Sure it's shiny under glass and on those expertly groomed Keynote slides of Steve's, but David Pogue got a good hour with the
iPhone yesterday, and he seems to be a fan. Yeah, Pogue's a bit of an Apple fanboy already, but we still trust him to give this thing a fair shake. Oddly enough, while
RIM's stock is taking a nose dive upon the iPhone announcement, David is pretty well convinced that Blackberry-addicts won't be tossing out those QWERTY thumbpads anytime soon, since the lack of tactile typing on the iPhone is less than optimal. Luckily, the typing software does feature some predictive functionality based on which key you "meant" to hit and matching words from a built-in dictionary. As for overall feel, Pogue is pretty hot for this thing, thanks to the thin design and stainless-steel edges. Apparently the screen isn't the total fingerprint magnet you'd expect, since Apple played with the glass a while to get it just right, but you'll still be contributing plenty of smudges to the purty facade, which Pogue says you can just wipe off with a sleeve. Software is a bit of a mixed bag. The browser is currently ultra-sluggish, even during WiFi browsing, but apparently the touch operation is quite slick. The camera operation is fun with that full 3.5-inches of screen to preview your shots, but the refresh is a bit slow -- though some of these slowdowns are being blamed on incomplete software. We'll reserve our own judgment until we get this thing in hand, typing could definitely be a big drawback, but for the most part it looks like Apple's iPhone is almost as much of a winner in person as it is on paper.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Dae @ Jan 10th 2007 3:21PM
Alcaron, damn that was funny and somewhat nasty.
Chris Merchant @ Jan 10th 2007 2:44PM
Essentially- it's what we could expect from Apple. I imagine the browser issues will be fixed prior to launch.
Chris
Alcaron @ Jan 10th 2007 2:49PM
"Yeah, Pogue's a bit of an Apple fanboy already, but we still trust him to give this thing a fair shake."
Says the blog who has an apple banner up at the top of their page, which they do for almost NOBODY and the last time they did was for a SPONSORED (by Verizon) gift guide.
I bet you trust an apple fanboy to give an apple phone a fair shake, lol...
Wonderboy @ Jan 10th 2007 2:58PM
Take a look at the right side of your screen... there you will see the top commented on posts, 7 out of 10 are Apple posts.
Take a look at any tech site with any relation to tech news and you'll see the iphone... this is BIG news. People want to read about it, see the pictures, talk about it.
Engadget, underneath it's pretty exterior, is a business, here to make money. If they have an easy navigation for people to find the articles, pics, and conversation they're looking for then that will generate more traffic, thus more eyes seeing the ads, thus more revenue...
Thanks for coming to Common Sense 101, your tuition dues will be in the mail, check or money order only.
everrette powell @ Jan 10th 2007 3:45PM
lets be honest this is the biggest consumer electric news we have had so far so i can't blame engadget for covering it as much as they are doing, apparently las vagas had news from consumer electric as well i can't tell you anything that happened there but i bet you everyone knows the iphone got a debut
Bob @ Jan 10th 2007 2:51PM
The thing is slick...but are we really surprised Pogue loves it?
Smeagol @ Jan 10th 2007 2:55PM
Most Blackberries are provided by corporate masters... i doubt they will trade a proven technology for an exspensive, flashy phone with numerous distractions and Yahoo 'push' mail.
The Duke @ Jan 10th 2007 2:57PM
David Pogue is such an @sshole. Seriously. He has a crush on Steve Jobs.
Alcaron @ Jan 10th 2007 3:03PM
Oh and yes, I oddly enough do know that engadget is a business, that little tidbit isn't lost on me. The NYT (or, ok, bad example, pick someone reputable) would be dragged through the streets if they started running pro-whatever company stories about a company that paid them money.
It's a very basic concept of credibility. If you make your money reporting on something, it typically is in your best interest not to take money from the providers of the things you report on.
Just like review sites. People jump up and down and scream and holler when hardware review sites take money from PC hardware manufacturers, why? Because if company a gives you money then it is suddenly in your best interest to keep them happy. And thats not what you want from a publication which SHOULD be subjective.
