Saying negative things about Apple products on a blog is always a risky business but what the hell, its always worth a good discussion so I’m going to give you my ‘first hands on’ thoughts on the iPhone. Specifically, I’m going to ignore the phone and media component and just talk about the browser. There’s a couple of video’s below too, that show my first ever hands-on and a speed-test scenario with a UMPC.
To start with, let me say that the iPhone is probably the best consumer mobile Internet device out there right now. It combines video, audio, Internet, connectivity and, very importantly, style and sexiness, in a way that no-one has done before. Its an advanced, slick, fun media player, phone and WWW viewer but its not a window on the full Internet experience (FIE). Its just right for today’s consumers because most of them have never seen Internet on a mobile device before and if they have, its probably the small-screen WAP or simple smartphone or feature-phone browsing experience. There isn’t really a challenger to the iPhone either. I dare say that less that 0.1 of 1% of the phone customers will have heard of the N800 or of UMPCs.
For me though (and this is where I get subjective) its a web browser only. Its for ‘viewing, not doing’ and supports little of the advanced interactivity that is a core part of the ‘web’ and very important for me. It doesn’t support other Internet protocols (FTP, SSH, P2P, VoIP, VPNs for example) that make up the real Internet either. This might not be important for ‘consumers’ but I’ve been using the Internet since before browsers existed and I’m close to the point where all my work and play activities are done through a browser. That’s not just consuming the Internet, that’s full the full Internet experience!
Bearing in mind that I’m an advanced Internet user then, here are a few observations from my first 30 minutes with the phone. Feel free to correct them, add to them or put your own point forward because I’d love to hear it.
- Locked filesystem. I couldn’t even save an image. I couldn’t Bluetooth and image. I couldn’t connect via USB and transfer an image. This is a new definition of walled-garden!
- Its slow. Really slow. Its got that 9-second penalty that I talked about previously.(See article and speed-test stats here.)
- Zooming in and out with fingers is tiresome and inefficient. The screen size is simply too small for reading text of a full-sized web page and zooming is just a time-consuming workaround.
- Keyboard input is again, slow but its one of the best on-screen keyboards I’ve tried.
- Cut and paste. Forget it.
- Having to go to alternative app’s for some parts of the Internet. (maps, YouTube) slows down the experience (but improves it in some respects admittedly)
- No built in FTP support. (the same goes for other Internet protocols)
- No server-side services (bookmark syncing for example)
- No plug-ins.
- No flash.
- The instant-on feature is nice but only gives an advantage for the first page of browsing. After that, a PC running at 600Mhz was way way faster.
There aren’t many people that have used a true handheld PC so not many people will realize that there’s a true handheld Internet experience out there but It will reach consumers eventually – probably in 2008 if Nokia’s progress is anything to go by. Until then, the iPhone is the best consumer Internet device there is. Even if you took the voice call component away, it would still be the best mobile Internet device there is. I think…..because literally 2 minutes ago (and i’m not joking here) a Nokia N810 was delivered… Stay tuned for more on this subject!
well that explains the FIE somewhat :P
while you have tried to define that to me and others before, i think its the first time you talk about other protocols within that definition.
if thats your definition of the FIE, its a moving target, and will be forever linked to the windows environment as long as it has the majority share of computers in this world (as you will always want to bring a service or idea into the environment where you can hit the most users).
No. I’m just trying to highlight how far away the iphone is from the ‘real internet’ I don’t expect these protocols to be covered in the definition of ‘full internet experience’ when related to a mid or consumer internet devices. I would expect them to be covered for a pro device like a UMPC though.
Steve
Steve, good to hear some thoughts on the iPhone. Unfortunately, I don’t think the vast majority of mainstream or consumers wouldn’t agree on your definition of the “full internet”. SSH and FTP? If you ask 100 random consumers (the target audience for the device you’re reviewing) I’m willing to bet that over 90% wouldn’t have a clue what you mean and therefore aren’t missing the “full internet” on the the device as you’ve defined it. If we want to expand the UMPC and MID market, I’m not sure a changing definition with all of the requirements that you look for are the way to go. Mainstream features done well are want brings the mainstream audience to a market in my opinion.
One other observation / opinion: a double-tap on content in Safari automatically resizes the text to fit in the full screen of the device. It’s effective, intuitive and immediate. I noticed you didn’t mention that when you commented negatively on browser zooming. Something you missed when using it? If so, give it a try. It may not meet your needs, but it gives you another option and is worth a mention.
Yup. Totally agree. FTP SSh are not part of the full internet experience. Especially for consumer devices.
As I just said above:
I’m just trying to highlight how far away the iphone is from the ‘real internet’ I don’t expect these protocols to be covered in the definition of ‘full internet experience’ when related to a mid or consumer internet devices. I would expect them to be covered for a pro device like a UMPC though.
Steve
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