Walt Mossberg reviews the iPhone 3G, isn't that impressed (now with more David Pogue and Ed Baig!)
By Joshua Topolsky 
posted Jul 8th 2008 9:44PM
posted Jul 8th 2008 9:44PM
Update: David Pogue of the New York Times has also turned in a kinda-sorta review of the iPhone 3G, though it reads more like an overview of its features than a honest-to-goodness critique. He also makes passing reference to the GPS antenna being "too small" to function as a proper GPS, which makes roughly zero sense to us. Feel free to figure it out on your own.
Update 2: Can't forget Ed Baig of USA Today, who says the new model is "worth the wait" (not to say we have any option at this point anyway, seeing how hard it is to find an original anywhere). He seemed to have trouble picking up 3G service in some locations, though it's not clear whether that can be chalked up to technical issues with the handset or a lack of coverage where he was testing. Like the others, Baig discovered a noticeable improvement in audio quality and a noticeable hit in battery life when hooked up to the 3G network. Gotta pay to play, we guess.
Price too steep, eh? I just wish I could get your price plans..
Canadian, eh?
:P
Rogers raping you with the price plans, right Bruce?
That is one...handsome....man.... NOPE!
Agreed. I also enjoy the screen capture by engadget. It looks like Walt is about to suck the chrome off the webcam.
Or he just took a long drag off a blunt
Yup
Walt Mossberg - personal technology for the septuagenarians
Sigh
Clearly, as you most definitely didn't read nor watch, bypassing both in your quest for low ranking....
Nice to know that Kernel Sanders has found work
Dude, Colonel Sanders is dead....
@J-Rad
KERNAL Sanders?
If that's the case, what happens if you mac crashes? Colonel Panic?
Colonel Sanders, unless you're talking about the many other definitions of "kernel".
But yeah, put some more hair on him and slap his mug on a KFC bucket.
Ouch! Low ranked, an all time first for me. I can imagine how a troll must feel everyday!
The sad thing is that I had spent five minutes searching for the correct spelling of what you all claim to be 'Colonial'. Another first: Google has screwed me.
Agreed; neither Google nor the gene pool have treated you well.
If you mac crashes I would say you probably get Colon Panic.
Colonel Panic...hmm...sounds like a Venture Brothers villain.
"May I please speak with Colonel Sanders"
"He dead!"
"I want to see the Colonel!"
"I told you, he dead!"
GatgetMan, congratulations! You are now officially Engadget's #1 court jester. :)
@J-Rad...
It's time to forget you ever posted here....
I don't see any reference for Colonel Sanders in Colonial America...
http://americanhistory.about.com/od/colonialamerica/Colonial_America.htm
You mean #1 court jackass
Apple couldn't get General Protection Fault and Colonel Error. They already work for Microsoft.
Walt Mossberg saying something bad about an Apple product? Wasn't that in the Bible somewhere? I mean, should be be preparing for the Apocolypse?
Is anyone really surprised that the reviews are mediocre? It's not like they were going to reinvent the wheel with this phone (or give it Bluetooth or MMS...).
Here's a good analogy:
Windows ME : Windows 98 as iPhone 3G : iPhone
More like Applecalypse AMIRITE?
Dave, but that would mean that Windows ME was marginally better than 98.
and some could argue ME was better in some regards than 98, besides being a memory hog...
Mossberg speaks.
+ Engadget reports.
+ You decide.
= Profit
(something like that)
Sounds like a fox news advertisement.
Nice to see that someone isn't blinded and automatically praises the damn phone. At least he was honest about it. Personally, I'd love to have an iPhone, but the plans area ripoff, I'll just stick to Verizon and buy the next gen iPod Touch thats HOPEFULLY gonna be announced soon
Isn't blinded and automatically praises the iPhone?
The damned review is named "Newer, Faster, Cheaper."
Yeah, completely neutral. All he does is point out what we already knew would improve about the iPhone.
Really, 3G is faster than EDGE? Thank god Mossberg told me or I would have never known!
Tony,
Sure, Mossberg is biased. However, giving away the result of the review in the headline is not evidence of said bias. You write the headline (or your editor does) AFTER the review is complete, not before it.
Everyone seems to agree the new hardware isn't that much better, which is what we all expected. I've never had good luck with a GPS phone, which is why I have a real GPS unit.
What I think is funny is how everyone complained about the first iPhone, saying it should have been 3G and it should have had GPS, and how Jobs was lying about battery life and all that. Now the iPhone has 3G and GPS, and, sure enough, both have major drawbacks.
