I can’t even begin to imagine the complexity of rolling out something as big as the iPhone 3G/2.0. You have to coordinate retail, marketing, web services, support, manufacturing, shipping, and many of other business and tech units months in advance.
They all have to be ready by a a date determined by guesswork, pressure, and wishful thinking. Which means that you essentially have to make the call that the product is going to be done long before it actually is.
For the iPhone 1.0 launch, that bet paid off. The software for the phone felt solid. Everything just worked well. Fondling with the phone for the first time was intoxicating. It just tasted so incredibly Apple.
With the iPhone 2.0 launch, not so much. I’ve been using the phone every day for about a week now and it just isn’t up to the great expectations set by the first version. Everything feels so incredibly fragile. Here are just a few of the griefs I’ve felt:
- Annoying delays all over the place.
- Changing to the SMS view can take more than 10 seconds at times.
- Transitions between apps are being dropped entirely or cut short (the latter looks like a UI stutter).
- It some times requires 3 clicks on the fast-forward button in iTunes to get a response.
- The screen will freeze for 4-5 seconds not accepting any input, then replay ALL your feverous tapping when it finally returns.
- Some times the keyboard will not keep up with your input (and I’m not that fast of a typer).
- I’ve had applications crash numerous times.
- The entire phone has crashed twice.
- Restarting the phone kinda helps some of these problems, but not for long and it feels so dirty and Windows-like to do.
Now all of this could probably have been overlooked and forgiven if the payback from the new features was immense, but to me, it just isn’t. I have two screens of applications installed, but don’t really use them that much.
3rd party apps doesn’t make up for it
Twitterific is nice, but not much of a step up from just using the iPhone-optimized web version. I like WeatherBug too to get a doppler radar reading, but nothing a bookmark to weather.com didn’t do almost as well. I’ve installed but not actually used AIM, NetNewsWire, Yelp, Movies.app, Facebook, PayPal, NYTimes, Light, Sketches, and VNC yet.
It seems like the biggest new thing is the games. I’ve been playing some Tetris, some Super Monkey Ball, and a few others. And they’re really impressive! The graphics are great and controlling with the accelerometer often works better than you’d think.
3G is bliss and bastard all in one
The hardware features are also a nice improvement. The built-in GPS is fast and accurate. The 3G is a lot more mixed bag, though. When it works, it’s absolutely fantastic. It’s so much faster than Edge and really takes the experience that 2.0-like step up. The voice quality is also significantly up. But it’s just so incredibly unreliable.
Getting a 3G signal in central Chicago is like playing the corner on roulette. And when it drops back to edge, you lose all your chips of joy. I actually kinda like getting ultra fast just 20% of time and slowpoke speeds 80% of the time less than just being slow always.
As to double down on the insult, the battery life is absolutely terrible with 3G turned on. You’re absolutely required to recharge every day and it’s not unlikely that you’ll flame out in the middle of a day either with heavy use.
The cumulative effect of small problems is exponential
Combined, it’s a rather big disappointment. I’m surprised just how much impact the small griefs have when they add up to a lack of confidence in the system. It’s a great example of the cumulative effects of problems. They have an exponential damage on the experience.
And I haven’t even gone into much detail on how ridiculously bad the buying experience is compared to the first time around. Jason and I bought a EVDO card in a Sprint store the other day and we spent probably 30 minutes there. We joked about how lame that experience was. Buying the iPhone 3G took almost as long and felt almost as bad.
That’s not to say that the iPhone isn’t the best phone I’ve ever had. It is. By a wide margin. But the 2.0 launch itself has been a big disappointment and that’s too bad.
It feels a little like Apple got swept up in knocking down every single detraction point from 1.0 that they lost sight of what everyone loved about the first version. Yes, it got cheaper (not really), faster (some times), installable apps, and GPS, but it lost a bit of Apple soul in the process.
Josh Kim
on 21 Jul 08I agree with all these points. I’d much rather have iPhone 1.0 firmware again. Even when I do get 3G where I live, I’m going to think hard about paying $199+$18+$30/month.
Sean Iams
on 21 Jul 08Thats what happens when you load your software with tons of features ;)
Andrew Cornett
on 21 Jul 08The delays and UI stutter are the most annoying things!
Ben Darlow
on 21 Jul 08The reliability of the 2.0 firmware is certainly not up to what we had immediately beforehand, but I think that (for me) the apps still make it worth it. I’ve just today gotten my 3G model (still not unwrapped) so I’m wondering whether things like UI responsiveness may be in part down to hardware? I’ve not seen so much of the issues you mention (the exception being when typing into web pages, which for me always suffered the lag effect, even pre-2.0).
