Pure tosh
"If you compare an iPhone to another machine which contains similar hardware, it is hugely more expensive."
Really? Samsung Galaxy II? HTC Desire S?
Here we are again on iPhone day, and once more the world waits on the edge of its seat to see what the fruitchomp masterminds of Cupertino have in store. We'll tell you what they've got in store - and none of it's good. Without further ado, here are ten points you should ponder before you even think of buying a new iPhone 5. …
Even if you buy Samsung or HTC phones upon release they're $100 cheaper than old iPhones. Buying a new iPhone will cost at least another $100 - more if you want it unlocked.
Most droids price at around $200 with a two year contract. Most iPhones are priced at $300 under the same terms and almost every feature is worse. If having a phone that has access to iTunes but can't properly browse websites created after 1995, swap a dead battery or add more storage is for you, fine. Personally I prefer a smartphone with a full-size screen, a decent feature set and the ability to stay connected to a phone call for that kind of money.
Comparing _subsidised_ prices is pointless: all sorts of factors enter into the equation.
I bought my iPhone 4 because it was – by far – the _cheapest_ smartphone on offer (that didn't have a shit resistive, 320x400 screen). I was actually planning to buy an HTC model, but it was fully €150 _more_ expensive.
Of course, Italian operators don't do subsidies much. And phones here are rarely locked either.
(France has a similar market: phones _must_ be unlocked there. It's the law. Or it was when I was working there over a year ago.)
Not everyone lives in the US. Or the UK.
Do you know the last time i took the site extension into account? Never. Heck unless i am looking to buy something i don't even care about the language. The internet is about connection on a WORLD level, it should not matter if you are in USA, Italy, UK, Venezuela or freaking Somalia.
You wouldn't expect an article entitled "Ten reasons why you shouldn't buy an iPhone 5" to be a balanced summary. In fact you would expect it explicitly not to include any arguments in favour whatsoever. It's just a summary of the arguments in favour of a viewpoint; the conclusion precedes the discussion.
Obviously I'm confident that the opposing case will be forthcoming. Our favourite irreverent technical publication wouldn't descend to taking sides, surely?
"Pompous tosser", hehehehehe.... LP/UK humor is more lively than US humor, I'll say!
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=poncey
"The actions of a pompous tosser who thinks their value is higher than it is actually worth. The actions of one who thinks they are either overly stylish, cool or smart etc,... "
... think of Skype.
On half of all Android phones it just won't work. It won't work on mine. After a software update the mic stopped working on Sony Experia phones.
The problem is fragmentation. The iPhone eco system doesn't have that problem to the same extent that Android does.
How many people mod their TV? iPhones and iPads are for consuming stuff and they meet that need. Us Geeks have Android and we root and install etc. When the walled gardens are erected us Geeks will still know how to tunnel and subvert.
Each to their own I say.
I echo your each to their own sentiment on an intellectual level.
On on emotional level though, given Apple's bad behaviour the last couple years (suing people for using the term 'pod', dumping apps out of the app store for no apparent reason, being a general dick of a company) I would desperately love to see them crash and burn. I suspect a lot of people share my feelings on that. As to the rest....
"How many people mod their TV?"
Um...actually....Let's just say that the big projector at the back of the room was a TV in a previous life. Maybe that's has something to do with why I prefer Android.
Not really.
You can't compare a single manufacturer's product (the specs of which differ only with regard to memory size) with a lots of manufacturer's products.
Find a droid phone that works and stick with it. I suggest not going with a manfacturer known for doing proprietary gunk like sony, when picking an (more) open platform - the cultures don't sit well together.
And skype on a phone? Again, perhaps google's offerings might be a better bet. I can't seek skype lasting too long on android anyway, given the MS acquisition.
Fascinating list, but surely anyone who already has an iPhone and is very happy with it, is unlikely to be bothered by any of the items on it, and therefore will continue to purchase an iPhone at their earliest convenience?
What you're essentially saying is that anyone who hates Apple, and would much prefer an Android, WinPho or Nokia smartphone, should listen to your advice not to buy an iPhone if they know what's good for them? And it took two pages to say it?
is that anyone who is interested in value for money, usability and not conforming to one company's idea of how they should use their phone would, if making a rational decision, avoid the iPhone.
People prefer Pepsi to Coke when they can't see the packaging and Coke to Pepsi when they can see the packaging. For similar reasons, this 'debate' is going nowhere!
Actually, it is not generally true that people preferred Pepsi to Coke.
Based on a blind test which was very poorly managed, on average people chose Pepsi - which is not the same thing and is indicative of the question we were posed, not our preference.
I "took the challenge" and chose Coke. Pepsi tastes like soap - amazingly so did "New Coke" which was a fabulous market success - not?
I can think of 10 rational reasons to buy the iPhone.
Apple haters demonstrate what they are so often that it is boring to come to these forums. The fact of the matter is that you haters all hate success and want your shitty copy of iPhones to be better and keep finding useless reasons to demonstrate it.
It's a phone FFS, and 90% of phone users don't give a toss about the OS and think that an Android is that green guy in Star Trek
Dweeb
I would add 3 and 8 to your list, although I'm sure that the iPhone 5 has a better antenna than the iPhone 4 did when it came out, so maybe just 3. That walled garden model is bad for everyone except Apple. It's bad for developers, it's really bad for consumers, and Apple happily rakes in the tons of cash from it.
If I tried to count the number of times I've run out of iPhone battery on my fingers, well, I'd fail to do so, as the current count is zero. It's never happened. I put it on to charge every night, and it runs perfectly well all day.
If I anticipate needing longer than a day's worth of battery, I bring an external charger pack and plug it in at the opportune moment. This is far more convenient than trying to faff about swapping a battery.
Also, it's a bit rich to critique battery life, it being an area that Android devices suffer greatly in, so I've been told.
There is nothing inconvenient about swapping a battery. Hold on a sec.
1
2
3
DONE
Carrying a large external charger about with you however is extremely inconvenient when compared with carrying an additional streamlined battery.
I just came back from hiking 92 miles, I brought along an additional PHAT battery which weighed a few ounces. Far preferable to carrying a large heavy external charger.
I'll stick with my Nexus One purely for those reasons ta :-)
""...when you got home you had... oh that's right, two batteries to charge sequentially"
You seem to have missed the "went out hiking 92 miles" part. I think there's no way he was going to be able to charge his phone at all, given the lack of power outlets during said 92-mile hike.
I remember having two batteries for my Fujitsu Lifebook 280Dx; thanks to this, I was able to cope with a long flight running on both batteries. :)
The "expensive cable" excuse... was dead even before the first iPhone shipped back in 2007.
Presently, your "expensive" cable costs just over $2 (less than £2), including free shipping in the USA...and of course it isn't even a whopping $2, since the USB cable you want to use wasn't free anyway.
Nevertheless, considering that the typical smartphone service contract (at least in the USA) runs roughly $2000 across its 2 year term, to whine about a mere $2 for a spare cable is to foolishly ignore 99.9% of your lifecycle costs.
Congratulations, you've earned the "EPIC FAIL" icon.
-hh
I stated before that the iphone cable is more expensive. You think that's a fail.
Google product search finds a load of them at similar prices, around £15.
http://store.apple.com/uk/product/MA591G/B?afid=p223|GBUK&cid=AOS-EMEA-SHOP-GoogleBase-UK
You can get a cable for a proper phone for £1.95 delivered. That's less expensive. in fact, in the list of iphone cable prices, it's a rounding error.
http://www.kenable.co.uk/product_info.php?products_id=4939
Unlike iphone owners, I didn't ignore lifecycle costs. By not getting an iphone I cut my 2-year cost down to £720 (about $1100) (I have lots of minutes and data) without losing any functionality (but gaining some). So I've already cut nearly 50% from the lifecycle cost, even before I get spare cables for the car and office. I can get an extra 16GB for less than $100 too.
Congratulations, you managed "fail squared".
@craigness
You can protest about finding expense sources all you want, but Amazon UK has your £15 cable for sale for but a mere £1:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Connector-Cable-iPods-iPhones-iPads/dp/B00290PUXQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1317919109&sr=8-1
I can't explain why you were unable to find it in your Google searches...that's a question for you to ask yourself.
-hh
PS: I don't have an iPhone either ... but my reasons are not lame ones built on false pretenses.
A large heavy external charger means one of those devices that consists of a large battery which you can use to charge your phone. Not the mains charger. Far too often it is impossible to use a mains charger for a lengthy period of time. Being able to change battery is a wholly reasonably way to cope with this.
Not allowing you to change the battery is all about forcing early obsolescence. On most modern electrical devices the battery is the first thing to give out. Not allowing you to change it is used by Apple to tempt you to buying the next shiny thing.
except that most external batteries aren't 'large and heavy' at all and have the advantage of being able to charge multiple devices.
I'd say the point is technically true but of little practical consequence as, at least AFAICS, a well-designed external battery is a better choice than a second internal battery in most cases even if you have the choice of the latter. That's what I find, anyway - I have an N900 but I bought an external battery, not a second internal one.
We are talking about external chargers not mains chargers, the type that hold batteries in and are rechargeable and heavy. They are good for charging phones, cameras, ipads etc with many other uses too of course and different ones for different specifications.
Very useful but they add weight that is not needed if you are weight conscious. With the iPhone there is little choice, with an Android (all models as far as I know) there is choice.