I can't really believe you don't understand this.
Alcaron @ Jan 10th 2007 3:08PM
And god damn it...if you are going to be condescending at least make sense.
"Thanks for coming to Common Sense 101, your tuition dues will be in the mail, check or money order only."
They will be in the mail huh, so this schooling you apparently just gave me actually pays ME...thats what you imply when you say the check is in the mail.
It's not fun for me if you don't at least TRY...it just doesn't feel very sporting.
Alcaron @ Jan 10th 2007 2:59PM
The right side of the screen is dynamically generated, a banner forcibly stickied to the top is NOT...if I need to explain the difference to you...it's not worth it.
retsel @ Jan 10th 2007 3:00PM
this iphone is a game changer...
i cant believe this i bought apple stock on a stock market simulator 2 years ago... and i never bought it for real...
if this this could read word excel and power point and have video out... and gets a gps module...
i might not need to take my laptop to church to check my work email in the bathroom...
rj @ Jan 10th 2007 3:02PM
I think it's a great unit... but more for the elite gadgeteer. The one thing I don't like is the lack of hard buttons. I have a marantz receiver at home that came with touch screen remote. It looks incredible and wows anyone that comes to my home. But guess what? I never use the darn thing. Who wants to look down at a remote everytime they want to access the guide button, or change to channel 415?
The same goes to a certain degree with multi-use phones. I have a nokia phone right now with expandable ram for music. One thing I love is the fact that I can keep the phone in my pocket.. and anytime I get a song that comes up that I want to skip... all I have to do is reach in... feel for the next nav button and skip to the next song. simple, fast and convenient. Hell.. the same can even be done with the click-wheel on my ipod.... but it would not be possible with the iphone.
Keyless interface... novel idea... but with it's own drawbacks (for me anyways).
just my 2 cents.
Joe Smith @ Jan 10th 2007 9:04PM
And that, thankfully will be corrected someday by technology that is here today already. Just look at the Optimus keyboard. If a future iPhone had real keys, but those keys could change pictures, that would truly be a revolution. Like keys that could change into numbers or letters or icons or whatever. Now it's just a question of whether or not Apple will buy Optimus.
Mattso @ Jan 10th 2007 3:06PM
So he basically said what all of us could already tell with basic reasoning. I don't get how the text input is being sort of glossed over as a minor setback. As ubiquitous as text messaging is right now, (even my mother and my girlfriends mother use it now) it is going to be a major pain to use this thing. It was bad enough using the numerical keypad to text, but this I imagine actually being worse. They sacrificed usability for "sexiness" because they knew they could get away with it. Sounds kinda familiar to me.
Jeff Foster @ Jan 10th 2007 3:49PM
"dues" means bills, man. come on.
LordFarkward @ Jan 10th 2007 7:25PM
lol dude u got totally pwn3d, but not by wonderboy
just stop digging. u're getting the sand into ur mummy's martini
o rly @ Jan 10th 2007 3:12PM
...of course the browser is ultra-sluggish, it's Safari. Everyone knows Opera is the fastest (mobile or desktop.)
Wonderboy @ Jan 10th 2007 3:14PM
So you're saying that engadget shouldn't accept sponsorship from any tech company because it could end up reporting on a product from said company and thus tarnish their integrity?
Right above the most commented on section is a non-dynamic sponsor section... Notice the Sony ad and the Zune ad, and yet the crap that sony and the zune get on here is claimed by some to be unfair. Doesn't make much sense by your "logic".
In the end the only explanation is that you've got a group of people writing articles about their opinions and experiences with tech stuff, whether those opinions align with sponsors or not. Think about Engadget's point of view here... their hit count benefits from having a banner, their budget might benefit directly from having a banner... why not have a banner?
If engadget isn't being "fair", seems like no one else is either since I haven't heard a negative thing about the iphone yet... apple must be doing a great job by paying off every single person who has seen or touched the iphone.
Alcaron @ Jan 10th 2007 3:33PM
ugh, again, you really don't get the difference between taking money from someone and accepting ad revenue from them?
