I love my iPhone.

It does what I need, and isn’t too big. Most of it’s flaws are software – the camera is decent enough, the lack of a GPS isn’t as bad as I thought it would be, and EDGE is fast enough for most tasks and coverage is plentiful.

But the software is lacking.

For example, cell-tower triangulation could make the phone aware of it’s location, though not as precisely as GPS. But unlike GPS, it requires no extra hardware.

The lack of Multimedia Messaging is absurd, especially when someone attempts to send you one: you’ll receive a text message pointing you to a website to view the message, but the link isn’t clickable, and the page won’t open in Mobile Safari anyway. Is this some kind of joke perpetrated by Apple and AT&T? I hope someone is laughing, somewhere.

The list, sadly, goes on – but none of these shortcomings ends up being a dealbreaker: the phone is still fantastic. This is, perhaps, a testament to how crappy most smartphone offerings are.

I replaced a Samsung Blackjack with the iPhone. That phone could do almost everything: 3G data, MMS, run third-party applications, email, and a bunch of other things I loved having. The problem was, again, the software. Windows Mobile is the least stable OS I have ever used. Simple tasks, like deleting photos, became a hassle because the file browser would crash after each delete, and several key presses were required to get back into it. The OS lagged constantly – startup took a minute. The phone actually froze on me pretty regularly. It was bad enough that the iPhone is a huge improvement, even though it can’t do nearly as much as the Blackjack could.

Anyway, the iPhone should keep improving as software updates are released. Apple knows that the software needs improvement; they announced that Mail.app 3.0, which comes with OS X 10.5 Leopard, would sync with the Notes application on the iPhone. It doesn’t now, though it definitely looks like it should, which is baffling – but hopefully an update that allows them to sync will be out soon.

In the end, I’ve got a phone that was clearly rushed to the market with a very limited set of features, but I still love it. Part of it is simple gadget lust, but there’s more: Apple is actually rethinking the cell phone by starting with a minimal feature set and adding the things that people actually need. The iPhone doesn’t do as much as other phones out there, it just does what it does exceptionally well in most cases.

Filed under: Gadgets | Technology,Phones,Reviews | Guides — Max @ 7:27 am