iPhones, etc (from people's lives thread)

[IanKennedy]

I just spent 4 hours queuing to get the new iPhone 4. Very cool item.

Four hours? Do you live in the sticks? In NYC, people were lining up for twenty-four hours for them.

I live in Oxford, which isn't a very large place, about 150,000 in 2009. Plus the fact that here O2 and Orange sell the phone, plus the Car phone warehouse.

[Reliant121]

I think vodaphone and 3 also sell them now. Only t-mobile/virgin are left out as far as I am aware.

[IanKennedy]

I think vodaphone and 3 also sell them now. Only t-mobile/virgin are left out as far as I am aware.

They do but they've not yet let iPhone 4 out yet. Plus t-mobile will give it to you if you ask, I know someone with one from them.

[Reliant121]

Ah, I stand corrected.

From what i've seen theres been some issue of signal cutting dead if you hold it in a certain way....And as far as reviews go, it hasnt impressed. Admittedly, I've not seen or used a iPhone 4 nor have used the new OS but it does interest me how its being recieved this time.

[Nickswitz]

The same as the rest basically, everyone who wanted multi-tasking, seems to hate it because they did it differently, and the only decent thing about the iPhone 4 I've heard about it, and I agree, based on my views of it, is it's amazing screen.

So, Ian, what do you think of your iPhone 4?

[Reliant121]

They probably hate it because multitasking SEEMS to be more of a application quick launch than actual multitasking.

[IanKennedy]

Ah, I stand corrected.

From what i've seen theres been some issue of signal cutting dead if you hold it in a certain way....And as far as reviews go, it hasnt impressed. Admittedly, I've not seen or used a iPhone 4 nor have used the new OS but it does interest me how its being recieved this time.

I can confirm that if you hold it by the very bottom it can loose some signal strength, but it's not a way I would normally hold a phone, so it hasn't made much difference to me. The bumper that apple sell fixes the issue. The phone is very good.

- The screen stellar, there isn't another phone with a screen anywhere near this quality. Photos and text are both stunning. You have to see it 326 pixels per inch, I remember when you needed a laser printers to get that sort of resolution.
- The camera actually take pictures you would think of using for more than the odd web post. The video is capable of 720p 30fps and again performs well.
- It has a built in gyroscope for very good motion sensing, even around the direction of gravity.
- 300 hour standby battery. Over 7 hours of 3G call time, 14 hours on 2G. 40 hours of music playback. A vast improvement.
- Multitasking that works. I don't care how it works but it does everything you need it to do on a mobile device. Only nerds will be worried about how it's done, users wont give a damn, but they will love that it doesn't kill their battery.

Engadget try their darnedest to dislike it but fail badly.

[IanKennedy]

They probably hate it because multitasking SEEMS to be more of a application quick launch than actual multitasking.

Ah, more words of wisdom from those who've not used it. It allows things like:

- Skype/IM apps to run in the back ground, keep you connected and receive calls/messages, switch to other apps while making Skype calls etc.
- Any music player (more than just the iPod app) to continue playing music in the background while you use other apps.
- Switch rapidly between applications, which remain in the same state they were in when you left them.
- Satnav apps can continue to run in the background and still give directions while you are in other applications.
- Finish off downloads and other such tasks in the background.

What more could you want?

[Reliant121]

Hey, thats why I said SEEMS to be. i already said above that I havent used it, and am only quoting from review sites and others opinions.

[IanKennedy]

Hey, thats why I said SEEMS to be. i already said above that I havent used it, and am only quoting from review sites and others opinions.

It was them I was talking about.

[Nickswitz]

So, I'll assume you like it.

I wish I had a job to pay the $100+/month AT&T contract.

[Reliant121]

I wont be unfair and make negative comment about iPhones without seeing it, besides I'm very much biased because I simply don't like the OS itself. On both sides of the table, its always going to be difficult since they have bias.

[Nickswitz]

Yeah, I happen to be a complete nerd, and I can actually base an OS on it's merits, the iPhone OS is very poor in the way of notifications, as the Engadget review noted, however is excellent in speed and power management. Also it's poor in customization. The apps are fairly good because of a standard API library, which means that they are all standardized, which is nice, however doesn't give the best user experience.

Android OS is very good in customization, however runs everything full power, and therefore has very poor power management. It also is good with apps, as with that they are very open, and therefore very good for users because the user can get whatever they want, also makes for poor apps, because the dev can write whatever they want, which could be very bad for an end-user. Along with this there are the overlays that are pretty nice, Motorola's MOTOBlur is fairly nice, not too bad, but gets choppy on less than 512MB RAM, which is standard but it's still high-memory overlay, which means it can slow it down pretty well. HTC's Sense as well is pretty decent but as well as MOTOBlur is too highly memory intensive, which means that it'll even slow HTC's gorgeous phones down, which is not gorgeous.

Then there is Palm. Apps don't even matter with it, the store is a failure overall, and the apps seem to have a fairly decent overall look, and the Contacts feature is the best feature, the fact that everything can integrate, overall, Palm WebOS is nothing special, and nothing bad, but has nothing on the competition.

Yeah... Nerd-rant done.

[Reliant121]

I find it very interesting that The Blackberry OS, Maemo, Symbian and WinMO are all left out

Are they not particularly common over the pond? I know Blackberry OS and Symbian are literally everwhere over here.

[Nickswitz]

Well, Blackberry I can't actually say anything about as it is completely hated by me.

WinMo 7 I have yet to use so I can't rate it.

And Symbian and Maemo I have never seen on this side of the pond. So I can't say anything about them.

Here's my view on blackberry, they skimp on hardware to make them cheap and therefore they are slow and glitchy. The app catalog sucks, horribly, the apps in it are ok, not good, they are just really there. Since they have been making them so long they just ignore the fact that people want a working product and the fact that they have the Blackberry messenger, and that's the extent of the brilliance. If you can call it brilliance, I have no idea why they would make it, but it's why Blackberry sells, and that's the only reason.

The OS is slow, the OS is glitchy, the thing takes forever to load up, it's hardware is outdated, the Storm2 is the closest thing to up to date they have, and that's because they need it to be for the touchscreen to be working.

So yeah, I hate balckberry because the hype of it is messaging service, I can't even call it a smartphone, it isn't it has nothing special on it, it is just like a feature phone, the feature phone has better features than a Blackberry does, so I don't know why it is considered a smartphone. It's a glorified messaging phone.