BTW, Verizon data plans are the ripoff. $40/mo.
Looks like the original iPhone data plan was $20 because ATT knew that users would scream highway robbery if they tried to charge their normal $30 data plan for a device that only supported EDGE :)
Don't you mean "I like it, I don't care what Mossberg says, and especially don't care that I've never actually used one" or something like that?
Kind of what I expected except the news about the bad battery. That's a real disappointment.
glad Mossberg addressed the pricing policy which is the biggest setback of the iPhone 3G. for once, I have no issues with Mossberg's review. Its fair.
Well, he could have mentioned that if battery life is more important than 3G, you can turn it off and get the same battery life the first iPhone had.
I didn't need walt to tell me this update was a let down...
come lately features and still too big.
"...and gripes that you can only sync Exchange or personal email accounts -- not both."
Weird that Mossberg actually states:
"One drawback: While you can have both personal and Exchange email accounts on the new iPhone, if you synchronize with Exchange calendars and contacts, your personal calendar and contacts are erased."
Come on, try to post the correct information so people don't get confused!
it's true, if you sync Exchange contacts you lose your personal contacts. The same with the calendars, sync work Exchange cal and it wipes your iCal data.
To me that makes the Exchange feature near worthless. So I can have work and home email but not work and home calendars or contacts.
Uh... is that an XPS One in the background?
I CALL SHENANIGANS!
I think it is an XPS One. That's pretty funny considering how much he loves Macs like the Imac
It IS an XPS One and look at the bottom left of its screen...*BLAM* it's the Vista orb.
He's reviewed it in the past; that's probably the unit they sent him.
I think steve jobs asked walt to return the demo unit back .. and michael dell was kind enough to let him keep that xps unit, hey if you can't keep it, you might keep praising the thing, who knows steve might have a melt down and give walt one demo unit for keeps !!!
The iP3G is what it is...incremental hardware improvements and 3rd party software support. Its an above average device to be sure, but not the game changer that the original iPhone was.
Hopefully the 3rd generation will make bigger strides.
Weird, I know somebody running the 2.0 beta and he has both Exchange and a personal IMAP account syncing on the phone. I wonder if they took that option out in the final rev or if ol' Walt is just mistaken.
But does he have both exchange calendars and contacts syncing?
Does it record video? If not, I'll wait yet another year. Version 3 FTW!!!
Or just download any number of the video recording apps that will be available once the store opens...
Walt is about as much of a failure as you are.
Since when have Walt's reviews _EVER_ been useful? And yet he's untouchable as far as apple reviewers go, he's one of Job's inner circle there. Absurd.
@amac, oh my god, my long lost brother.
and agreed, sigh
Why is the increase in price such a big deal with people when it's in line with any other comparable device with any provider?
Except there are many people not happy with AT&T(or the provider in their country) so that is going to be a while.
I'm just really pissed off that i have to pay $399 for the 8gb only cuz im not yet eligible for an upgrade... that bullshit
Well you can only get one phone subsides by AT&T during your contract. That's for all AT&T phones except the iphone
hmm. The more I think about it, the more I want to stick with my 1st gen iPhone. Of course, 3G, which is really the main attraction here, doesn't seem that great to me. I mean, yeah, it's faster, but EDGE has always worked for what I needed. Checking and sending email, checking weather, stocks, that's about all I need it for, and EDGE has got me covered.
I also can't see me ever using the GPS, if I needed GPS I've got my Nuvi, and I don't have to worry about battery problems there.. What else is there? The speaker and call quality in the 1st one is fine with me, I mean, I would love for it to be louder. I just can't see spending so much so I can hear the tiny little speaker better..
Bottom line, I just can't justify spending so much on so little. The 1st iPhone is so great I'm happy with it for the time being, even with EDGE. Maybe if the new iPhone wasn't just a fatter/faster 1st gen then I'd be more interested, but it's just too similar. Wake me when they unveil the 32gb iPhone with frontfacing camera, iChat, and better battery.
I never planned to upgrade; I may eventually now because my 1st gen suffered an untimely fall 4 feet onto a tile floor which cracked the screen. However, it's still perfectly usable and I've more or less forgotten the screen is even cracked (it's hard to see from straight on).
I've never used a GPS-enabled phone that was any good. Sure, all things being equal, having GPS is nice, but it's not a particularly useful feature for car navigation. I, too, have a Nuvi, and it's way better than the Verizon GPS that always got me lost because it updated too slowly and was always losing signal (2 different phones).
