What You Should Know Before Lining Up for the IPhone

Okay, every time I open up Yahoo's technology news, all I see is news about the iPhone. I mean, come on, people, it's just a phone! Okay, I hope Apple lovers don't stalk me and beat me to a pulp but, really, it's not all that. Here are some of the disadvantages of the iPhone.

The name

Most people don't know it but on one of my searches through Google, I found out that the name, iPhone is already used by Linksys on one of their Voice over IP phone. I was surprised, I thought Apple was all about originality. I think there's already a legal battle going on, so don't get too attached to the name.

The Price

Really, a $500 or $600 phone depending on the memory capacity and it's locked to a single network for two years? Come on. I thought one of the purposes of having a paid contract is so you can save on the handset price. There are a lot of other good smart phones out there that are offered at a much lower price. As of this writing, AT&T has already released the price plans for the iPhone and it will range from $59.99 to $99.99 per month. I mean, it's a rip-off. So for two years, your cost for buying the iPhone will amount to almost $2000 excluding the cost when you go overboard on your text or call allocations and the cost when you connect to AT&T's EDGE network.

Third party applications

Sure, Apple has supposedly "opened" the iPhone for developers through the Safari web browser but I mean---jeez, you don't call that applications, it's just a bunch of websites for you to visit. If third-party applications are available only through the browser, doesn't that mean that you always have to be online to make the application work? So that means more data charges for you, another thing to add to the overall price of the iPhone, and even if you could run third party applications offline, there are security issues to be considered. The iPhone is only secure if the Safar web browser is secure. If your computer can be hacked or be infected with a virus through web scripts, doesn't that mean that there's a possibility that some ingenious hacker would come up with a virus script for the iPhone?

The Connection

So it has Wi-Fi, big whoop. America is not a big hotspot, of course you're going to come across dead spots, so what will you do then? Log in to a very slow EDGE connection? In this day and age, 3G is the way to go. And since you're running applications from a web browser, you probably need to be connected all the time.

The battery and memory

Okay, 8GB is a big memory but you have to consider that the way Apple is marketing this thing, it's like it's the next replacement for the iPod. With only 8GB of memory, that's hardly enough to store videos and MP3 for iPod lovers. To top it off, the battery isn't even removable! For heavy users of the iPod, an extra battery is a must.

The Apple iPhone is said to be the messiah of all smart phones---NOT! The way I see it, it's just a regular smart phone with way too much hype surrounding it. Sure, it's pretty and the touch screen is SO cool, but is it really worth $600? Okay, so I've summed up everything I hate about this phone, still thinking about getting in line? If your answer is yes, you're probably one of those die-hard Apple fans and I'll probably be getting hate mail from you, that much is expected. But for those sensible people who are still in doubt about getting the iPhone, I sure hope this article helps.