It's nice having the choice.
"There is nothing inconvenient about swapping a battery."
Steps to swap a battery:
1. Power off phone
2. Take old battery out
3. Swap new battery in
4. Power on phone
Steps to plug in external battery:
1. Plug in external battery
Yeah, clearly I'm doing the wrong thing here. Shucks.
"..when you got home you had... oh that's right, two batteries to charge sequentially to get back to square one"
In parallel, actually. And having two phone batteries would land you in the exact same situation, so no gain there.
"Desperate to find fualt much?"
I find fault with crap information, yeah. Agree with a few of the other points in the article though!
Finding fault is easy with your spelling being the first. But what if you can't plug in an external battery (which needs to be recharged too! and takes longer to boot) or if you don't have the space to carry one. A simple extra battery goes a long way and is easily charged in the cradle that came with my phone (FOR FREE).
2. Attempt to put phone/battery glob in shirt pocket.
3. Change shirts for one with a larger pocket.
4. Attempt to put into shirt pocket.
after a short while
5. Return home to change shirt again.
6. Throw away shirt with ripped pocket.
7. Go buy man-purse.
I support a site with a mix of Samsung Galaxies and iPhones, and there's no contest on batteries, none at all. The Samsungs struggle to last the day unless you use them strictly as a phone and limit browsing, email etc. The iPhones, not only far easier to connect and link to the back end email server (and less trouble once linked), and the batteries last all day under almost any usage, two days easy if you're frugal.
So I can see why you had to take spare batteries for your droid, I'd take my iPhone, and I'd be confident that it would last if used carefully.
Well, on a long trek, I turn the phone OFF. If someone wants to talk to me, they can leave a message on the voicemail, or drop a text.
When I'm feeling like a bit of communication, I'll turn it ON for a few minutes to see if I've got signal, and if so, if I've got messages.
I've gone two weeks with that strategy, got all the messages I absolutely needed, and made all the calls/texts I needed.
It's called 'thinking'. Yes, having a replaceable battery is 'nice', but a bit of forethought about what you need will see you through better than extra hardware.
"If I tried to count the number of times I've run out of iPhone battery on my fingers, well, I'd fail to do so, as the current count is zero"
Count one on you fingers...okay got that? All right then, now retract that one finger you currently have extended so that you have no fingers extended. There you go, you just counted zero on your fingers. Not as difficult as you seem to think hey?
Every time Apple seals in the battery some apologist pops out of the woodwork to pretend it doesn't matter, or that Apple couldn't possibly have made the battery replaceable because the device is too thin.
And then along comes a competing device which does exactly that. e.g. Samsung's Galaxy SII is one of the thinnest phones around yet manages a replaceable battery. How does it manage this mind crushing feat? Popclips. The back can be removed and clipped securely into place.
How is it the alleged masters of industrial design can do likewise? The simple answer is they don't want to. A replaceable battery extends the life of a phone and we can't have that now can we? So Apple seals it in, and imposes a high price and ludicrous terms on their battery replacement service to ensure a healthy turnover of people junking an otherwise functional device for the latest model.
Full disclosure, I do NOT own an iPhone and can't afford one.
1) Fair point.. I don't NEED to change a battery but for some people it might be a nice thing to do.
2) It's in the cloud. Business models change. Not saying I trust my data in the cloud, but thats what theyre aiming for.
3) Walled garden as its pros and cons. Service, quality, security, reliability. But price, flexibility, ownership. Your mileage may vary, it depends what you intend to do with your phone. Me.. I dont want to think about finding the correct version of the correct app for the correct version of the correct OS for my version of my year of my phone. So if it tells me what version to install, and someone has vetted it first. I'm happy
4) We're not speculating on the performance of the previous model, you're listing reasons not to buy the model you havent tested yet. Its like saying dont buy this years titanic, the last one sank.
5) Everyone else has gone one? Everyone I know has a VW Golf, doesnt mean I shouldnt buy one if its good for my needs.
6) A celebrity endorsing a product puts you off? Hope you dont watch many TV adverts then, you wont have many products at all ever anywhere in the world to choose from.
7) A Ferrari has four wheels and an engine, very expensive for what it is.
8) The antenna was badly designed on the last one. Doesnt mean they wont fix it on this one.
9) Screen size, if I had a bucket of water I could figure out the volume of each device. I wonder if you make it thinner you have to make it fatter somewhere else? All that stuff has to go somewhere maybe in the last version Apple chose the screen bevel?
10) Wait.. Always Always Always wait. For the new car, for the new computer, for the new tv. Any gadget is overpriced and obsolete the day its made.
I'll give you 5/10. 5 'reasons not to buy', and 5 trolls.
Now you've just given those in doubt 10 reasons why they should:
1 - Because they want one
2 - ElReg said they shouldn't, so they more than likely will
3 - It's oh, so fashionable
4 - It is in essence nothing more than the 5th generation Apple branded phone
5 - Graham Norton doesn't own one
6 - It's actually not that bad function wise as far as phones go
7 - People can get it cheaper with a contract renewal or a new contract
8 - The battery life on previous generations hasn't been exactly that bad either
9 - By default first time Apple iPhone owners become an App Store customer and iTunes user
10- A white version will be released in 6 months so they have a reason to "upgrade"
Pro's and con's aside, people will flock to the O2, 3, Vodafone and Phones4U stores to get their hands on this desirable little gadget. The "Antennagate" fiasco will not reflect on the new product as Apple (like most tech manufacturers) learn from their errors
I still think there's way too much hype around all things Apple, seriously 7 or 8 years back, most iPod owners didn't even know that Apple made "computers".. now it's a household name thanks to the media hype and this article is a sterling example of that "hype" :¬)
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I have to say I agree with pretty much all the of the above points. After all you would buy a TV were only Sony could tell you which programmes you can watch, at what volume and for how long.
I will say, in all fairness. The original iphone in my opinion did break new ground and brought a lot to the mobile phone table. However since then the competitors have matched, surpassed and even embarrassed Apple with their answer.
SGSII FTW
Interesting points you make there. Strangely, I've not had a particular issue with them over the last few blissful years if iPhone ownership and I suspect that when the iPhone 4S/5 appears they will continue to be irrelevant for me. I did briefly have a google phone but to be honest it was crap. Duff software, no upgrades or patches. And the battery thing....FFS have you seen how much they cost (and I mean for a genuine one that actually works). And to actually have to lug it about. No I'm fine thanks with fruity lockdown. Oh and the walled garden thing. Well it's a valid point and feel free to go your own way, but from what I can tell, Apple does a fine job of making developers money and handling all the tricky stuff like payment and currency conversion. So you know, it has it's upsides as well. Choose your poison and the like. Well must dash. Got to work myself up into a fanbio frenzy as the big announcement(s) get closer. Flame away
Finally someone else speaks out against the iPoop.
Overpriced, underspecified, designer rubbish for the terminally gullible.
You will overpay for the phone, overpay for your airtime contract, and overpay for any apps.
When it was new it was a revelation w.r.t. having a moderately well designed user interface.
But now,...it's outclassed by almost everyone.
This would be better published on a Friday for added effect.
I was tempted to say "don't feed the troll" but it will undoubtedly go unheeded so flame away.
I for one, am squarely on the off-apple camp for very hardware-centric reasons. Those gadgets are just not spec'd right.... They're always behind the cutting edge regardless of all the "shiny" they claim to embody.
That's a pretty fair list.
I'm fortunate to have test Android devices and iPhones at work and the Galaxy SII may have it's faults but it is a very nice phone when compared to the lump that is an iPhone. So far, everyone who has "tested" an iPhone and an Andorid phone for a fee weeks has opted for an Android although the userbase tends to be slightly more technical where no SD expansion or additional battery or iTunes is a deal breaker.
And if you're paying for a contract phone yourself, free on a cheap contract beats paying for a phone and an expensive contract...
So that'll be down to the statuesque then.
I flippn hate Crapple as much as the next Android / Samsung loving fanboi that I'am.
But, really come on this is what you use choose to fire your first volley at?
If all those Fashiontards haven't managed to figure this much out for themselves yet that Crapple only OFFICIALLY sell disposables.
Then what hope is there left for this World?
What what about reason Number 11?
Crapple HATES Adobe?
Price: it doesn't seem more expensive than competing high-end HTC, Samsung phones running Android or WP7.
Antenna: saying the old model had a bad one therefore you shouldn't buy the new one is silly. Most of the points are fine but I have to theorise the author was stretching for 10 points and ran out at 7 or 8.
I'm not sure many, if any, of these reasons are particularly valid. I've found that the majority of people that buy these things are more than happy with their capability, fashion appeal and form factor. I personally wouldn't touch one with a 10 foot barge pole not the least because I find Apples business practice (i.e. patent wars) and constant milking of their customers abhorrent.
If the consumer is happy to buy into it - c'est la vie, I'm not going to stop them. Besides, who knows Apple might come up with something that's a game changer again or at least a feature that is more polished and idiot proof than other implementations and that's not a bad thing...
In your infinite naivity, do you honestly believe that Google or Microsoft or Facebook or RIM are any better?
You are aware, I presume, that Android is an advertising tool for a firm whose business is selling advertising? Have you missed the bit where Google was found, in several countries, to be gathering rather a lot of personal information, storing it and using it, as any advertising company would,, given half a chance? This was not just a vague suspicion or guess (compare the GPS affair on IOS), this was admitted, proved ....