Switching between apps is the biggest problem I’ve noticed so far; since third-party apps are quit whenever you return to the home screen, I have begun to find myself reluctant to switch to reading an SMS that’s just arrived, since I know it’ll probably be the better part of a minute before I’m back where I was, given loading times of the various apps. This is something that could definitely do with being worked on.
Thijs van der Vossen
on 21 Jul 08I’m running 2.0 on a 1st gen iPhone and it feels a lot more reliable than you’re describing above. Are you sure your new phone isn’t simply defective in some way?
JF
on 21 Jul 08My experience has been about the same as David’s. I’m not thrilled with this upgrade. I’m confident they’ll fix it in time, but right now my iPhone excitement has been put on hold.
Vann Ek
on 21 Jul 08I was starting to wonder if I was the only one with these problems, it seems that there should be a better way for the iphone to manage multiple apps and/or shut them off in a more intuitive manner. iphone 2.0.x, how i long for thee…
DHH
on 21 Jul 08Thijs, I had a similar experience running 2.0 on a 1st gen phone. Also, when I first twittered about my 2.0 problems, I got a ton of responses saying “oh, I’m glad I’m not the only one seeing this”. Everyone at 37s are having pretty much the same experience too. So it doesn’t seem isolated.
But it does seem strangely intermittent. Some times things feel ok for a while, then suddenly everything just starts failing as described above. Some times restarting the phone kinda helps, but as I said, usually not for long.
Rudiger
on 21 Jul 08I have an iPhone 3G (obviously running 2.0), and I don’t have any of these problems… Having seen 2.0 running on the original just as well, I’m guessing the problem is with your particular hardware, David.
Charlie Wood
on 21 Jul 08A couple of weeks before the iPhone 2.0 release, my friends at Apple were telling me that it wasn’t ready. Apparently they were right. They also said that the next iPhone OS release, scheduled for September, would be a vast improvement.
Regards, Charlie
Rudiger
on 21 Jul 08On another note, the buying experience was horrible. I don’t think anyone can argue with you on that point.
DHH
on 21 Jul 08Charlie, that’s good news, sorta. Too bad they had to push out what wasn’t ready, but I can see how stopping the machinery at such a late point just wouldn’t be feasible.
And it’s not like they don’t know how to do it right. iPhone 1.x was awesome. So go go 2.1!
Merc
on 21 Jul 08I’m happy to have stayed with my 1.0 hardware… but I’m equal disappointed with the 2.0 software update. The phone is slower, less responsive, crashes entirely too much… and all for applications that really aren’t worth the pain. The other thing that I’ve noticed is a much shorter battery life; and it was never that great before.
someone
on 21 Jul 08being an early adopter means occasionally dealing with annoying quirks? no way!
Steven Fisher
on 21 Jul 08I have an iPod touch running 2.0, and I have to agree with most of this. The 2.0 software just doesn’t feel stable. That lack of reliability breaks down the illusion and makes me think about the fact that I’m using a computer rather than a simple, reliable device.
If I had an iPhone instead of an iPod, I’d put a lot more importance on the stability of the device and I’d have already moved back to the 1.x firmware. But for the iPod touch, it doesn’t seem worth the effort. It’s good enough for the weeks before a minor bug fix update restores the illusion.
JF
on 21 Jul 08being an early adopter means occasionally dealing with annoying quirks? no way!
This isn’t an early adopter situation. Early adopter was 1.0. The new 2.0 release should have been more polished and reliable than the 1.0 release, but so far that hasn’t proven to be the case.
Tim Moore
on 21 Jul 08I wonder how many of the people who are running into problems with 2.0 have loaded up their phones with apps. I’ve been very slow to install new apps on my phone, and while it seemed very stable for the first week, it does seem like every new application installed makes the whole phone a little more crash-prone.
Maybe some of it can be blamed on people filling up the flash memory? Even on the 1.x firmware, I noticed that if I didn’t leave plenty of empty space, it would crash constantly. As soon as I set it to sync less music and keep about 1 gig free, things got much more stable.
Steven Fisher
on 21 Jul 08One other thing I haven’t seen mentioned at all: Has anyone else noticed that iTunes will occasionally take an exceedingly ridiculously long amount of time to backup when synching for no particular reason?
On the other hand, it doesn’t seem to block me from using the iPod anymore, so I guess that’s a mixed bag.