Again, the not that damned subtle difference here is that the section you mention is on the side AND has this little tidbit is BIIIIIIG text right above it.
"Sponsored Links"
They call that a DISCLAIMER...you disclaim the fact that "yes, we did take money from them".
When they put the verizon banner up nobody, myself included, bitched because it was clearly labled as "brought to you by verizon" or whatever.
What is the difference? The difference is that when you say "this was brought to you by this company" you are disclaiming that it is an ad, not your opinion or your review of the content in question.
When you stick up a banner and start whoring for a product/company without disclaiming that it is an advertisement you wrongly imply that this is what you really think of it, and not what you were paid to say about it".
Again, none of this is new, none of this is exactly complicated. And oddly enough magazines and newspapers have been abiding by such rules since time out of mind, so why you need it explained to you like its some advanced post modernistic impression of responsibility in the modern world is beyond me.
Basic rules. Easy to follow. You don't put a banner up for apple because you don't do it for anyone else. You don't do it because its NOT good for business and if you look at the fact that several of the "engadget is whoring out" comments got VERY highly ranked you can see why.
When people think you are an underhanded schill you don't IMPROVE hit counts, you decrease them. Which is why you don't have a freakin' banner for apple and only apple because doing it for just them makes people wonder wtf is going on.
Got it yet?
John @ Jan 10th 2007 3:15PM
So you had "a meeting" with Steve Jobs and played with the iPhone the whole hour? I don't know about you, but isn't that kinda rude!?!?
Pogue: "Nice to meet you Mr. Jobs."
Jobs: "A pleasure. Here it is."
Pogue: (plays with iphone, salivates, repeat)
Jobs: (twiddles thumbs)
hour passes...
Jobs: "Give that back to me!" (prys phone from Pogue's sweaty palms (no pun intended))
Pogue: (runs off in ecstasy, pants wet, screaming)
David Pogue @ Jan 10th 2007 7:11PM
Did you actually read my blog post? (No.)
I was in there with another NY Times reporter, who was interviewing Jobs for a story.
So yeah, I pretty much kept to myself and played with the phone the whole time!
--David Pogue
johnnyg0 @ Jan 10th 2007 3:17PM
RIM taking a plunge? Where do you guys get your quotes? RIM's stocks are almost 5$ higher than at yesterday's closing. Same goes for Palm. Look at your Bloomberg people before saying things like that.
Wonderboy @ Jan 10th 2007 3:23PM
RIM - Up $5 for the day... down $12 for the week
PALM - up $.06 for the day... down $.80 for the week.
Sounds like they plunged to me.
Denny @ Jan 10th 2007 3:46PM
go to finance.yahoo.com and get a quote for Apple or RIM. then click on the chart and it will give the option to compare it to the other... when you look at this starting at slightly after 12PM EST yesterday you'll notice that Apple's stock shoots up and RIM's takes a definitive plunge.
E @ Jan 10th 2007 3:20PM
"Here are some of the things you can’t tell without actually handling and using the iPhone:
* You operate the iPhone with your fingertips."
Thank you Captain Obvious!!!
allen Gragg @ Jan 10th 2007 3:24PM
aren't all newly manufactured cell phones required have to have GPS inside them for 911 call locating. so the iPhone prolly has a GPS module inside it and will have certain functionality for that feature enabled later on. What do you think?
rj @ Jan 10th 2007 3:42PM
i don't think it's gps.. i think it's triangulation, based on station towers. but i could be wrong. i know that's how my anti-theft car device works (boomerang) and it runs off cell technology.
number40one @ Jan 10th 2007 3:33PM
I bet by June they up the specs of the camera to 4 mp. I'd be hard pressed to resist at that point.
Hate them macs, but damn I love Apple's devices!
ASTROBOT @ Jan 10th 2007 3:33PM
Great phone but it will DEFINITLY need an external expansion slot. Imagine losing all your data and personal informations on the internal storage when your iphone die out on your and letting the prying eyes of a tech when taking in for services.
R.W. Emerson @ Jan 10th 2007 3:50PM
I love Alcaron getting his pants all poopy and upbraiding us low-brows with his ironically postmodern lexicon of invented adjectives. All that over a banner that headlines MacWorld coverage. You give 'er!