Or perhaps you are thinking of the hardware manufactures: how sweet to imagine that Foxcom or whoever have especially exploitative production lines and methods just for Apple or that Apple has some kind of evil overseer placed to make sure the workers on its version of the whatever chip or case or glass have a particularly nasty time of it.
Have you ever tried getting a copy of Microsoft or RIM code? Even some of the Android stuff is protected.(perfectly reasonably) now.
I suspect that Nokia and Symbian is the closest you will get to your apparent ideal. And we see, sadly, what has happened there.
Of course, when you go shopping, you never hunt for the best price, try to get a discount, in case some poor bugger pays it for you in less income or more pressure; you always ask about the salary and welfare of the makers, the shop assistant, the transport workers, always offer to pay more just to make sure all in the chain get more. Lovely.
At work or at home, you feel not the merest twinge of annoyance if you do a good job and someone else purloins the credit, claims the idea, even if it does mean you miss a promotion, a pay increase, a bonus. Saintly, that's what you are, too good for this world.
Of course, you manage, somehow, to ensure that your taxes go nowhere near the more awkward actions of your government or your local council. As for usng oil in any form, with the sheer exploitation and spoliation of land and lives in, for instance, Nigeria or Iraq - Heaven forbid.
I wonder what sort of ethical software and hardware (including all the network bits) you used to tell us about your precious ethics, while drinking Fairtrade tea or coffee or a glass of beer from some breweray that would never supply a drunk or an alcoholic.
You lump RIM in with the rest of the anti-privacy crowd, but you seem to have omitted the bit where you back that up; Au contraire RIM are famous for telling any and all comers-after BlackBerry users' data to fsck off. They've made a fair number of mis-steps in the past but I really can't see them compromising their relationships with (wealthy) governments and (wealthy) paranoid mega-corps by attempting a late entry into the advertising market.
Not open-sourcing your OS code is not the same as operating a walled-garden platform.
And it's Foxconn.
The second half of your post made no sense whatsoever to me. Based on the first half I rebut it anyway.
Fire extinguisher would have been my choice too. Because of "you'll get geekslapped by an early-adopter pal with a demonstrably better gadget: and to crown this infamy, his will probably have cost a lot less than yours".
To show how discerning I am, I'd follow said early-adopter pal around with said fire extinguisher, waiting for his 'demonstrably better' gadget to catch fire.
And in the meantime, should one be besieged by some "iPhones are rubbish, really they are" bore, perhaps even Lewis Page himself, a fire extinguisher makes a pretty handy improvised blunt instrument.
Everything you've said here is also applicable to the iPhone 3 and the iPhone 4. Non-swappable batteries, walled garden, no memory card slot... You just seem to have regurgitated all the hates and quibbles people have for previous versions of the phones and yet folks still buy them. Exactly what new information are you adding to this debate because I'm damned if I can see a single original thought in this list.
I'm shocked.
Not Actually That Great As A Phone. Very true. My neighbour stands at his backdoor to use his iPhone.
Battery and SD card slot. Pathetic. I would expect Apple to have slots and then charge deranged prices for inferior replacements. Come on, Apple.
Scarcely Marks You Out As One Of The Cognoscenti. Understatement of the year. iPhones are standard kit at local schools along with baggy jeans, torn shirts, etc.
etc, etc, nuff said.
Will you be doing a 10 reasons not to buy Android?
I'll get you started:
1. Manufacturers desert you 6 months after purchase.
Owners of Sony X10s to HTC Desires are stuck on outdated versions of Android, whilst owners of 2 year old Apple phones will be getting the latest version of iOS as soon as it is launched.
My n95 (2007) can make videocall over internet over XMPP over wifi/3g
Your iSh1t 3GS (2009) not only miss 50cent frontcam, It also had NO MULTITASKING, and even worst, no copyandpaste!!!
How they cheated so many innocents buyers ???
Now, ask why corpocryme telecos are forcing Android manufactures to remove the frontcam ! :)))
The only thing worse than a raving Apple fanboi, is a slavering Anti-Apple zealot, frothing and drooling with their fanatical 'must-convince-everyone-never-to-buy-any-apple-product' rantings.. Whether motivated by jealousy (including 'why didn't I think of that') is unclear, but these extremists (of either approach) are like the nutter stood on a crate telling us we're all doomed to die next saturday, or the embarrassing cousin at a wedding.
Your post may contain the basics of some accurate information, though twisted to suit your rantings. Fundamentally though, a) you've completely missed the point of why people by iPhones and b) You are not likely to sway anyone's opinion with this disgraceful display.
Someone bought an iPhone? Good for them, I hope they'll enjoy it, and suspect (given how many buy another later) that they will. Someone bought an Android? Good for them, and I suspect they'll also be very pleased with their purchase. A technical comparison between devices is of significant interest to some, and a worthy approach. A foaming at the mouth 'You shouldnt buy an iPhone(or any other device) because...' is disgraceful journalism, and unworthy of the register.
i was lucky enough to get a free iphone4. to be honest, after using this phone, i would never buy an apple product.
the wife has a HTC desire. it does everything this one does. and a lot more. i hate the fact i have to really use itunes to do anything. even making a ringtone is a pain in the arse!
You're not so keen yourself then?
Can I suggest you take a look around a consider an alternative then? There are plenty of other phones in the market place you know and though you might not be aware you can choose to but one of those instead. You have that power, you really do!
There, see, life isn't so bleak is it.
Karma to you :-)
Blimey!
A strong reminder for me here: when the iPhone 1 appeared I was disgusted with much of the above and thought most issues would be resolved by the time the 3 came out.
When the 3 was out I was forced to re-assess and pretty much set myself up to wait for the 5, even planning my phone contracts accordingly.
If they announce the iPhone 5 tonight (not just a 4S) and it STILL does not have a replaceable batter y and a memory slot then I'm probably keeping away forever and getting into researching Android v Windows 7 Phone / 8.
So Lewis, how do you charge these extra batteries that you use on YOUR phone? If you forgot to plug the phone in I assume that you have some sort of 90s style external battery charger which you use to charge just the battery without the phone attached?
And I assume your phone has a higher resolution screen than the iPhone? I agree about the memory card thing, me and my mates upgrade our memory cards every week or two and my phone now has a terrabyte of storage! Oh wait, that's in the same fantasyland you're in, SDHC doesn't actually go much higher than what apple offer.
Point 4 is very true and not in a sarcastic way but the people Apple aim this at don't use the telephone function very much. These days it's all text, twitter, facebook and email. Perhaps you could research these for a future article on how people actually use technology rather than one on how we thought we would back in the days when keyboards were all the rage?
Yes, nowadays everyone and his dog does have one and for some reason that seems to have put you into a jealous rage because you can't afford one.
You're right that it's expensive too, but then if it was cheap there would be no market for Android and HTC!
Anon because this post will get flamed I suspect :)
I'm sure all those reasons are perfectly lovely. However if you're not planning to buy a '5 then they are meaningless (or just preaching to the choir). If you are planning to get one, none of them will persuade you otherwise.
All these reasons are far too rational. They fail to recognise the way the product is being marketed and therefore won't have any traction with the people being courted. If you can find a potential buyer who is willing and able to give you an honest answer, it probably won't be any more substantial than "BECAUSE I WANT ONE". You simply can't argue against that level of primal, unthinking desire.
If you really wanted to deter people from buying one - your best strategy would be simply to lie about it. How about starting a rumour that every '5 was tested on poor, blind, orphan, pregnant, bunny-wunnies with big sad eyes and a cute little bobble-tail?
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1. I've never, like the majority of users, swopped out a battery in mobile (unless it fails to charge).
2. Never needed much use a memory card and when I did most implementations are pain in the ....
3. Obviously the writer's never been in walled garden they can be spectacular.
4. Applies to most mobiles many are worst.
5. I want something that works not to compensate for the size of my...
6. If you have to use Stephen Fry in your argument I've won!
7. It is not expensive; what it is is not cheap (and nasty).
8. Same answer as 4
9. As someone who's quite happy with the size of his equipment I don't get this obsession with size.
10. I'd have to agree as this advice is something I'd always gone by, but the above 9 points are making me think again.
1)unless it fails to charge... there in lies the point. once the battery no longer holds charge (for whatever reason), the phone is effectively useless. (baring a fiddly warranty voiding procedure or expensive 'repair')
4) no. it really doesn't. I cant speak for 5/4s, but 4 and its predecessors are near the bottom of the pack.
6) using column inches for irrelevance isnt you "winning" its lewis losing slightly for padding, because ten is a nice round number
7) its not expensive if you are well off. It is/will be *more* expensive than most of its competitors. Diamonds aren't expensive if you are filthy rich. £10 for a loaf of bread anyone?
8) antennagate - if many were similar or worse, we would be complimenting apple on how much better than the competition it is. But it isnt. ie you are wrong.
Unfortunately your valid points about SD cards and batteries pale somewhat into significance when you make irrational arguements like "don't buy a new model because a 2 generations old one didn't have 3G". Or "Stephen Fry wants to copulate with his iPhone, therefore no-one should like it".
As for the walled garden arguement, i quote The Once-ler when i say "If Apple didn't do it then someone else would have".
They saw a profitable and successful business model (that consumers evidently like) and went for it. How dare those capitalist pigs...
