In honor of Macworld this week, I put my SIM card back in the iPhone and charged it back up and after the keynote I was excited to to update all my Apple kit and I did as soon as I got home that night. Interestingly (or not) that’s when my interest sorta fell into whatever mode. The Quicktime, Itunes updates were nice and revealed the rental marketplace, but AppleTV is still two weeks away and the platform on which I’m most likely to use it. The iPhone updates while nice on the surface really don’t offer a whole heck of a lot. The biggest change being the enhancements to Google Maps, which are indeed quite nice.
Changing my home screen around and adding web shortcuts however is a total non-started for me at this point. I don’t find adding a bookmark to my home screen to be enabling any additional speed to the process – especially since I tend to keep a few tabs (the ones most likely to appear on my home screen) open at all times in Safari. Dropping back to EDGE only speeds and seeing the limits of the camera were also bummers and not having any legit applications like Jaiku, Gmail, Shozu among others … The addition of multi-address sms messages is something that should have been there from the start and is only worth mentioning that it’s there.
This morning after two days of straight iPhone use, I swapped the SIM back to my N95-3 and was immediately reminded why I love this device. It’s fast. Applications run quickly and in the background and I can multi-task like the power user I am. The addition of DUN let’s me fire up my N800 as well and take advantage of both devices to their respective limits. I tend to push things pretty hard (if you had not noticed) and the I reach the limits on the iPhone rather quickly.
One note of interest … while I previously thought the battery on the iPhone was amazing, I’m feeling considerably closer to reality now after two more days of full use. I have no problem reaching the 20% warning in a day and in fact if i don’t trickle charge during the day will run out of juice quite a bit more quickly. That said the battery is certainly more robust than the N95’s and I’m used to charging through the day, but don’t let anyone tell you the iPhone can handle the torture of intensive use without needing a refill before the day is over.
All of this is bringing me back to my initial conclusions on things. The iPhone is truly a mass market device that is designed to bring aspects of mobility many of us take for granted to a much wider audience. While certain aspects of the experience are undeniably wonderful (browsing, syncing and connection switching to name a few), they don’t outweigh the needs (HSDPA, DUN, Applications, image and video capture, and local storage) I have on which the iPhone falls very flat. I can’t help but think how nice that upcoming N958GB NAM device is going to be when it arrives … a larger screen is always a good thing for reading as much I do on the go.
Technorati Tags: Nokia, NSeries, N95, Apple, iPhone, 3G, HSDPA, DUN, EDGE
I think Zach summed up the iPhone quite nicely (and I can agree after having used it for a short while):
I equate going from the N95-3 to the iPhone to taking a good vacation. Ideally, a good vacation brings to somewhere beautiful and exotic. You can rest, relax and basically shut your brain off while you unwind from all of the tasks and trivialities that you deal with in your every-day life. From time to time of course you can explore a few new things and exert yourself to some extent but overall you’re there to chill out and soak it all in. Such is the iPhone….Vacations can’t last forever though and the N95 is represented by every-day life in this analogy. My life is fast-paced. I’m constantly working on something different – typically several things simultaneously – and I need a wide range of knowledge and skills to accomplish the many tasks I face every day.
First of all, I think you win the prize for fastest comment ever. 😉
I like the vacation analogy though. It’s nice to visit new places, but always great to be back home.
yep, even with Nokia creating a Bluetooth problem in the latest N73 firmware, I still cannot make the leap to iPhone as like you would miss a great camera, 3G data xfer, Google apps etc. the built in opera browser also hangs together prety well.
interestingly i played with an LG Viewty smartphone which has a touchscreen and most of the ‘most wanted’ functionality that the iPhone lacks (except wireless). however, it got sent back as there is no way (and that’s the way it’s likely to remain according to the sources i have spoken to) to sync it to a Mac for iCal and Address Book. shame because if it did, i reckon they would sell bucket loads.
once the iPhone gets 3G, a better (5MP) camera AND most importantly of all two way synchronisation of notes I will happily get my credit card out.
I enjoy reading your mini comparisons because it keeps everything in perspective. You don’t flame either device; you give real world experience after using both devices as your daily workhorse. This method is much less stressful to read than the fanboy rantings from either side (which I am guilty of sometimes gettings wrapped into).
Thanks Johnny – I try to be even minded with these things. I dig both Apple and Nokia gear and both are good, but serve different purposes today. Perhaps when the SDK comes the iPhone will see new life in my mobile world…
yep, the iPhone is definitely a consumer device, not a professional device, and IMHO not even a prosumer device.
And as much as some are drooling for a 3G iPhone, I bet they will constrain it in some unreasonable way (still no swappable battery or if there is GPS it will be locked to a pay service, etc…)
I don’t mind the missing gps or battery to be honest. I use an external battery now and it’s a fine solution. My main issue are apps (coming soon) and limited camera not too mention no video.