There are games like Super Monkey Ball, which invites you to give the iPhone's accelerator a workout while you manoeuvre a monkey, in a ball, around the screen. Not exactly genre-defying, but it's fun. There's also Twitterific, which will let you join the Twitterverse of happy texters, although the iPhone's keyboard may wipe the smile off your face because it hasn't changed and is still awkward to use.
There's also PayPal Finance, Facebook, Shazam (which lets you identify songs without phoning), eBay, but perhaps most usefully, Apple's MobileMe application, which syncs your email, contacts, calendar and photos over the air and pushes them to you when you need them. Nice, but it's £59/$99 a year after a two-month free trial period, and it's easy enough to set your iPhone to check for new messages every five minutes.
That said, MobileMe does provide a way to keep a number of PCs, Macs and iPhones in sync, and we've used it to keep key info on two Macs and an Eee PC running Windows XP all up to date.
Currently available in black and white
Despite the 3G upgrade, there's no extra camera for video conferencing
The App Store's selection of software is nowhere near as diverse as the range you get with a Windows Mobile device or a Palm OS handset, but it's very early days for the platform and it's bound to grow - probably very quickly. And with Apple's supposedly rigid compliance policies, we'd expect everything to work as it should when you download. Ours did, but other users have reported otherwise. Expect an OS update soon, ahem...
In addition to MobileMe, iPhone users can also get push email pushed over from Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync, and the on-board Mail app now has the ability to view - but not edit, alas - Microsoft Office documents as well as the PDFs if could handle before. So it can join the increasing queue of Blackberry botherers - if corporate IT types will permit its use. Mac buffs can send each other iWork docs too.
So, what about the bad stuff? Well, it's got the same so-so two-megapixel camera with no flash and no video recording, which seems positively toy town in comparison with any other mid-range handsets today. There's still no memory card slot, no cut and paste functionality, and no MMS. All this sounds more like a no-name handset bought from street vendor down Whitechapel way rather than a cutting-edge communication device.
COMMENTS
Shock horror! iPhone owners dont believe MMS is relevant
MMS not relevant to iPhone owners - news at 11. If you've already bought an iPhone, or just happen to be a rabid Apple fanboy (see Ty's posts), then chances are MMS isn't relevant to you. This is no great surprise really - why would anyone who is a fan or owner of a device be sympathetic to features that they don't even have?
MMS isn't usually a make-or-break decision for people, but it is something which is industry standard and has been for years. Arguing about the cost of sending them, the quality of the image/video or whatever is a diversionary argument. The fact is - MMS is an instant delivery, guaranteed service which is supported by every phone I've ever seen since 2002. Email is not a guaranteed service, nor is it typically instant, and it relies upon the recipient actually proactively reading their email on their phone. There have been countless examples that people have made in these comments about where MMS *is* relevant in their lives, you can't just dismiss them out of hand because it doesn't fit with your/Apple "vision".
MMS *just works*, which - bizarrely enough - is why it is an industry standard. As I said previously - if you're going to argue against MMS by posting a whole host of contrived arguments about cost, relevance in the modern world, etc then you might as well make the exact same arguments for doing away with SMS as well and just use email for everything. I mean if some random friend can read their email and see your picture messages that way, why bother sending archaic 160-character limit txts to them either?
The big issue I have with MMS being absent on the iPhone is not so much my desire for it personally but the fact that it is something that could so easily be implemented in software. There is no excuse whatsoever for MMS not to be supported officially by Apple already on iPhones. The attitude towards MMS, copy and paste (don't tell me a company the size of Apple with the experience it has in the industry can't design or tweak a UI to support something so simple), etc is at best arrogant and at worst insulting.
It's true that people can (and should) vote with their wallet, no one is being forced to buy an iPhone. This is a review however, and an review would be remiss if it didn't point out the shortcomings in the thing it was reviewing. That's what having an objective opinion is all about - not just swallowing whatever Apple Inc put in front of you as the gospel truth without question, reason or logic.
I Love The iPhone
Simple solution, if you don't like the iPhone, then just don't buy it, don't whine and whinge on here complaining that it cannot sent MMS or it has a 2mb camera and that it cannot video record! The iPhone is not aimed at the teenage/chav market, and for those who cant film their happy slapping and upload it directly to youtube! I have the 1st gen iPhone - brought from my mate who has a 3G iPhone and i have to say it is the best phone i have ever possessed - it saves me from carrying my iPod and a separate phone - where invariably i miss most of my calls! When apple have made the amount of phones that Nokia et al have made - then maybe people will have the right to complain - until then get over it!
So do people want a perfect phone
I have a iPhone 1gen and I like it. I don't get why people become so pro apple or anti apple. It's not a religion. I like my phone but phones such as the nokia n95 have a few more features. No phone will be perfect I suspect the flame war is about apple not iPhone.
2 Days and It's going back
I have and Ipod Touch 16GB so I had very high expectations of the iphone 3g.
I have to say after 2 day's its being returned.
The interface is laggy, wifi intermittent and gps less than accurate (moving 2 doors down, then 300 metres into a field while I sat in my garden)
The signal is seriously poor when 3G is enabled and I have yet to recieve an audible alert to keypresses, text messages or email despite restores and reconfigs.
The mail push is fantastic by 1.1.5 ipod touch gets email just fine and doesnt need charging every 5 hours.
Seriously nice looking phone, but pay £35 a month for something less than ready?
I'll come back in 12 Months for the inevitable iWorkPhone.
Objectivism
To be perfectly honest while many of you are posing an objective argument, I suspect quite a few among you are simply using objective facts to back up an opinion based on kneejerk reaction or whatever side of the apple fence you happen to be on.
Personally with apple's mac range I see only one reason to buy any of their stuff - there is a (debatable) style to them. If I had money to burn then yes I would fork out almost two grand to get a hold of a laptop with a 17 inch screen. That said however, would I really want to tar myself with the same dirty brush as every pseudo intellectual tard sitting in Starbucks somewhere right now, declaring to the world that they are a writer? Probably not.
I do however have an iPhone, because I like to be able to do email and web on the move properly. I also hated my blackberry because its media player sucked. I shun windows mobile because I like to be able to use my phone on the move and I don't want to have to stand still and poke at my phone with a stick.
No tribal approach here, just personal choice on the per device level, that's how it should be.
Paris because some macbook users are equally as vacuous as the "dog in my handbag" crowd.