1) Never had a problem with any of mine. Had a few close calls, admittedly, but sometimes it's nice to spend the last 5 minutes walking home from work, listening to the birds in the trees, being aware of the cars zooming past me
2) if you use iTunes and it's Smart playlists properly, you won't have a need for extra memory.
3) it would seem that Amazon would wish to argue that walled-garden businesses are the way of the future. buying an iphone or a kindle just puts you at the front of the new age.
4) but then again, really, who bothers to phone anyone these days? if you can't txt or tweet it, it's not worth saying
5) not so. all those other fools have the old iphone model. therefore you must be seen with the very brand new on to stand out from the crowd.
6) Just because he's a celebrity and expresses his opinion, doesn't mean he's wrong. and besides, you don't find many other celebrities gushing about the android alternatives do you?
7) Same can be said about BMWs and Fords
8) Surely this is a reason TO buy the new one, as it'll have a new antenna design, rather than the old iPhone4 (on which, i might add, i've yet to find the antenna issue occur without getting cramp in my hand trying to force it to happen)
9) bigger isn't always better. Bono's sunglasses cover more of his face than other sunglasses, but i still think they look ugly
10) as before, gotta buy at the start before the hoi poloi get their hands on it
and there's a great reason to buy the phone:
just as you've no doubt revelled in trolling the apple fanboys with this article, merely by buying the latest iPhone on release day, we get get to troll every windows and android fanatic at once. and that's worth any amount of apple-taxation :-) :-)
As an AT&T iPhone 4 owner, I can confirm the deathgrip is real (I'm rarely affected, and I use no case). But, Apple have addressed the issue, which is why the Verizon iPhone 4 was designed with dual aerials. Unless you grip the phone simultaneously at the top and bottom, there's no way to attenuate both.
Why is the reg still harping about a design issue that was addressed nearly a year ago??
I'm sorry but before I take this seriously i'll wait and see what APPLE have to say about it. Where did you get this information from because I'm willing to bet it wasn't Apple. I like giving Apple stick as much as the next average Microsoft Joe however saying it won't have this or won't have that when you know NOTHING about its technical specifications is just stupid.
How stupid are you going to look if Apple come back and say that some of these features are actually available?
1. No Swappable Battery
Personally I don't need to swap the battery and it would mean replacing the glass back with some crappy plasticky hatch.
2. No Memory Card Slot
Ditto, 16Gb is fine for me.
3. Buying iPhones Encourages The Walled-Garden Business Model
I really don't care what impact buying a product has on the industry as a whole.
4. Not Actually That Great As A Phone
This doesn't even make sense. As a 'phone' for making calls, or as a 'smartphone' ie. as a computer?
5. Scarcely Marks You Out As One Of The Cognoscenti
If everybody drove Ferrari's would you still not want one?
6. Stephen Fry Likes It
I assume you had this when you were scraping the barrel at 10, but moved it to 6 to try and hide it?
7. Very, Very Expensive For What It Is
£99 and £35 a month (on 3) isn't expensive. It's not 2007 when the 1G came out any more.
8. Antenna is Badly Designed
I honestly have never ever had any problem with the antenna. I'm not left handed, where it might be an issue, but it's not an issue.
9. You Don't Get Much Screen Considering How Big It Is
True, but the resolution is so high, it doesn't feel small.
10. If You Must Buy One, For Pity's Sake Not Now
Who cares though? If you really really want one, just get one. It's not a fridge-freezer purchase.
5. No, but if everyone was driving Saxos, while talking enthusiastically about how spacious and capacious and fast and powerful they were and how they were the very best car in the world ever, I'd question their grasp on reality. That's a closer analogy. (Ferrari, indeed. You wish.)
7. On the assumption (a fair one, i believe) that you signed up to a 24-month contract for that deal, you'll be paying nearly a grand for that phone. Mug.
1- Battery - yes absolutely it is a limitation, but its a compremise over the form factor. By making the battery not removable it allows the iPhone to pact more in that space.
Secondly, most people dont carry extra batteries. The road warrior now tackles this issue by having differnet methods of recharging the device on the move.
Your comments on the reasoning to why apple to provide removable batteries demonstrates an incredible lack of understanding to the reason why they never have.
2- The memory card on the surface sounds like a great argument but in reality its totally flawed. If you have an Android phone, many of your applications are TOTALLY reliant on the on phone memory. So much so that even though you can put a massive SSD card in your phone, you dont have enough space to install more applications because your on-board memory. Secondly, revisit point 1 - not having a slot for a card means you cram more in a smaller form factor.
3 - This Wall-garden is actually developer heaven. Ok, just in case you are confused, re-read my statement, "developer heaven". In one shop, you have access to the WHOLE of the Apple iPhone customer base. In return Apple get a cut. But its not an unreasonable cut.
4 - Not a great phone? Really? I've had several Blackberries , Nokias and a few Motos. The Nokias have to bed set were the best phones. All the others werent that good. I was very pleased with the iPhone performance.
5 - Scarcely Marks You Out As One Of The Cognoscenti - well I can argue against that. If you need to be special and unique and you do that because of the device you own, I think the iPhone is no longer for you. Frankly, you have other issues.
6 - Stephen Fry Liikes it - ok, that one is kind of compelling argument.
7 - Very, Very Expensive For What It Is - Yes it is. But many people believe its better an are prepared to pay for it.
8 - Antenna is Badly Designed - But in reality its been blown out of proportion. I've tested this and the problem is real but I had to make it work.
9 - You Don't Get Much Screen Considering How Big It Is - Its the best resolution screen on the market but yes it could use more real estate.
10 - If You Must Buy One, For Pity's Sake Not Now - ....whatever.
not having a swappable battery means no need for a battery compartment door, nor idiot-proof battery connections and allows the phone to have a stronger structure, and a larger battery...
Anyone who needs more battery life can buy themselves a external battery pack for far less than the cost of a new phone-specific battery...
I fully agree with the other 9 reasons though :)
I can't quite believe I am commenting against such an anti-apple article, but #1... "One can see the commercial reasons why Apple doesn't like letting people change batteries in its devices easily"... One can? I can't see any commercial reason. In fact if they were removable, Apple could sell extra batteries for £99.99 a piece and hit their followers up with another huge profit margin.
The only reason I can see is that it might impact on the design, and Apple are the champions of form over function.
And #2, well yes, removable storage is very very nice, but a lot of phone manufacturers manage to screw this up by putting the microSD card underneath the battery *d'oh*. So you have to turn the phone off to swap the storage. The Nokia N70, N95 and N97 could both swap it on the fly. In this respect many modern smart phones are going backwards.
Apart from that, a perfectly good flame-bait of the Appleites. I guess this is a tactically timed post so that all the followers of the one true path are going to be in Covent Garden right now, all sharing the same overloaded mobile mast, and unable to check el-reg?
This article is clear written by somebody very, very biased towards apple. I am by no means a fan of apple, but a few here points, My HTC loses signal if you handle it in a certain way, and are you really going to say a reason not to buy an iPhone is because stephen fry likes it, i mean really.
Another reason listed, because they are not in fashion, i am not sure you checked, this is a tech news website not the pages of glamour mag.
On to another point about storage, Who the hell buys a 32gb smart phone and needs more space bar a select few, Jo blogs off the street, is never gonna fill a 32gb iPhone. This article has been written with out considering all aspects and is just a sounding board for some one to hate on a sussfull company.
The one thing i do like about apple is there control of the apps, the amount of times i have downloaded an app on my android phone and it is caused problems is not worth buying. I would not buy an iPhone because of the battery and because of the issues with the iPhone 4, but what is written here is not objective in any way, is not the first point of journalism objectivity.
There is some good points raised here about batteries and attenaa, but they are almost entirely ignored because all this biased and un-objective trip. I love this site, but this article is badly written and should never have been posted.
Apple. Once viewed as the epitome of the anti-monopoly market. Once seen as one of the big innovators. Amongst other machines, I cut my programming teeth on an Apple ][. And not just in BASIC either.
I look upon this company, and it has become great but, along the way, I wonder if it has really lost its soul. No doubt the comments that will follow will be the usual fanboi versus whoever, with the usual rhetoric about this article and each other, but I look at Apple now and wonder if they have become more like Microsoft than even Microsoft are these days.
No, I shall refrain from buying an iPhone. The whole thing seems a little too creepy...
So absolutely no value given to actually having the most applications available for it's OS?
Actually, Lewis's equating the entire value of a piece of hardware to JUST the hardware really is pretty worrying, given the import of so much of what he writes (i.e., defense related). Anyone that is promoting himself as an "expert" in these areas should be able to discuss the value of an ecosystem (i.e., related peripherals that actually work with your device/plane/ship, etc.) and the software components of a hardware/software device (i.e., the value of iOS, which is still better than Android at overall usability, if not customization).
To get it so totally wrong in a simple phone tantrum makes me very much worry about his ability to properly judge the larger defense procurement issues...
"A company which would do that is unlikely to have raised its game much today, and it can't have done much about it in the case of the 4S."
You're really advising against buying something that you've never seen or used on the basis that they got something wrong with an older model ?
On that basis, you shouldn't buy any phone, ever!
But really, does anyone really like the person in the corner of a party telling people the drinks are rubbish because it's "not a proper pint", the music is too loud and not "proper" music and that they're having fun all wrong?
Best quote I saw from someone recently "As with most discussions on the Internet, it has nothing to do with objective merits, just runaway emotion and unstated difference of premise."
