Iphone short comings

My Iphone when I first got it.


One of the reasons I got the Iphone was because of the internet browsing experience. First of all, I have to say I've rarely used Safari before I got the Iphone. In fact, I was hardly ever an Apple user.

Now with the Iphone, I'm tempted to download Safari to my desktop. I like how Safari lets me browse webpages as full pages on the Iphone. That's fun. I get to check almost all the websites I normally visit.

The only hard part is blogging, the damn Iphone doesn't have a copy and paste command. When I want to add pictures to my blog, I normally copy and paste the html code from my flickr picture but since I don't have copy and paste, I would have to individually type it in the whole html code. I haven't tried it yet but the codes are damn long and I don't want to try.

There's quite a lot of short falls for this Iphone that you expect in any other Malaysian phones:

1. No MMS. There are some additional programs you can download but it's not the same like how you have MMS messages on normal phones. Maybe MMS traffic isn't such a big thing in the US but over here, MMS is catching up. I can't receive or send MMS now unless I install additional programs.

2. Cannot send and receive contacts. My old Samsung phone could only receive contacts from Samsung brand phones, not Nokia. So this one didn't really bother me. I have to manually type it out in a SMS if I want to send someone's contact.

3. No video recording. Video recording is only available with additional downloads. That's a bummer. It already has a nice camera, why didn't they build in a video recorder?

4. Phone numbers are displayed wierd. When I save phone numbers, normally I would type starting with 012 or 013, etc and save it under my contact's name. However, when a contact calls me, it doesn't display their name even though their number is saved. The reason is because all phone numbers are displayed starting with +6012 or +603 etc. It's quite irritating so now I have to re-type all my contact's number.

5. First call out doesn't work. This is a wierd problem, if I call someone the first time, the phone doesn't connect. Only on the second or third attempt it works. For example, if I want to call my house, I would search it up in the contacts and press the phone number and it'll start dialing. I hear the engage tone and it says call failed. I press the call again and then only I hear the dialing tone.

6. Typing on the keypad is really slow. I thing I getter speed typing on a numerical phone keypad. Because it's a touch screen phone, I don't get to feel the numbers like a normal keypad. If you type fast, sometimes you end up pressing the wrong keys. Granted, the spell check works pretty good on the Iphone, sometimes when I type in Malay it can be really irritating.

7. Cannot download ringtones. This one doesn't bother me too much. I just started learning how to create ringtones from my list of MP3's for my samsung phone. However, I can't do that for this Iphone. I suppose there must be some way to create your own ringtone. I know it recognizes only mp4 format ringtones. I just have to find a way to get it into the right folder.

8. Short battery life. If I use the Iphone for heavy internet browsing and watching movies, then the battery life is just 3 hours up time total. Not very long. I thought of buying another USB cable to charge the phone in the office but the cable is RM68, too expensive to get.

9. Can't edit Word, Excel and Powerpoint documents. Okay, granted this isn't a Windows Mobile 6 OS phone, but I would have loved to have the option to edit Microsoft Office documents. Right now, I can't even safe the documents to the phone. I have to browse and view it online only.

10. Surfing on EDGE is expensive. I have to be careful that I don't browse the internet when the EDGE is turned on, it can be really expensive. I only browse if its on WiFi. So far I have WiFi now in most of the places I use the Iphone... except when I'm driving and I shouldn't be browsing the internet when I'm driving!

There are other small things that bothers me about the phone. Other than the 10 points I listed, this is a pretty good phone for the GB169 price I paid. In Ringgit, it was only RM1054 so for that price range I think I got a pretty good phone. I think the biggest competition to this phone would be the HTC Touch phones. Their screen doesn't display movies as clear as the Iphone though.

I'm starting to convert all my DVD's to Iphone format now so I can watch it when I have nothing to do. I just finished watching No Country For Old Men, Flags of Our Father and Zodiac on the Iphone. 3 very long movies which I watched while I was waiting for Chui Yan in One Utama and at work ingesting tapes.

I think the next thing I'm going to get is my laptop after I settled my expenses for the apartment. I see the price of the notebook I want from Dell is getting cheaper. Good thing I didn't get it earlier!