Alexander Sicular
on 21 Jul 08This just smells like a half-baked point-oh-no release. memory leak, processor hog… who knows. I’m sure things will get better as the 2.0 branch matures. Regardless, it does take some bloom off the … apple.
Josh
on 21 Jul 08I have the same experience as David. I “upgraded” from the original to the 3G but, as of now, it’s a let down (typing becomes unresponsive…reboot… no connection network …reboot). The Windows comparison feels about right (more like Me than XP, though).
However, my biggest problem is battery life. I went on a six hour road trip this weekend. This is where you want GPS, ability to browse the web, and use some apps. Even though I turned off 3G half way through, used the GPS sparingly, and made a couple of calls, the battery died before I reached my destination. Maybe that’s par for the course for this feature-set, but I grew up believing that “Apple stuff just works.” Having to go 3 levels into a menu to turn off 3G so my phone may last for 6 hours isn’t the traditional Apple experience.
Joe
on 21 Jul 08I share your exact griefs to a “T”.
Also, from the news I’ve been getting, it looks like MobileMe has been a plethora of problems, as well. Apple has apologized for poor service and given out 30-day extensions twice in the last week, and people still don’t have email working.
Even so, this is nothing like the disappointment that was Vista. People will believe in and hope for iPhone, and Apple will deliver the necessary patches to the firmware to solve our issues.
Elf King
on 21 Jul 08OK I love Apple® stuff—I have had their equipment for a long long time.
However I cannot recall, even with my flex-seed oil enhanced memory, when Apple has been able to release anything x.0 which worked properly, hardware and software inclusive :-).
On the other hand, they always lick their bugs in later releases rather diligently. I am certain therefore that
iPhone 2.x → perfection as x → ∞
Joe
on 21 Jul 08@Steven Fisher—oh yes, I have been quite annoyed with the long backup time, and sometimes iTunes bitches about not being able to sync my applications, though they appear to be installed and working fine anyway.
I used VNC today, by the way, and I was pretty impressed! Response time was a little laggy, but still easy to use and well done. For a free app, it pulls off a decent UX.
The Wash
on 21 Jul 08Blackberry dominates. I switched back. You can’t beat it as a communication device.
Easier, faster typing Quicker OS Copy and Paste
The worst thing on the iPhone was getting a text “Hey, can you send me __’s address?”
Dylan Bennett
on 21 Jul 08Wow. Your bulleted list reads exactly like a Windows Mobile experience. And I’m not being facetious. I use a Windows Mobile phone every day. That’s a terrible experience to be coming from Apple. What happened?
Ben Darlow
on 21 Jul 08Well, the iPhone 3G I mentioned in my previous comment is now unboxed, hooked up and…...bricked. Halfway through the restore of my previous iPhone backup, iTunes (or perhaps the phone itself, I’m not sure which in truth) crashed, and the phone no longer wants to turn on; I just get a blank white screen after resetting it, and iTunes doesn’t pick it up.
I’m now listening to Apple’s atrocious holding music, waiting to find out if the iPhone which took over a week to arrive (despite queuing on launch day morning) will have to be replaced, along with another wait…
Rob Olson
on 21 Jul 08I’m having all of the problems you mentioned in your post, plus some. This weekend in upper San Francisco I was having a terrible time getting any GPS reading. I could not even get a cell tower triangulation that I can always get.
Fun weekend but the phone severely disappointed.
Tim Neudecker
on 21 Jul 08I had similar issues with my 3g but I found that it came with an older build of the OS than was released for updating old phones.
A quick restore with the current build (not shipping in the phone) and all worked much better.
see:
http://www.macrumors.com/2008/07/10/iphone-2-0-firmware-5a347-available-early/
The Wash
on 21 Jul 08Ha, I should have pressed preview because it didn’t end up looking like I wrote it. I’m posting from a macbook. I love me some Apple but the iPhone just ain’t cuttin’ it.
Here it is again for no good reason:
Easier, faster typing
Quicker OS
Copy and Paste
Tim Neudecker
on 21 Jul 08Opps, wrong link in last post. the current build for the 2.0 OS is 5A347 , you can check this in general settings -> About. if yours is older as mine was when I bought it day one. Do a restore in itunes to update it.
Matt Hooks
on 21 Jul 08I agree—battery life is not as good as 1.0. I’ve found that turning down the brightness to 5%-10% (it defaults to 20% or so) helped a bunch without sacrificing much readability. I’m also experimenting with turning off wifi completely, though this isn’t as viable until the 3G network in Chicago gets some better coverage. My coworkers and I have had issues with dropped calls in the office.
