll ever have to worry about.

3. The space
This phone has SO much space for music, numbers, text, and voicemails! You wouldn't have to delete very much at all for space, and it has almost endless storage capabilities for things like text. It has enough storage space for a sizeable amount of music, and can even hold a movie in the right format supported by itunes. It really creates an ease of experience knowing nothing would really ever need to be deleted for space.

4. The voicemail structure
When you get a voicemail with the iPhone, it's easiest to call your number and set up your voicemail that way, then you'll see the voicemail button show up when you hit the phone button on the main screen. I can't tell you how many times I've wanted to skip over a voicemail to get to a more important one, and now that option is finally available! You can pick and choose which voicemail you want to hear, and which ones you want to delete without having to go through any of them if you don't want to! You just touch the number, and hit play. Rewinding is as easy as pushing your finger back up the progress bar of the playing voicemail! The call back and delete buttons stay at the bottom of the screen while listening, so those options are always available.

5. The applications
The applications you can add to your phone are so numerous and creative! You can play tetris, pop bubbles, drink a virtual ibeer, race cars, peg jump, check face book, check myspace, and do any number of things. Its truly an adventure in imagination when you scroll even the top 50 free applications!

6. The touch screen
The touch screen is one of the most convenient of the improvements the iPhone innovated. With the keypad underneath the phone button, and the phone normally on key lock after several seconds of inactivity, accidental calls and text messages are easily avoided. Texting with the keypad at the bottom of the screen, along with the predictive monitor, makes texting phenomenally more easy than it has ever been on any other phone. No more mixed up words like 'hate' when you mean 'have' while using predictive text on other phones, this is easily managed with iPhone's predictive text. Just hit the space bar, and the word that pops up above your misspelled word is almost always the one you're looking for! Scrolling through pictures, internet, and text messages is completely a breeze with just the swipe of a finger. Almost any user can adjust to the iPhone's touch screen very quickly, and it provides an amazing amount of convenience that's hardly realized unless one reverts back to old phones. The integration of this technology into your daily life is seamless, and any phone or internet activity lies conveniently at your fingertips.

7. THE INTERNET
Of course the most amazing of the innovations, and entire reason for most people purchasing the iPhone are its internet capabilities. In some cases its faster than most laptops with its 3g technology. It can also use public wifi connections for browsing the internet. Never have I faced a dull moment with this phone! The Internet is constantly available for killing boredom, and also for those random trivia moments where an argument would normally spark a venture to a computer to 'Google it'. Now with the iPhone, those petty arguments are settled much faster. There's a weather icon that lets you set cities and get the weekly forecast, and with the weather bug application you can even see local radar, and get storm warnings when logging on to your local news stations websites. There's even a Maps option to find the best route anywhere that you need to go. The possibilities are endless!

So overall I'd say that the pro's definitely outweigh the con's, and the availability of the internet combined with the convenience of the touch screen technology makes the phone completely worth it. The voicemail options and the format of the text storage were the icing on the cake in the bargaining points of whether to give up my video and picture texting options. Having all my texts in order, and the picture storage just one scroll away, is utterly worth the now lower $200.00 price with a 2 year contract!