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We had the first glimpse of the iPhone 6 months ago in January. What never fails to amaze me is how Apple can steadily fan the flames of the iPhone's anticipation, awaiting to pour in kerosene towards the final leg for the official launch. There's never been a more anticipated handphone, a product that will actually make an impact on the telecommunication industry.

Gut feel - it's gonna be HUGE! BIG! GIGANTIC! ENORMOUS!

Despite it's heavy price tag at USD$599 (for 8 gig storage), it's long lead time to the launch have enabled many to save up enough for the phone by now. Smart move. I'm expecting iPhones to fly off the shelves if it even gets onto a shelf in the 1st place!

In a very good way, I'm more then happy that the Asian release will only be in 2008. Being the virgin phone product of Apple, it's very likely to go through the iPod improvement phase. From the original, to a mini, to a nano... iPhone Nano.

As of this stage, the product is far from ideal. Here's my take:

1. Flash Not Supported
However, it could be included as a Safari plug-in that could be downloaded

2. The Battery
Initial testing of the product have verified that the iPhone gives about 5 hours of talk/browsing/email or 16 hours of audio playback and only 2 hours for video! If you're a mega music junkie or like me, someone who watches two 45min episodes of Stargate on my journey to & from work; there's a great chance you're not gonna have enough battery life for that important phone call. Worst of all, the iPhone has a BUILT-IN battery! It must be the only mobile phone on the market that doesn't have an easily user-replaceable battery! This is a major flaw and an extremely silly move on Apple's part.

3. Limited Push Mail Capability
There is one reason why the Blackberry is so successful - Push Mail. There is a tremendous amount of compression and optimisation that is done at the carrier-side before the data is sent over the air to the phone. iPhone uses the ‘polling' method - POP3 or IMAP, where the phone will check every X minutes for new email and download FULL emails. It's slower and can significantly add up to your data download cost. I've read that Push Mail is available for Yahoo webmail account, but how is that remotely useful for business users?
To not provide Direct Push which is such a killer app is yet another major flaw. I would think more then twice for the switch if I'm depended on such an email service on the move.


4. No SDK (Software Development Kit)
If I'm a business person, this is not great news. Application development for the phone will be limited to Web apps based on AJAX, a set of Internet standards that make software like GMail, Google Maps or FaceBook possible. Killer apps or specific industry apps might face limitations.
For basic business requirements, you can probably count on the full support for Google Apps in Safari 3. Gmail will be treated as just another POP3 service, and relegate Blogger and Google Docs and Spreadsheets to the status of just other Web pages

5. Synchronisation & Download
The iPhone is incapable of any syncing via WiFi or Bluetooth, despite having support for both.
You also cannot download songs directly from the iTunes store, you have to export them from a computer. This comes back to the missing 3G component that got everyone asking WHY, WHY, WHY. I'm not a big user of 3G, but in critical situations and when wireless is out of range... you'd be thankful for 3G.

6. 2 megapixel camera
Certainly with the standards of Sony Ericsson's 3.2 megapixel cameraphone out for months now... Apple can do better. It also lacks a flash, zoom and video chat capabilities.

7. Never enough SPACE
In comparison to the 60 gig iPod Video... 8 gig appears so tiny.
It's acceptable as a phone alone, but not as a iPod, iPod Video, Game Console, Smart Phone...
It will be ideal to have an expendable memory card slot. But there will be no doubt version 2 of the iPhone will have increased HD space - the iPhone Elite?

All eyes will be on 29 June, 6pm in the US.
I will be patiently waiting for an improved Asian release.

5 comments:

  1. psst! ;-)

    while waiting for the asian release, you may want to recheck yr Tg Pinang mission trip to the boy's hostel.

    it's 'asrama putra' and not 'asmara putra'... :-D

    'asmara' means 'romance' ;-)

    ReplyDelete
  2. btw, if u r interested, there is a media ring that u may want to check out and perhaps join in :-) it's here: http://asiamedia.ning.com

    *fral*

    ReplyDelete
  3. *gasp*...PAPS!!! he really got soooo much freee time eh..

    true, best wait for 2008..hope there's an IMPROVISED version by then..wun buy if not, waste of $

    ReplyDelete
  4. erm..btw..*fral*=Father Aloysius (see the one above..i'm such an imp ;) )

    ReplyDelete
  5. Oops! Thanks for spotting the mistake Fr. I will make the change shortly. 'Asmara Putra' ain't bad for a boys home name too :)

    How's life in Rome?

    ReplyDelete

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