iPhone just not for me

by John at myITforum.com

Well, after 4 days of attempting to use the new Apple iPhone, I have to throw in the towel and state the iPhone is just not for me. Why? I have several reasons, but below is what I've gathered after using it as my primary device:

* After 4 days of trying, including multiple hard resets and reinstall of iTunes, I have not been able to successfully sync anything but my Outlook contacts. No mail or calendars. I'm trying to do this with my Windows Vista/Outlook 2007 laptop, which is clearly indicated as being supported. Very frustrating. I've checked the Apple forums and there are a lot of users that can't sync their calendars and no one is posting solutions.

* The iPhone will not sync my Outlook Notes or Outlook Tasks at all. Notes are on the device, but they are not compatible with Outlook, that is, notes on the iPhone will not sync with Outlook notes. How confusing is that? There is no task application. Who makes a mobile device these days as a PIM and doesn't do tasks? Someone who has nothing to do? I can't function without Notes and Tasks.

* Nothing on Exchange is OTA right now. I've used OTA for everything for months and months. I just can't go back to cable sync. I just can't. And despite what the marketing hype may tell you, POP3, including Yahoo, just isn't push. If I can't be completely mobile and function, it's not for me. I can't go without realtime access to my data. Again, I just can't.

* Since loading iTunes, Outlook has crashed 4 or 5 times a day. I uninstalled iTunes today, and removed the Outlook add-in, and Outlook has resumed functioning without crashing.

* On-screen keyboard is a mess. I gave up after a day of trying to type. I don't have fat fingers either. I spent way too much time backspacing over keys inadvertently entered. The predictive text is not predictive at all, at least for me.

* No scroll wheels, no navigation buttons at all, navigation and phone operation completely touch screen. Only buttons on the outside of the phone are the "home" screen button for lack of a better term, a power button, and some volume adjusters that don't adjust much. Everything else is touch screen. No stylus.

* Activation process was very painful. You can't do anything at all with the phone until its registered except make emergency calls. Can't transfer ownership either once it's registered.

* Internet access is extremely slow. I got tired of waiting for the maps to load after about 5 minutes. What the heck did they do with Google maps? I use Google maps all the time on my test Blackberry and my Windows Mobile device. Whatever they did slowed down the rendering considerably.

* Front piece on the phone is glass. After a couple of hours of use, smudges all over it. It comes with a glass cleaner that helps, but it looked pretty nasty. Haven't used it much as a phone but the glass holds the oils from the skin.

* I can't install any applications. After years and years of being a PDA owner, I have my favorite apps I have to have. Being restricted to what I can put on the phone will just not work for me.

* I already have a combination phone/music player. My 8525 does stereo bluetooth through Windows Media player and plays my music (and YouTube) just fine. I don't need a $500-$600 iPod/phone for that.

* The Safari browser is nice, but the auto rotating between portrait and landscape is VERY frustrating. You move the device at all and it thinks you want landscape and just auto turns.

* Most of the functionality I use most often can be done one-handed. The iPhone is NOT a one-handed device. You have to hold the iPhone with one hand and use two fingers to pinch or expand the screen. While this may be "innovative", I don't want to use two hands to do things like zoom and shrink.

* The EDGE network is just plain slow. I've been using 3G devices for several months, and waiting for pages to render just isn't acceptable to me. Sorry.

* I only used the iPhone twice as a phone. It just didn't cut it. There is no smart dialer, and I either heard the echo myself or the person on the other end said they were hearing an echo. The Treo did this originally and AT&T had to make some adjustments. This will probably be fixed but it echoed bad in two different cities.

* None of my headphone accessories worked with the iPhone. The jacks don't fit. Why would they do that? I was tempted to go back to the store and by an adapter, but realized that I was going to box this thing up and pass it along to the next tester, so I'm not going to bother.

I'm a mobile user, and have been for several years. It's just not for me. If I had bought this with my money, I'd certainly be taking advantage of the 14 day (typical policy is 30 days by the way...now why would they shrink this to 14 days on the iPhone???) return policy and get my money back. I think I'll stick to my Windows Mobile device for now.