Anonymous Coward
on 21 Jul 08What would you guys have done differently than Apple?
Pawel
on 21 Jul 08I am a little disappointed reading the comments above. I am waiting for iphone 3g launch in my country. I was hoping the battery life would improve. I love apple and hope next software upgrade will solve most of the issues but for now i think i will stay on blackberry which feels like windows from the start but its pretty reliable anyway ;)
Nathaniel
on 21 Jul 08Add me onto the list. I was a completely satisfied iPhone 1.0 customer, but the 2.0 upgrade is frustratingly slow.
Danny Burkes
on 21 Jul 08Completely agree with you. I was a completely satisfied and enthusiastic iPhone 1.x user- now the 3G has me disillusioned a bit.
Since their inventory is so depleted right now, at least their not acquiring more dissatisfied customers :-) Hopefully they’ll push out a 2.0.1 release soon.
Also, your comments are particularly poignant for Apple considering that Rails helps sell a lot of MacBooks and MacBook Pros.
Kyle
on 21 Jul 08I’ve had comments from friends that battery life sucks, but I’ve left 3G on almost permanently since getting mine and with a good few hours of music plus my average of 5-6 calls of 10 minutes or less and around 10 texts a day and about 30mins to an hour of browsing on top, I’ve been getting 2 days out of it on average.
But then. I’ve only got a few apps installed, and the novelty of having it has worn off so I rarely wake it from sleep just to mess about. I also never use WiFi because 3G is so readily available in Manchester in the UK.
I’m also checking for new mail every hour since GMail doesn’t do push. This is all with release firmware. Try setting the brightness at about 25% at most, disabling Bluetooth and WiFi when not absolutely needed?
I do appreciate that Europe has a much broader uptake of 3G though, so I’d guess that switching between network connections is causing some major hit in battery life.
Charles
on 21 Jul 08They lost me at $30/month.
SB
on 21 Jul 08On the upside, at least I don’t feel like I have to consider myself a fanboy at this point (Mac pro, MBP, MB, 5 ipods, 1 iphone and my AppleTV aside). Apple can do wrong after all. And when they do, watch out. 2.0 and mobileme have been disappointing to put it very nicely.
carlivar
on 21 Jul 08How would we have done it differently from Apple?
Uh, easy: don’t release it until it is ready.
Joshua Poulson
on 21 Jul 08I’ve downloaded a couple of apps and I’m still using my original iPhone and I have nothing near the trouble a lot of people are reporting, and I’m paying less in the long run too…
Shival
on 21 Jul 08I had that exact experience (minus animated app transitions) on my Treo 700p until I trashed all of the superfluous apps I had installed. I even deleted a few of the stock apps and shortcuts I never used.
The only extra things I have installed now are the Verizon Wireless Sync Suite, and Google Maps.
I still get trouble from time to time, but it’s usually just on low battery or in low signal areas. I haven’t seen a crash in months.
--Josh
on 21 Jul 08I haven’t noticed any of the UI issues or slowness that you’ve described on my 3G. We have good 3G coverage up here in Milwaukee, but yeah – the battery life isn’t near as good as the old one.
Overall I am happy with iPhone 2.0 OS, MobileMe wireless calendar syncing is a killer feature for me, and the iPhone 3G works great for me.
Eddie
on 21 Jul 08I’ll hop on board too..
I couldn’t buy one on launch day because the Apple store wouldn’t take my money because I have a corporate discount on my (personal) AT&T account- this put me in queue with the AT&T stores. That took a week.
Then, my screen was grey-toned (not quite black and white, but very washed out looking) when I finally got it. Had to take it to the Apple Store because AT&T wouldn’t replace it without ordering me a new one and charging a restocking fee (although, a) I didn’t open the package, the ATT rep did, and b)I never left the store with it).
Then, when I finally get my phone, I’m barely going to make it through the work day on my battery charge.
If you delete an installed app on the phone, it comes back when you resync with itunes
I had all my installed apps fail to load unless I reinstalled them all using iTunes (after deleting them from the phone)
I’ve experienced the lag in loading contacts, and switching to SMS
I’ve experienced the delays in having touches register.
Minor gripe- the silence switch seems to too easy switch back to ringer mode (seems to happen in my pocket)
WHY…WHY can’t we have a “turn screen off, but don’t lock” option? If I leave the phone on my desk with headphones on, I don’t want to have to swipe to unlock everytime I want to do something with it…
...related- I set up my “double tap home button” to control itunes when a song is playing- the menu that is presented has the volume slider super close to the next/prev buttons. How about a little bit of space there Apple?