If someone comes along and tells you why your phone is wrong and that their Apple phone is so much better, than feel free to make these points to them. But if they're just quietly getting on with their lives, owning a phone they believe is the right choice for them, then just leave them the fuck alone.
The levels of vitriol saddens me. As do the number of down-votes this will get.
Whilst there are a ridiculous number of Apple "fanboi's" out there, this article is clearly written by someone of the exact opposite mentality. The article is not a balanced, sensible or justified view.
Granted, like many products iPhones are expensive, and the hysteria is a little ridiculous when release day comes around. But actually, iPhones perform better than most other smartphones, and allow the non-technical masses to complete tasks that they wouldn't be able to achieve on a computer. My mum uploaded a video (of her dog, for the more filthy minded among you) to Youtube from her iPhone, a task she would never achieve on a computer.
And to address the very silly points about changeable batteries and the closed nature of the platform:
a)
i) Unlike most other smartphones, my iPhone battery has last reliably for two years, it's still going strong.
ii) The reason you need a removable battery on most other smartphones is to reset them when they crash. iPhones don't have a "pin hole" reset button either. THAT. RELIABLE.
b) The closed nature of the platform ensures reliability and control for a group of users who do not want, or more importantly need, to change any "under the cover" settings, modify software or "tweak" things like you need to with Android/cheap alternatives. They just like products that work. There's a very good reason that companies like TomTom only currently develop for iPhone, be it said in the public domain or not...it's the only platform that is currently reliable enough for them to confidently charge £ for their product, it just works.
This is a bad article by TheReg standards. Get a grip.
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1 is a compromise to maximise battery efficiency, and besides, a decent battery should outlast the phone.
2 is a fair point, -if- for some reason 32GB stops being enough storage. But if it does, how much are you going to be looking at for a 64GB microSD?
3 may be frustrating from a developer perspective, but allows quality control, standardisation for the end user and making a profitable business for Apple
4 is subjective, and highly debatable.
5 is just silly - who buys a phone as a fashion statement?
6 is circular logic.
7 is a tired argument. With apple, you pay for a design style and quality and hardware/OS/software integration. No other company develops their products from the transistor level up to the development APIs.
8 was an issue on one model, notably -not- the iPhone 5, and is only of minor concern to most users.
9 is certainly ironic - the iPhone pioneered the full-size display. and no, the areas above and below the screen are not "useless" - they're for the speaker, sensors, antennas, and home button. but mainly, I personally prefer to have a degree of framing around a screen - but people may differ, and thus the point is subjective
10 - this is true of any phone.
Thus, not a single valid objective argument in the entire piece. But more than that, language like "insult", "brutal", "vicious gouging" - this is a highly emotive piece, which is quite simply hypocritical considering the complaints about "Mr Fry's overly emotional adulation" for the device. Honestly, we get enough emotionally-driven manipulative faux-logic in politics without reading it on The Register.
"1 is a compromise to maximise battery efficiency, and besides, a decent battery should outlast the phone."
Wow, you really have been conned by Apple. Properly designed / built electronics will always outlast a battery. There's a gazillion old Nokias, cars, TVs, radios, computers (even some Apple ones), planes, tanks, ships, etc. etc. out there that prove the point quite adequately.
Your view is clear evidence of how Apple have succeeded in getting the gullible to believe that an expensive piece of equipment failing is 'reasonable'. It isn't. You're being deliberately led by the nose into buying new and expensive hardware every year.
Just admit that you *want* a new one every year (nothing wrong with that, it's your money not mine), but don't foolishly attempt to justify it with spurious arguements.
Nobody at all, of course - at least, not here in my basement. I guess not in your basement either.
Go out on the streets and show your 2008-model phone to a teenager, however, and I suspect you'll hear "What's that? Did you get it for free in a packet of cornflakes?"
I'm stunned at the poor quality of this sub-Daily Mail standard piece, hilariously unbalanced and rammed to the gunwales with hyperbole and high dudgeon:
"its absence is a standing insult"
"Another vicious slap in the face"
"this vicious gouging"
Did steve-o shit in your cornflakes or something?!
To say nothing of the pathetically petty arguments which essentially boil down to
"I don't think it's cool, and the fact that a witty man loves his makes me hate it even more and I need to write an extra 200 words to make my quota"
It's also filled with half truths: "Very, Very Expensive" - compared to what exactly? Its rivals, or a 10p mix from your sweetie shop? How much is the Galaxy S2?
Antenna issues - can certainly be ameliorated with the use of a case, though I don't even use a case and have fewer issues than my HTC-toting friends.
No swappable battery: I find Apple's prices for a replacement battery to be favourable when compared to spare batteries for the current crop of rival smartphones. And despite being a very heavy user of my phone, I've never had the thing run out of juice on me.
Honestly, this piece doesn't even belong on a partisan HTC forum, never mind a tech news site.
The tragedy is that there are plenty of valid reasons to avoid purchasing a Jesus phone, and plenty more to plump for an Android, or Windows phone. We, as consumers, are spoiled for choice with a vast array of tempting and excellent phones from myriad excellent manufacturers.
It's a shame that you couldn't focus more of your limited ability on producing a piece of more quality, rather than this disingenuous, poorly crafted, asinine shitstorm of whine.
You and most of the popular media make the mistake of assuming that everybody wants and indeed has an iPhone. If that's the case why are other phones selling? Why have about 40 million iPhones not sold already in the UK?
Sorry, but you're going to have to get over it, not everybody wants an iPhone. Not everybody agrees with you. That's life.
The article is 10 reasons why you shouldn't buy an iphone5.
But all the evidence is that an iPhone5 isn't going to be released this month, it'll be an iPhone4S that's announced tonight. So perhaps Lewis is just winding us up and the 11th reason he'll give us tomorrow: that the iPhone5 is just rumour and guesswork at the moment
Seriously, normal users don't want to have to decide what apps go on the memory card or internal storage. Oh and then there's the "special" apps that don't let you choose anyway. This is a win for the iPhone for most users, except maybe us geeks. Those who do want it will get a Windows Mobile or Android device.
Actually the lack of a memory card slot has been a major issue for more than one non-technical iPhone owner I know. The simple reason being that they ran out of memory. Well duh!
One young lady took her iPhone on holiday and was snapping away with the camera when it ran out of memory. With another phone she could have bought a memory card and kept snapping. With her iPhone she was faced with the choice of taking no more photographs on her holiday or deleting a lot of the images she already had stored. She replaced the iPhone when she got home with something with a memory card slot.
I think that iTunes is one of the only *really* bad points about iPhone iPod Touch. You have to have it installed, and you can only use it to sync with the phone / iPod.
If you have a PC then there is no other reason to install it. Oh, and the new version craps out if you dare uninstall quicktime (and the new version of quicktime stops me watching movs, even using VLC and even after uninstalling quicktime!)
Oh and yeah, it costs a lot, but based on that, no-one should buy Audis or Mercedes?
Yep. Think about it. Do you want your car to function as a car, transporting people and things between places, or do you want to park it in your drive and polish it every Sunday, inspiring the envy of your neighbours?
Can you conceive of a circumstance where a cost/benefit analysis makes a Mercedes a better buy than some more appropriate means of transport, such as a bicycle, a Tato Nano, a Caterham 7, a Ford Transit, or even a train ticket?
The previous gen iPhones were a bitch to get the battery out. You had to go in from the front to get to the battery at the back, removing the digitizer and LCD, then unclip the connectors for the mute button, volume rocker, earpiece etc.... then remove the mainboard and finally get to the battery.
The iPhone 4 is a lot easier. Two small screws at the bottom, slide the back panel up and there it is.
Sure, it's technically not a user replaceable battery, but you could take a battery pack or a charger with you instead of an extra battery.
Aside from item 6, which is sadly unarguable, I suspect actual punters will decide whether or not to buy the new iPhone(s) on the basis of whether it has features they want, whether it continues to work well with the walled garden they like and have chosen to pay for, and whether they are deeply moved by something in the design and tactile feel of the objects ––– just as they have since the first one came out. The tech really doesn't matter that much to people who don't read this site. I don't suppose the author is really serious about most of his points, but if he is, Steve Jobs must have broken one of his toys as a child.
Actually a lot of non technical iPhone owners are concerned by some of these items. For example I know several iPhone owners who didn't realise that they couldn't swap their phone's battery easilly. They just assumed when they bought it that it would have an interchangeable battery like (almost) every other phone. Likewise many people assume it will have a slot for a memory card like (almost) every other smartphone. And so on. You just don't think to ask those questions when buying a phone.
When choosing a new 42" TV would you ask whether it had a remote control or an HDMI input? Of course not, you'd just assume it did. Likewise when buying a smartphone you take certain things for granted and then get a nasty shock when you get a flat battery or run out of memory.
I don't own an iPhone but some of my relatives do. And so here I was simply trying to send them my namecard using bluetooth, as I've done with many of my other friends without any problem.
Well, needless to say but it failed. The iPhone couldn't handle it and a quick Google search later on learned me that the iPhone "supported bluetooth but...".
I still fail to understand how something so simple could go so horribly wrong ? Esp. since its promoted as being a business phone, what better way to swap out information than bluetooth ?
Experiences like these really don't make me fancy an iPhone anytime soon.
"iPhone vs Android is like a BMW vsFord - sure they both get you there but most people would prefer the BMW if they were being honest."