3G is nice, but it's more of something that the iPhone needs to be competitive in the marketplace, and not so much something users really need. This is more of a feature add to attract new users, not to encourage existing users to upgrade.
No one every listened to me when I said the 3G iPhone wouldn't be that great...
I Did, never thought it would win me over, I Like my 1st Gen Better for sure!!! 3G version lacking too many features it should have had to really entice us. 3G isn't enough for me either. Just a bigger bill each month. No Thanks,
Faslane
As usual, Apple puts them in the hands of 3 people who really don't know how to give an honest review.
hmmm, Pros and Cons= pretty fair review if you ask me.
Faslane
Let me guess: Your definition of an honest review involves shitting on everything Apple makes, then throwing an iPhone into a fire. Because Mossberg's review pretty plainly lists pros and cons for this iPhone, and that's clearly not good enough for you.
Maybe your definition of "honest review" needs a little reworking.
@nerdtalker
Agreed. I cannot fathom why anyone cares what this guy thinks. For someone who has had this phone for "weeks" this review is beyond useless. Did he even notice it had GPS?
i replied only to fill your inbox
AT&T did NOT raise the price of the iPhone data plans. The iPhone 1.0 data plan is a EDGE/Medianet plan and it available for $15 no matter what 2G phone you use. AT&T has been charging $30 for it's 3G data plans for at least the last 6 months. $30 is AT&T's standard rate for data on ANY of it's 3G capable smartphones. Since the new iPhone is classified as a 3G device it gets bumped up to the higher rate plan.
Pretty simple and straightforward. No hocus pocus going on here.
More expensive over two years? Well,if you buy say a LG mp3 phone and use medianet and then you go buy say a Blackjack w/ PDA3G data..yeah,your costs are gonna rise because you're upgrading the level/speed of your service. No evil backroom deeds here folks.
ATT is charging you to USE an iphone exactly what it has been charging Windows Mobile users for the past several months.
Apple promised a cheaper PHONE to buy..they never promised a cheaper phone to USE once you leave the store and it's unreal how otherwise smart people can't grasp this concept. Why should WINMO users pay $30 for data while iphone users pay $15 or $20?
If you buy a 2G iphone on ebay you'll still pay the $15 for data (plus $5 for text).
But I guess the truth doesn't generate webhits so lets manufacture some drama to make it more exciting and ignore the real issues such as how ATT is making you pay for 3G even if you live in a city they are in no hurry to provide 3G to. That is what should be bothering people..not everybody can or does live in NY,SF or Chicago. Some of us still live in Mayberry.
And Walt,you probably killed your battery because you forgot to turn GPS off once you got to your office each day.
Apple should pay him more
"He also makes passing reference to the GPS antenna being “too small” to function as a proper GPS, which makes roughly zero sense to us. "
Well, here, I'll explain it to you.
Real GPS systems (Garmin, Tom Tom, etc.) have MASSIVE antennas inside--the entire box is designed to extend the sensitivity of the GPS antenna.
The iPhone is too small to have all that metal or all that reach, although even the tiny ring around the camera lens is part of the GPS antenna.
The GPS antenna in the iPhone is just too tiny to get decent reception. That's the point.
--Pogue
Here's hoping for some sort of an external antennae dock accessory.
Real in-car navigation would make the iPhone pretty much my perfect all-in-one device.
That is just NOT true. I challenge you to go out and pick up a new TomTom. Open it up, then come back and explain how you were actually wrong.
Other examples; My blackberry has perfect reception in the middle of my house, far away from any windows, same with my HTC mogul.
The days of large fold-up antennae on GPS units is long gone. All they need now is a tiny antenna. The GPS antenna in the most recent HTC Diamond is a mere 3 centimeters of gold plated metal.
Don't get me wrong; of the three reviewers I value yours the most (plus the fact that you take the time to come here and explain things is a huge plus), but your comments on the GPS antenna are just not correct.
Besides, do you actually know for a fact the size of the GPS antenna in the iPhone? And have you recently opened up a Garmin Nuvi 200 or a TomTom Go 130?
I can't stand Pogue. It's weird how many gay men are married to women, not that there's anything wrong with that.
What kind of crack are you smoking? The last garmin I opened up ( about a week ago ) has a roughly 1 inch square ceramic antenna. The case is plastic, it has absolutely nothing to do with gps receive sensitivity. Phone gps systems aren't designed for precision bomb drops. They're designed to give you a pretty good idea where the hell you are in a city. A few hundred feet is good enough for a phone.