Jeff Foster @ Jan 10th 2007 3:58PM
You're an idiot.
The banner at the top is not paid for by apple. It's not a link to apple's site.
It is in ENGADGET'S interest to have a banner there so that when apple-fanboy-joe comes to the engadget front page, he can easily and quickly find the articles he is looking for.
Because the brilliant people who run Engadget notice that the iPhone is huge news, and that's where viewers are trying to get to, they stick the banner up top to make it easy, thereby assuring more page views and more ad impressions.
If the mass majority of readers find that it takes more than a third of a second to find where all the iPhone related information resides, they will simply move on to another site (hereby referred to as "competitors") that make said info easier to find (for example, by putting a banner at the top of the page linking to said info). Therefore, in an attempt to be competitive with their competitors, and so capture a larger audience, and in doing so, generate more advertising revenue (from ALL their advertisers, not just apple) they make it EASY to find what the largest amount of current traffic is searching for.
It really is Common Sense 101.
Lucky for you, my lecture was free. this time.
Wonderboy @ Jan 10th 2007 3:40PM
Hmmm, guess you're right, maybe engadget should start listening to you that way they could afford to hire enough people to keep up with the CES rapid fire and afford some spin-offs like Hi-Def or Mobile Phone related, maybe some foreign languages too... oh and maybe they'll actually get a few votes next year in the tech blog popularity contest.
I can't believe engadget has been screwing up this whole time... why oh why don't they just listen to Alcaron's infinite wisdom?
DeaPeaJay @ Jan 10th 2007 3:49PM
Who on earth said that Engadget was getting paid for the iPhone banner on the main page Alcaron?
If it were an ad, wouldn't it link to the apple page? It's a resource for people like me who want to know more about Apple's product announcements!
Tim @ Jan 10th 2007 3:49PM
It just seems like people are excited because it's an iphone, not because it's a great cell phone. It's amazing how valuable the Apple name is these days. I mean, if the PS3 would have went with an optional MAC OS instead of linux, maybe it wouldn't still be sitting on store shelves... ;)
patsy @ Jan 10th 2007 6:02PM
> It just seems like people are excited because it's an iphone, not because it's a great cell phone.
I can't speak for others, but for me the opposite is true. I'm definitely an Apple skeptic, but this phone looks shweeeet. It doesn't even have to be an awesome phone, as long as it works well enough, because the rest of its features definitely seem to be making up. I'm interested in a convergence device with a touchscreen that does data well, runs on an open platform, and is usable as a phone. Currently T-Mobile's MDA is the closest to that, but the iPhone looks like it could be quite a bit better. We'll see just how open that OS X ends up being, and how well the entire concept works once it hits the market.
One thing I have to say, though, in my view a lot of marketers don't seem to understand the cell phone market. I personally have a much higher affinity to a carrier than to any particular phone. IOW, great phone, but I'm on T-Mobile and will be for a long time yet, so no iPhone for me, and no $600 for Apple. Too bad.
Wonderboy @ Jan 10th 2007 3:53PM
I thought about pointing that out, but then realized that some of his comments just weren't worth the effort... okay, so honestly none of them were.
DeaPeaJay @ Jan 10th 2007 3:59PM
I don't understand how people can be so quick to judge the onscreen keyboard. You can't judge something you've never even touched. Try it out first and then if you don't like it, say so (and why).
Rob @ Jan 10th 2007 3:59PM
Well, I thought it worked through telekinesis.
live2xs @ Jan 10th 2007 4:29PM
It will be interesting to see if the new iPhone is an iPod or a Newton. At the least it signals to me that Apple is all about the end consumer and not about the enterprise customer. They will sell their millions of units to their current, affluent, “gotta have the latest Apple toy” customers but it won’t help them in getting Apple technology into the enterprise or into the pockets of executives. The reasons; pretty simple – only sourced from one carrier, no connectivity to Exchange, and no removable battery. It will also be interesting to see how well the first version of this new touch UI works out. I’m sure it will need to mature and it will be interesting to see how the whole idea of constantly touching the screen is accepted. Screens on current phones already get pretty nasty after a few calls. If you add touch dialing and navigation I can see a downside. There will be a quick follow-on product opportunity for convenient wet wipes to clean things up. I love the innovation that Apple creates through their bold design moves but I don’t see the iPhone having near the impact the iPod had. Too expensive, not enterprise friendly, and limited features.