Like Apple vs. almost anybody the assumption that BMWs are somehow better than Fords is nonsense. Take something like a Mondeo and a 318 and compare and you won't find a single thing that makes the BMW better. Always assuming, that is, that you have the integrity to be honest and not be seduced by the badge.
1. Ubiquity of really good docking stations, many HiFi models, for iPhone
2. Plays BBC iPlayer and Youtube very smoothly - only high end Android devices can do this it seems.
Hence I've had a iPod Touch for years.
Missus has an iPhone for the same reason that women have designer handbags - but it turns out to be quite a reasonable smartphone too.
it's the sound of fanboi's & girls heads exploding all over the globe, as a result of this article. Just be careful.. if you write anything too negative, they just might attempt to storm the gates of el Reg HQ and pelt you with rotten fruit (put absolutely intended).
However, should the author need ammo of his own, I would be more than willing to offer my gen 1 iPhone so he can fend at least one would be fan-attacker off.
My pal Baz once took a really good picture of me, which I saw for 15/100th of a second; that is, before he dropped the Android device with which he'd taken the picture, and the device hit the ground and the back came off and the swappable battery fell out and that was the end of anything not in permanent storage. I don't how much drinking time Baz wasted reassembling his phone and seeing what content he'd lost because I'd wandered off back to the bar by then.
Reasons to buy an iPhone:
1. The firmware is now so good it just works.
2. App udpates are handled automatically although it is irritating seeing all the updates pile up.
3. Apple updates the OS regularly and for free with no faffing around with version numbers, hardware differences, etc.
4. The apps available are second to none and more and better apps arrive on the iPhone first.
5. I'm not a pauper so price isn't an issue.
6. Every HTC phone I've ever owned has been a worse phone that the iPhone.
7. I have an Android phone too(a Nexus S) and, whereas I like it, it's nowhere near as slick as the iPhone and the OS upgrades are still not as frequent as I'd like and there's no sign of Gingerbread yet either.
8. iOS 5 will bring wi-fi syncing and the iCloud will allow songs and apps to be downloaded at will making the onboard memory much less of an issue(I'll probably buy the 64GB one anyway - I'm a top-of-the-range guy).
9. All the girls like guys with iPhones.
10. I have a MacBook Air and an iMac(in addition to numerous PCs running various flavours of Windows and Linux) and they integrate nicely and will do so even better once iOS 5 is available.
11. On the business contract I have, I get to upgrade annually and so, although I am paying for the phone in full via the contract, all the lovely minutes, texts and data cost me the price of the iPhone plus around £1-200 quid - bargain really and I get to swank around with the latest iPhone much to the annoyance of my cheapskate mates;).
I'll stop laughing in a minute and type, bear with me.....
"6. Every HTC phone I've ever owned has been a worse phone that the iPhone."
You really didn't see what was wrong with that when you typed it? You consider yourself a discerning customer and yet you have owned several HTC phones? In how many years? And that doesn't even begin to mention any other brands you may have owned. Are you beginning to understand yet?
1, yeah i agree here, however this is a niche requirement at best, most people are more than happy to drop their phone into a charger next to their bed every night, and there are always external battery packs... Also it charges from USB, how often are most geeks away from a device with a usb socket?
2, lack of memory card slot is a nuisance, but again its more of a niche requirement... most people i know who have phones with memory card slots only have a card in there because it came with the phone, and the phone has little/no in built storage.
3, the walled garden business model is actually a benefit for most people, it doesn't suit me but then again i have no problem with it so long is open enough that non walled garden options are available, and there are plenty of unlocked android phones available.
4, a lot of smartphones make mediocre phones, i wouldnt say the iphone is worse than any others i've seen lately tho
5, personally i couldnt care less about fashion...
6, i dont care what stephen fry likes or dislikes either
7, doesnt appear to be more expensive than comparable handsets from other manufacturers, although admittedly it has been superseded since being released.. and since the article is about the iphone 5, whos to say it wont be competitive with others handsets on the market today?
8, just because the iphone 4 had a badly designed antenna, doesnt mean the iphone 5 will
9, the iphone 4 had a decent screen when it was released, perhaps not so much now... but it is over a year old, what will the 5 offer?
10, about the only point i agree with...
I enjoyed the artical, if we can call it that, some of the points were pure nonsense to bump up the score to 10.
I think of the points, I only disagree with one out right, and one in part, I also think that a huge point has been missed.
Ok, hands up all those who have ever brought an additonal battary for their phones and the additonal dock that is required to charge. If you dont have a dock your phone takes twice as long to charge.
I have never purchased an additonal battary for any of the various phones I have owned, never having found it an impossible to either wait til I get home or too find a spare port/plug. Muppet.
The point about the hard corners, it sounds like the writer is an aspiring Steve Jobs, imposing their idea of good design. Of ALL the iphone designs, the one i like is 4.
The SD card slot is an issue, however, I think the advantage of the iphone is it works, from a users perspective very well, its not hard to understand, and while I run the risk of sounding condersending by adding a card slot their is more for the user to understand.
That being said I would rather have one than not, and the priece hike on the memory is stupid.
I think, rather than moan, about how bad the iphone is, perhaps a better a better plan is to recognise, its the hardware that makes the iphone better, its the thought that has gone into making it, "just work".
For the record I have an Android phone which nearly got replaced by a WebOs one as I fail to see why having more than five text messages should cause the database to fragment and to send my messages to the wrong people.
However with WebOs death I now have the choice of an iphone or android phone, which path should I chose, for which ever I do choose, forwever will it dominate my destiny.
And no Windows phone is not a choice, and never shall be.
I originally wanted an Android... to dream of blue electric sheep...
Then I discovered that to fix the OS I'd have to do it myself via rooting etc.-- not that I can't but I really don't see the point with lots better things to do than fix a phone. With iPhone, I can just load a fixed/improved iOS (if the phone can support more power, same as would happen with Android).
Many of the non-iFanBois phones are simply flung out into the market and orphaned, never getting real support after some sucker has bought them. The mfg of the wannabes won't spend the cash. The last odious nail is Google plotting to wall off Android.
So, the way I see it, I can get the Jesus mobe with perhaps not heavenly support, but the chance to upgrade the iOS (without risking the Wrath of Jobs, or the carrier).
Or I could get an instantly obsolete lucifer mobe with "you-will-fry-in-Hades" before getting bug fixes and upgrades. Rowing across the River Styx just for a bug fix is a bit much.
This is just about iHype.
The fact that a new iDevice has come out does not make your old iDevice suddenly worthless. You simply don't have to throw out the old one in a fit of conspicuous consumption. There is no need to help add to the local landfill and to the destruction of the planet.
This is way below your standards, El Reg. Completely pointless article.
iPhone has become mainstream, therefore it has lost most of its lustre. Android is for the hordes of Geeks who like to differentiate themselves by buying huge, ugly phones that nobody can tell apart. It is a pity that HP MURDERED WebOS as that was at least interesting in terms of interface design.
You know what is interesting? That NOKIA – of all people – managed to give the N9 so much fashion allure. Apparently they are very, very serious about this device, and damn that thing is sexy. Looks like they actually managed to milk the innovation tree this time. It will get most interesting once they actually manage to ship that thing to some people. Of course the geeks and usual FUDers will bitch and moan about it being "stillborn" and whatnot – but hell, just let them buy another SAMSTC Ultra Nova GLX III and hand over all their data to Google. I'm too old to be bothered by what other people waste their time and money on. I just need something that works for me.
I deserted the iphone camp after 23 months of ownership. My phone usage has steadily climbed over that period.
My iphone got taken off it's (really handy for music) dock at 6am. It would then die somewhere between 12 and 2pm depending on how busy my morning was, at which point the massive batey steadied to it's back would be turned on and it'd charge until about 3pm. I then turned the external battery off again and the iphone would then go flat at around 7pm. The external battery charged it again, and the phone would then make it to midnight, where it charged as I slept. If I went out, the phone would be dead and so would the external battery by 2am, when I would try to use it to get a taxi.
Samsung galaxy s2, batey died mid afternoon under my normal (heavy) use. Hmm. £8 later, the battery was doubled, and the original battery lives in a dedicated charger in my office for those times I forget to plug it's cable in and I.can swap the batteries in about a minute.
Iphone: 1" thick, dead by midnight, time to refill 240 minutes.
Sgs2: 0.5" thick, 20 hours, time to refill 0.5 minutes.
other problems more minor for me... storage (32gb for £30 in sgs2) or apps (what channel is that wifi? a: apple says you cannot make an app to tell you)
if you'd be a real connoisseur as you pretend you wouldn't talk like this about it. i have tried all, and iphone is the best smartphone. not necessarily because of the hardware but because of the reliability, ecosystem and the apps (which are reasonably priced and useful).
i see the iphone as a great tool, not something i have to constantly tune and configure, that's the difference between apple users and the rest of the world - they simply use it without having to configure too much or having to know too much about the OS.
and I still work in my business on a windows machine and i have a wp7 phone. at home my wife uses only apple nowadays though and that's how i started to know what a life means where i can focus only on what i want to do not on the computer that helps me do that.
I haven't read the comments yet, but I'm sure the true reason 1 - ie that it doesn't exist, has been pointed out.
As for the points in the article.