"Unfortunately, there’s not much you can do with the G.P.S. According to Apple, the iPhone’s G.P.S. antenna is much too small to emulate the turn-by-turn navigation of a G.P.S. unit for a vehicle, for example."
----------------
It probably wasn't worded the best.
The way I read this was you were equating the turn-by-turn directions feature to antenna sensitivity / size. Which indeed made zero sense to me.
I wasnt going to upgrade, but yesterday I dropped my iPhone and the screen cracked all to hell. Now I just have to keep it together until Fri, if I can even get one then.
You remind me of someone i know, always dropping the old things when a newer version comes out, by accident of course.
Ha, I love it, Apple puts all the things into the new device that people griped about the first time around (no 3G, no GPS, cost too much etc.) and now that it has it they complain about battery life and data costs. Sounds like they want to have their cake and eat it to. Everybody should understand that putting 3G into a phone is going to hit it's battery life, doesn't matter who makes it!
You took the words out of my mouth
Everyone acts like the 3g is a new phone. It's only an update of the iphone. It's not supposed to be a 100x better or different.
Is it just me, or have the comments sections on pretty much every site on the Web finally been overrun by obnoxious juveniles?
Things didn't seem this bad a year ago...
Next thing you know, Jobs will announce a special section of his plane where the good lap-dog reporters can sit.
... You mean someone's beaten him to the punch?
People need to stop thinking of the 3G iphone as the iphone 2.0
It's a slight update to a phone that came a year ago. Anyone expecting more than this was/is delusional.
@Jeremy
yes he did notice there was GPS......he said "...GPS radio..."
uhhh, blackberry ftw. I don't see many people in the business community using iPhones. But I'll give it more time. It's only a year old.
Yeah....i'll buy it....NOT!
I think I'll stick to even my current Blackjack 1 over the 3G Iphone. I think I'd rather have a phone that has bluetooth, and just use my zune for my multimedia stuff. So allow me to correct your comment...
cant wait, now some people will have a 3g iphone,
but more will have palms, blackberrys, winmo etc
steve jobs won't be proud
That sounds better...and I don't care what you say, you are either clak or his twin brother.
This was supposed to be a reply to Ocean.
iphone has bluetooth...
Cody, I have no clue what you are talking about! The iphone has bluetooth...
Are you sure it has bluetooth? When I tried to connect to my A2DP headset nothing happened, and when I tried to sync with my desktop via bluetooth nothing happened, and when a friend wanted to beam me a picture nothing happened.
Its cant be real bluetooth in there. Must be some fake iCrippled version. I mean all phones with bluetooth can beam stuff these days, cant they?
Clak is your Sith Lord....
I'm not sure if you actually believe that the iPhone 3G will completely eliminate its competition and become the only smartphone available. If you do, it is a sad day.
@ Quix
I've noticed that too. That and one-liners tend to stay in the "neutral" rank instead of being ranked up. Now it's all about facts or bashing people.
What is the internet coming to?
Mossberg says the following:
"Over the course of the two-year contract you must sign to get the lower hardware prices, that adds $240, overwhelming the $200 savings on the phone itself."
Just wanted to point out that $200 today is NOT worth the same as $200 two years from now. If you were to invest the $200 that AT&T is subsidizing for you and invest it in a money market/CD or some other high yield instrument, you can easily re-coup (i.e. earn interest) the $40 difference over the course of two years.
Quit making the first guy that posts a comment a fucking god. Move on and have a real discussion you stupid fucks.
The control for that game looks like epic failure. The person was rotating the screen but the cart wasn't moving lol
Did Steve Jobs die recently? Why are you speaking about him in the past tense?
Is that his "O" face? =D
Yeah, this is a real shocker. The iPhone 2 = Boring.
3G and that's about it. Oh yeah, and a bit of GPS, although we're not so sure that's working like we'd want it to.
No MMS, no video capability. Did they manage to add "cut and paste" or did they forget that, too?
Am I missing something here? Why would anyone who already owns the previous model even bother with this?
When MMS, video capability, and copy/paste get added to the iphone. What else do you want? A Steve Jobs action figure included in the box? That would look nice on your self next to your Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer action figures... Now wouldn't it?
@heshmati4
ROTFL!!! You so funny! Hahahahahahaha!!! (No really, that was funny!)
But could you be any more sore about things? C'mon man, yes it's frustrating - Apple will figure it out at some point. But in the meantime, I'll loan you my action figures! Wheeeeeeee!!!