All Articles Tagged Opinion

Remember that post I wrote last week about my buddy Matt Miller returning his iPhone and going back to a Nokia Smartphone? Well the poor guy just couldn’t let it go. He writes on his blog that just two hours ago he went back to AT&T and got another iPhone. This time it appears he plans on keeping the device long term.

the iPhone drew me back in hour-by-hour over the weekend and I just could no longer resist it so I just picked up a new iPhone at the Apple store a couple hours ago. Over the weekend I tried using a Nokia N95 tethered with a N800 and both are excellent devices in their own way and I actually found some new applications for the N95 that made me like it even more. However, the Apple iPhone is slick and so refreshing after using other Palm, embedded Linux, Windows Mobile, and Symbian devices over the last 10 years that I was pulled back to it.

Welcome back Matt. We saved you a glass of Kool-Aid.

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Tech writer Steve Gilmorr grabs his Sanyo Xacti cam and hits the headquarters of Salesforce.com to interview Marc Benioff, Doc Searls, Dan Farber, Robert Scoble, and other technocrats to share opinions on various topics including iPhone and Microsoft’s waning dominance. Enjoy.

I don’t know who this guy is but his parody is brilliant, if raunchy.

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Among the dull roar of criticisms about iPhone I have to endure, one in particular stands out as the most irritating and unfounded – the attack against AT&T. I hear these slanderous indictments all the time…“Why did Apple choose AT&T?”, “AT&T sucks! They should have gone with Verizon or Sprint”, “AT&T is evil”. Blah blah blah.

Here’s a bit of schooling for you numbskulls – What you don’t understand is that the quality and reliability of wireless service in the U.S. is subjective and varies from one location to another. For example, in my specific locale, Sprint offers the worst reliability and coverage of any major carrier. T-Mobile is practically non-existent. Verizon offers great service, but their selection of handsets is abysmal. So, for all practical purposes, AT&T is the “best” wireless carrier for me. Your experience will vary. A friend of mine who lives in Redmond Washington (no, it isn’t Bill Gates) says that T-Mobile offers the best coverage and voice quality in his area, while Sprint is teh suck. So which one of us is right? We both are.

Unlike other parts of the world like Asia and Europe, wireless infrastructure in North America is less ubiquitous and unevenly distributed. This is the reason why we suffer through so many dropped calls, poor voice quality, and latency.

So yes, AT&T does suck. And so does Verizon. So does Sprint. So does T-Mobile. And so on. There is no “best” wireless carrier, only best in your location. Live it, learn it, be it.

A study published by USA Today shows that out of 200 iPhone users polled, 90% were “extremely” or “very” satisfied with their device. Take any these consumer surveys with a grain of salt and a shot of whiskey, the numbers and methodology used is always suspect. But if this percentage scales accurately to a larger demographic, this is an unprecedented number for customer satisfaction in a mobile device.

Apple’s marketing PR man Greg Joswiak gave this soundbite…

Greg Joswiak, Apple’s vice president of worldwide marketing for the iPod and iPhone, said positive word-of-mouth reaction is “critically important” to any product, as it was with the iPod. “We’re getting even greater reaction to the iPhone,” he says.

I have to give the utmost credit to Apple for pulling off this product launch in an unparalleled way. They executed brilliantly and succeeded in creating a first generation product that “gets it right” out of the box.

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Columnist Bob Cringely once again delivers his weekly sermon from the pulpit of PBS. This time the self proclaimed minister of prognostication talks about Apple’s 3G plans and upcoming product launches.

Here’s my thinking. Apple has worked hard to become a company not solely dependent for its success on Christmas sales. For years Apple would run at break-even for three quarters then make nearly all its profit for the year in the Christmas quarter, which used to be the fourth quarter and was later changed to the first fiscal quarter for exactly this reason. While monster quarters are nice, what’s even better is selling huge numbers of units all year long, which much more efficiently uses infrastructure and results in stock prices that go up, up, and up. Apple has lately done a pretty good job of smoothing earnings thanks to the iPod and iTunes, which has grown so fast that holiday sales have become almost inconsequential. But in order to make this work Apple has to deliver new products all year, they have to exceed customer expectations on a regular basis and, of course, they have to manage those expectations so they’ll have a benchmark to exceed.

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Since the iPhone has now been out for nearly two weeks, and for many of you that purchased iPhones at an Apple Store that means your evaluation period is due to expire, now comes the question – Will you keep your shiny new toy, or will it be returned? Answer the poll the below.

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Before delving further into my initial impressions, I wanted to go back to the topic of iPhone’s display that I hadn’t yet covered – brightness and color. The screen is absolutely the brightest and richest color LCD I have ever seen on a mobile device. In fact my initial reaction upon powering up the device for the first time was that Apple obviously preconfigured these units with screen brightness to maximum strength by default. One of my first actions was to go to the settings screen and turn it down. Imagine my shock when I discovered that brightness level was in fact set at just 50%. Moving the slider to its maximum setting creates a retina popping brightness that could double for a Maglite. So bright in fact that it’s actually painful to look at. Needless to say I don’t recommend doing this. You’ll have no problem finding your keys in the dark with this thing. Read the rest of this entry »

Does the iPhone live up to the hyperbole? Is the device really as cool as it looks? Even more important – is it a practical device to use or just an expensive, but impressive, luxury gadget? I can’t fully answer the philosophical aspects until I’ve used the iPhone for a longer period of time. Two weeks is my usual period for test modeling a product before passing final judgment. But in this case I will share my initial impressions and experiences. Some good, some not so good. Read the rest of this entry »

Please excuse my absence for the past 24 hours. I am still basking in iPhone afterglow, having spent most of my time heavily engaged in taste testing the Jesus phone, putting it through its paces. Before I get into my impressions of the device (spoiler: It is AMAZING!) I thought I would share my experiences that led up to actually getting the phone. Some of the things I discovered from my adventure were just as enlightening, and entertaining, as the iPhone itself. Read the rest of this entry »