1: No Swappable battery. Weve heard this a lot since iPhone 2g, and lets be honest, it's the same old song and nobody cares - I've never heard of anyone buying a spare, but you can get one that plugs into the port if it's that critical. The times when you're away from a power socket are nowhere near as frequent as suggested in the article - I've been a heavy user with a single daily charge for some time. If this is the one reason baddest enough to reach number 1, then I dare to suggest it's proof that its the best phone on the Market.
2: no memory card slot: if you seriously need a few extra GB over 64Gb then I would suggest you have more of a problem with an indecisive user. Next.
3: Walled Garden. I don't see this as a bug, it's a feature and a bloody good one. First and foremost my phone needs to do it's core function - phone. When a device has critical functionality like that closededness (if that's a word) is not a bad thing. I don't want iFart having some obscure bug that knocks out the ability to phone, email and surf. Having a bug checkpoint seems to be the best way of doing this. There's a time and place for own do whatever you want, there's another time for closed. They are not doctrines where one must sunlit, theres a time and place for both.
4: good enough as phone. Next.
5 and 6: if I cared what other people thought, I'd be a much more boring person, how on earth did these even get on the list? Scrapeing the barrel there!
7: and Rolls Royces are more expensive than hyundais. Also add the cost of after sales support that tops the industry - both by phone and in store - where's your nearest HTX genius bar where they can diagnose and replace a faulty phone on the spot?
8: funny how you can cite a bad antenna design on a phone you clearly hadn't seen at this point. The antenna thing was overplayed - I could only trigger the drop occasionally when actively trying.
9: the screen is plenty big, I'm not going to gain anything from a few extra millimetres.
10 isn't even a reason not to buy one.
All in all the worst article I think I've seen on the register in about 10 years of readership. Lewis, what went wrong? Are you feeling okay? You usually write better than this!!
> and Rolls Royces are more expensive than hyundais.
It's an Apple product. IT IS NOT a Rolls Royce.
Get over yourself. You are just a poor prole.
If you walked in the door of a real luxury merchant you would be quickly walked back out again.
Apple sells the same crap as everyone else. Your upmarket babblings are pure fantasy.
it's a SMART phone that costs less than 13% of then giant, now has-been Motorola's smallest Dual Mode Analog/Digital FLIP PHONE:the Digital MicroTac Elite , not even adjusting for inflation!
That cost $1,500 in the early 1990's, which would be over $2,000 today.
So before you Apple H8TRS flap your cheeks with bowel gas, you'd better check your facts.
With the rolls comment I am merely pointing out that you can't compare brands blindly. A rolls is not a Hyundai, and an iPhone isn't a nokia; if you compare the prices blindly it may seem more expensive but when you look at the total value proposition - 5Gb cloud, locate phone fester, actual shops owned by the maker who can service/ replace the device for you rather than the "maybe a few weeks but we might have a crapy ancient loan phone we can give you" suddenly it looks a little different.
Have you ever watched the tram smash that is a tech review on C5s the Gadget Show? Well, if not I think you'll be truely enlightened by watching Mr John Bentley test anything with an iPhone for comparison and then seeing him award 5Gs to the iPhone. Even in a scuba gear test!
It is truely mind blowing how badly this entertainment show can veer off track when his bulk is involved.
Sorry, a bit annoyed. Had a phone comparison flashback.
Make that 11.
Nokia N9 - it comes from a company that makes mobile telephones, so that side of it will work properly - it has a much nicer operating system - you can remove it's battery - you won't be a follower like all of the other iFanbois, or little robots, certainly no walled garden when you run a Linux distro on a Nokia (no money to pay to Microsoft in terms of patent infringments - it goes the other way!) - it has a big screen that goes to the outside of the box!! and finally - every one sold is a poke in the eye for that halfwit Stephen Elop who is trying to rape Nokia on behalf of his former master Gates.
surely this is a new low for ElReg. The iPhone has never been announced and this "article" makes ElReg appear like a troll. probably a tactic aimed at getting attention but at what cost ?
This "author" has yet to learn from Bill Ray's "why the iPhone will fail and fail badly". I recon he was as right as this author will be.
As a person who has owned, nay, endured a Sony Ericsson Walkman phone for the past 18 months...
* for which the external speaker went kaput after 6 months (no ring tone/alarm);
* for which it regularly wouldn't charge (even though it indicated that it was charging);
* for which upon the slightest touch on the headphone connector (remember this is a "Walkman" phone) would convince the phone that the headphones had been disconnected, stopping the music and displaying the question "Would you like to continue playback through the external speaker" (which of course didn't work)...
...ALL of this list seems laughably petty.
I almost feel like a starving pauper orphan witnessing an argument between two fatty-fat-fats over which is better - caviar or foie gras?
iPhans don't buy Jobs' thingies to actually use, they buy them for flash or glam reasons. Any self-respecting person would NOT buy anything that was not working properly.
Anything the cretin Stephen Fry likrs should be warning enough. Send him a freebie (aka non-returnable sample) and he will promote it. Witness all the freebies from Apple.
They say One is born every minute. Now we can spot them - the people masturbating their iThingies.
I know, it's a sod, typing on the iPhone screen. That's why tou ahould get a superior phone with a bigger screen instead of tour uphone because then your post nighr nale dome sende.
Hey, Lewis: well done! Naked disgust is wunnerful! I just paid £259 for a HTC desire HD direct from HTC's UK distributor, Brightpoint, factory unlocked, no contract, manufacturer warranty until May 2012. I've put it on GiffGaff, can run on £5 PAYG without data or a tenner a month on unlimited data and no charge for calling any other Giffgaff user.
An extra battery and an additional 16GB micro SD are on their way from Amazon UK.
Quite why I never bought a locked-down over-hyped under-specced iPhone I've no idea. Silly me.
A number of colleagues still think the iPhone is the best and still harp on about getting it for free. Yep, free. If free, mean paying £50 per month for 2 years = £1,200 for a contract phone that is locked to one network. They did get several million minutes of call time, but only use a few hundred. I tried to sell them some other "free" stuff, but they didn't seem to get it.
Just bought a new Xperia £175, no contract, not locked, if I had another £1000 to spend on a phone, it still wouldn't be an iPhone ;-)
There is a very very simple reason why the major brands of smart phone are locking out independant software app............ money........... upto last year Apple made a stagering 280billion $ out of it.............. far exceeding the phone sales or any other part of there operation. Micro Soft is attempting the same thing with their Windows Mobile 7 accessable only through ZUNE and is so locked down what you can do so that I could not even sync my contacts/calndar with my works MS exchange via ZUNE. It went back with in the 7 days returns policy. Android will follow suit, shortly to ensure that they maximise there revenue.
I have nothing against Apple apart from the air of smug self satisfaction they breed into their consumers and always have. Apple products are lovely, but their users seem unable to see past the point that every product is just another little cash register for the company.
It's a bit like Eloi and Morlocks in HG Well's Time machine (you decide which is which where Apple people are concerned).
So what. It's called freedom of choice.
If people want to buy an iPhone, then let them. It's their own choice. But I don't get why people get so bent out of shape about it. And why should you judge someone for their choice of phone?
If you are more geeky and want to hack everything into submission, then just buy another handset that gives you the things you want. If you don't want an iPhone, then don't buy one.
But you're all wasting your energy trolling each other about a sodding brand of phone when there are probably more important things to worry about.
"Mr Fry has earned his status as an official national treasure."
Actually I'd consider him more of a national trinket.
His Apple adulation comes, I suspect, from his adulation of Douglas Adams. Fry, quite rightly, venerates his late friend and Adams was a fan of all things Apple. However there are two things we should remember about Adams' relationship with the products of Apple; Firstly that he understood the technology and made good use of it; And secondly that he died before Apple jumped the shark.
I agree with all of it, especially the Stephen Fry and memory cards points. In terms of memory cards: it's ubiquitous functionality nowadays to let users expand their space. All my mobiles for many years have been able to take them. It's a disgrace to not allow it, frankly.
Something else that I don't think anyone's touched upon yet, and although it may be the same for other smartphones: the on-screen keyboard. Maybe it's cos I'm a bit dyslexic, but I make a mistake each second word I type on average; it's hideous. I much prefer hitting '7' four times to get an 's'.
NUMBER ONE REASON YOU SHOULDN'T BUY AN IPHONE 5....
THERE ISN'T ONE YET!
Ignoring the Apple H8Ting reasons as they are juvenile,
ALL the other "missing" so-called features are WHY the iPhone is what it is.
If it had everything every other POS phone did, it would be just like every other overbloated phone.
I don't know why people who have not really done their homework like to spout off facts as though they understood the relevance of them in the grand scheme of things. And in the internet age, where anybody and his brother can not only have an opinion, but share it with the masses, it just becomes so frustrating, or laughable, or I don't know what. Most of the time it's best to let it go, to ignore it, but this is The Register, which I really like to read a lot, and it's about the iPhone, a subject on which I consider myself very knowledgeable and experienced. So, ughhh, please forgive me while I address each of Mr. Page's 10 "reasons not to by an iPhone (5)" (which are really not reasons not to buy a 5 specifically, but an iPhone in general).