Phil @ Jan 10th 2007 4:36PM
"Yeah, Pogue's a bit of an Apple fanboy already"....
Bit of a fanboy? Jeez, that is like saying Steves option grants were a bit of an accident....
That iPhone could have exploded and blown Pogues hands off and he would have still raved over it and called THE new innovative interface feature everyone must experience.
I doubt Pogue could write truely objectively about anything, let alone _The_ Phone. The guys a joke.
Phil
Justin @ Jan 10th 2007 5:00PM
Whether you like the iPhone or not, isn't it obvious from all the news stories, CNBC interview, Nightline interview, other tech blogs, etc. that this is one of the biggest stories there is. The percentage of people that visit engadget that want to read/see something about the iPhone, to praise it or bash it, is so high that they make it easy to find the information with a banner. It is that simple. What in the world your talking about we will never know.
Frank @ Jan 10th 2007 5:32PM
"Please keep your comments relevant to this blog entry" it says at the end off this page (just after ADD YOUR COMMENT)
.....well - up to now only 16 out of 38 comments has got any relevance with the blog entry. The rest: Pouge, Engadget & logo's, stocks.
What a waste of time to read this! Over and out!
Tony @ Jan 10th 2007 5:33PM
Ok so i live in Colorado hows this thing supposed to work with gloves. Anyone know if it has voice dial?
Tim @ Jan 11th 2007 12:11PM
You bring up a lot of good points. I think people often choose carrier first, and phone second, but the buzz around this phone may change that.
I think that phone had better be an amazing phone considering how much they want to charge for it. I don't know if the hype will continue when people are forced to shell out that much cash and break out of their current contracts to switch to cingular for one of these entertainment devices.
Matt @ Jan 10th 2007 7:05PM
I for one need to be able to use my phone with only one free hand. How can this be accomplished with a touch-screen?
Paul Good @ Jan 10th 2007 8:45PM
One thing I'm surprised no one has asked is whether this will have Inkwell. If I'm not mistaken Inkwell or whatever it's called (I'm not a mac user) was integrated into OS X and had it's roots in the last generation of handwriting recognition from the Newton. I still have a Newton 2100 lying around and it still blows calligrapher away in recognizing my handwriting. Given the history of the Newton and HWR I can understand them not mentioning it, but this could be another data entry option if it's part of the system.
Whoaness @ Jan 10th 2007 10:50PM
Talk time 5 hours is just sad. It's wider than the Razr, which is already too fat, and it taller than most phones.
You'd think a fat phone was meant for fat people, but I doubt the predictive text could solve the fat finger problem.
Want to see real phones of the future? Head over to
http://www.nttdocomo.co.jp/product/foma/
and hope those phones come when we get 3G going.
123jns @ Jan 12th 2007 5:09PM
Here are my predictions:
1. The iPhone will be slow when it comes to web browsing, document management, attachments and data transfer. In fact, until a 3G version comes along.
2. When launched in Europe, the flashy new voicemail display features will not work and a 2mp camera will be so lackluster compared to the current 3mp ones.
3. As a mobile phone it's too big and heavy for most to feel comfortable. Yes it looks sexy, but how long before the competition bring out smaller lighter versions.
4. Will that non tactile qwerty keyboard be any less frustrating than using the #key to change predictive text characters.
5. Next Xmas I expect to see a mini version of the iPhone and later still an iPhone nano.
6. One year after that expect the iPhone shuffle.
It won't have a screen and will dial your contacts completely randomly, for that surprise communications vibe, but it will still look very sexy.
P.S. My one real gripe about what we've read on the iPhone so far is in fact the headphones. Having slick earphones with a built in microphone and squeeze button is great...but Apple should have just included that up to mini jack...to let people use their own headphones.