1. Every "smart phone/pocket computer" (which this really is) has this battery-life problem. The reason that Apple builds the battery in is actually a sound one. Did you know that they build the battery into their laptops also? The MacBook series does not have a removable battery either. Now why on earth would someone do that? Well, it's to save space and weight. If you have a standalone battery installed, you have the battery, the case that the battery is in. That case has contacts which must mate with contacts in a special reserved bay inside the device. If you do away with the ability to remove the battery, you do away with the need for a case, for the contact interface, and for the specific shape and reserved space for the battery. You can put the battery chemistry anywhere it'll fit, and it'll fit almost anywhere, around and sandwiched between other components. It's the best way to maximize battery life and minimize weight. It's a drag that the battery doesn't last longer, trust me I know! But it is what it is, and the phone would be larger and/or heavier if it did have a removable battery.
2. No memory card slot. Same argument applies here. Anything that needs to interface with an external standard-spec device (like a 3rd party battery or SD card) needs to have a physical interface, which adds weight and takes up space and adds a failure point. Omitting these interfaces, if you can get away with it, is a good idea. Apple was the first to do away with the floppy disk drive in its computers. They have long since focused on wireless communications as the way to get data back and forth, and it works in most cases. Their reliance on third party software to use the iPhone as an external hard drive is a bit mystifying, but still, life is short; you download what you need, and it works. Besides, I always seem to have hundreds of pictures and vids in my iPhone, a decent amount of music, and I have 7 email accounts set up on it, and I'm not running out of space.
3. One of the best and worst things about the iPhone - and for those who know, the Mac as well - is the "walled garden" issue. The good side is obvious: there are thousands of programs available on the Windows platform, and on other phones running other systems, that should not exist. They are abortions of code, a wart on the face of all users. They are garbage, and worse. So the fact that Apple has always managed to erect some kind of structure to manage the mayhem has been one of the biggest reasons that people love these computers and these phones, it's not some kind of cult or anything. It's because you know that every program that you can get onto the thing will have been looked at by someone who pretty much knows what to look for, and that means a lot! It's like the difference between getting your news from a consortium of vetted providers like CNN, NPR, BBC, New York Times, Financial Times, etc., rather than just doing a Google search for your daily news and going with whatever comes up. If you don't like that approach, then I guess you're just an anarchist who likes to buck the system at every turn, rather than just working with what works. As I said, life is short. Pick your battles.
4. Not that great as a phone. True. I've said many times that I love my iPhone for everything except making phone calls. But I suppose the fact that it is essentially my lifeline that I carry with me everywhere, with texting, email, contacts, calendar, language translation, currency conversion, weather, scientific calculator, dictionary, maps, voice recorder, and, yes, Facebook and YouTube, that I can also make phone calls with, well, it just offers the best combination of things that I've been able to find, in spite of its downside.
5. Not going to dignify this particular observation with further comment, except to question: what is that "demonstrably better gadget"? I haven't found it.
6. The fact that Stephen Fry likes - loves - the iPhone makes me go, "See?! I'm right about this!" Stephen is a great guy, very smart, sincere, focused, intelligent, besides being funny. He "gets" people, he is very approachable and discerning, flexible, dynamic, observant, respectful. All of the better qualities that I like to think that I possess as well, to greater or lesser degree. If someone like that did NOT like the iPhone, I would seriously begin to question my own ability to read people. The fact that he likes it means that all is well in my world view.
7. I spent something like five months without an iPhone when I inadvertently left mine on the subway. I didn't immediately get a new one because I was waiting for the 4 to come out (I had a 3). So I used a plain flip-phone for the interval. It was a rough period. It made me appreciate just what a device like this gives me, and it gives me so much that I consider the $200 that it cost to engage with AT&T on this subject worth doing. I am not happy with AT&T's service in NYC, or with their pricing, which is antagonistically high, but that's the case with any of the big carriers, and is nothing to do with iPhone vs, say, a Droid phone. So I think the price for what you're getting is fair.
8. Antenna problems in the design of the 4 were unfortunate. However, Steve Jobs' suggestion for a way to deal with it, was not so far off. If it "doesn't work when I hold it like this," then don't hold it like this. There are definite ways to work with it, and most of the time I don't think about it. I have it in a case, which I would not be without anyway. And just like a pen, or a cup of coffee, or a book, or a flashlight, or a circular saw, you have to hold it a certain way or it doesn't work. Grow up folks. What did I say before? Life is short. Get on with it.
9. You don't get much screen considering how big it is. Compare it to the Blackberry, which was the primary target. Case closed. Yes there are bigger phones with more screen real estate, but none as crisp and readable as this. I have looked at all, and have found none that are as nice as this.
10. Apple, as any retailer, learned its lesson about product pricing and stuck with it. The very first iPhone was overpriced, everybody knew it, and Apple lowered it, and even refunded half the difference that those early adopters paid. The price right now does not go up for each model; each one has been introduced at $199 for the regular model; this was true of the 3, the 3gs, the 4, and the 4s. What's the beef? Buy it now, and start taking advantage of the benefits, or you'll always be chasing the market.
All in all, Mr. Page's ignorance of the subject at hand is sad, for his sake, but the fact that he espouses his ill-researched views in a public forum like The Register is what made me respond to them here. I am not connected with Apple in any way, I have nothing to gain or lose by whether anyone agrees with me or not. But I know what I've got in the iPhone, I know that everyone I know who has one likes most of it, doesn't like the same things about it that I don't like, and thinks that it's better than what else is out there. Conversely, I don't know anyone who has a Droid phone, who is fully utilizing it to the extent that the iPhone folks are, who likes it at all. This is just my own personal universe, my observation. I have worked with the Droids and found them to be a hodge-podge of different ideas and philosophies and interpretations and executions. That's what the iPhone ISN'T, by and large, and it's what makes it the phone for me.
Just FYI, I'm no fanboi. There's no need to be insulting. It wasn't a rant, there was no frenzy, no tears, no anger. You are ~seriously~ not a good reader-between-the-lines if that's what you came away from my carefully and patiently thought-out response with.
I'm not a fanboi, I'm a 30-year veteran IT professional who has worked with every major type and many instances of computer since the mid-1970's. I've been a programmer, a manager, a consultant, I've worked in application development, network administration, web development, general communications and phone systems.
I'd like to ask you, sir: what are your credentials?
if you love iphone; buy iphone
if you love android; buy android
but just consider how much control you relinquish to these companies when you buy their products.
features of a product should be determined by consumers requirements not what a manufacturer "THINKS" is best for you.
I suggest the fact there is no iPhone5 is a good reason to not buy one!! The author has dropped a clanger in writing this before the launch!
Always feel these type of sour grape articles show more about the intolerance of the writer than actual objective comment. Everyone has their favourite poison, and the fact that Jobs (may he rest in peace) turned the personal device world around is something that should be admired. No other manufacturer captured our imagination they way Jobs did in the early 21st century. I'll be very happy when others catch up; more competition and better prices!
... STFU! If you can't afford it, then who gives a f*ck. You keep your cr@p products and the rest of us will carry on using a phone that actually works.
My iPhone 1st gen's battery is still working perfectly, as is my 3G, 3GS & 4.
Only restart/switch off when an update is done and when I go on a plane (SA aviation authority is clueless still, but whatever).
I never pull my battery.
I never run out of space.
Stephen Fry is a pretty cool guy, don't be hating.
I have a ZAR35 ($4.75) battery thingy from Griffin that takes penlights, haven't actually used it as yet, why, because I haven't had to, my battery lasts all day and also into the next day if I'm careful.
iOS is way nicer to use than Android and the phone doesn't crash (See below).
Now... Android...
I have nothing against people wanting to use something else, it's your choice. You are welcome to "Think Different", just don't be hating on iPhone users. We made our choice too, like you have. We like what we are given. Features take a while, because they want it to be perfect, which, they are. I'd rather wait a bit and have something that works well, than something that's all bells & whistles but isn't up to par.
Right, onto my Android devices:
I did testing for the HTC Hero (Fail, albeit on a prototype) - Constant crashes, force quits.
I have had: HTC Dream, Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 & Motorola Milestone - All needed force quits. All had to have battery pulled. All had to be charged during the day after using it for the exact same amount of my daily usage as I do with my iPhone. My iPhone 4, when using excessively (Twitter, Facebook, Web, Email, Wifi, Bluetooth every 15min) lasts me to about 10pm, after disconnecting from charger at 5am. None of my Android phones did that.
And before you get all hating, I have done A LOT of testing of all models of phones contracted to the largest cellular provider in South Africa, for a major international company. BlackBerrys, HTC, Samsung, Nokia (puke), Sony Ericsson and whatever other brands there are. You know who DIDN'T need testing? iPhone. Why, because Apple DID the testing. They made sure it worked find before leaving their factory.
Samsung Galaxy S2 is a photo copy of the iPhone. Samsung rips off Apple's design all the time. Look at their chargers, their retail boxes etc etc.
Bottom line is, don't be hating on Apple (or it's fanbois/girls) because it's "too expensive". If it is, then just get something else and live with the consequences. I have never felt at a disadvantage with my 6 iPhones because of any of the above reasons. Apple manages resources well, so a lot of the arguments are moot.
Btw, I paid $0.99 each for all my extra USB cables: 1 in car, 2 at home (iPad-hardly ever charge it & iPhone) and 1 in my bag.
Also, "expensive accessories" - Ours last longer across generations than any other brand, except for maybe HTC.
But you know, what I do know, I'm just an Apple Fanboi, who has been using all sorts of dumb phones / smart phones since the late 90's. I've grown up through Symbian (puke) and just about every other OS, except for the one on the N900.
APPLE FOR LIFE!!!!