All that aside, I’m really only upset about the battery life. I was hoping I could at least get through the day without having to go into power management mode (turn off 3G/wifi/push etc.)
brad Hurley
on 21 Jul 08I was interested to read the comments above about the iPod Touch. I’m not interested in the iPhone (the voice/data plans in Canada are highway robbery, and besides I only use my cellphone for 30 minutes a month max), but now that the iPod Touch is available with 32 gigabytes of storage I was planning to replace my nearly five-year-old iPod. Sounds like I should wait.
leethal
on 21 Jul 08Beeing in europe, I’m totally super amazed, cause I’ve never touched an iPhone before.
Ian Silber
on 21 Jul 08Ditto. I thought I had a lemon.
Mike
on 21 Jul 08Well, I too have been a bit frustrated with the slow responses, and crashing apps. However, this being my first iPhone – I am so in love with the things it does RIGHT, and am so comforted in knowing that the things I don’t like are software issues, and WILL be fixed (because its Apple… not Microsoft)... that I brush off the problems and enjoy my phone. Now, talk to me in a few months and if I’m still having these issues I may be singing a different tune.
Richard Bird
on 22 Jul 08Has anyone suggested that performance (i.e.: User Experience) issues might be a result of AT&T infrastructure shortcomings?
RB
on 22 Jul 08Think about it…. The Apple iPhone and the iPhone 3G are leaps beyond expectations from consumers and demands on infrastructure that no other “cell phone” dares to challenge or achieve.
wah
on 22 Jul 08fuck
Eddie
on 22 Jul 08...and really. Is there anyway short of jailbreaking my phone to get a friggin’ regular sounding ringtone? Er, rather, a non-ringtone? I just want it to sound like a phone if at all possible.
sensei
on 22 Jul 08@JF No, early adopter literally means you adopt something early. Adopting ANYTHING two weeks after it’s released is fairly early, if you ask me. :P
sensei
on 22 Jul 08@Eddie yeah, use Garageband on a mac to make your own ringtones. As for SMS and other, you have to muck around with it, but googling works ;-)
sensei
on 22 Jul 08My frustrations are this:
1. no mms 2. google maps gps style is annoying (should re-orient the map) 3. no bluetooth services, therefore can’t use for net connexion on my mac, can’t send sms’s thru address book on mac (WTF?) 4. can’t easily change non-ringer sounds 5. can’t easily sms to a bunch of people 6. can’t manage groups easily 7. camera sucks hard, but I guess I should just buy a real camera ;-)
V
on 22 Jul 08blame Windows!!
Bruce
on 22 Jul 08I haven’t seen this since upgrading my iPod touch, and my wife’s iPhone has been stable as well (she loves it). Her experience buying the 3G phone in Canada was good too: no lineups, no setup wait, and we had it working a few minutes after bringing it home. Luck I guess.
Noah
on 22 Jul 08@sensei, maybe you should buy a real phone too. Oh snap! Yes, I did go there! Mmmm hmmm!
But seriously, my biggest complaint is the lack of backgrounding, for the same reason as mentioned earlier—it actually discourages you from switching out of an application to do something else, because it’s a hassle to get back into it. (Not to mention, I’m not a fan of launching every app that caches data individually in the morning just so I have access to it on the subway. Some things were meant for scheduling.)
Stefan Seiz
on 22 Jul 08I still have the EDGE Model but with the 2.0 OS on it. Last night i let my battery drain till the phone switched itself off (to calibrate the battery). Shouldn’t have done this. After a charge and a restart, it wanted to activate the phone via iTunes. Another reboot and it came on without the need for reactivation but none of the 3rd party apps launched anymore (code signing issue i assume). Another reboot and iTunes Sync and the Apps launeched again, but WIFI was dead and the WIFI pref looked like no Wifi Hardware would be installed. One more reboot and i had WIFI back. Not very Mac Like i must say.
Concerning the Apps, there are very few pearls out there. You need to check out Shazam however. This is an unbelievable app for the cases when you hear a song on the radio or in a movie and want to know the title or artist. This app looks like a miracel to me ;-)
Andreas Lanjerud
on 22 Jul 08Sometimes I think that it’s because of third-party apps that the phone gets slowers. Seems to me that stuff happens after I played for example Super Monkey ball. It’s not that slow for me though, and I have lots of contacts. It’s only slow sometimes.
Oh, and for the 3G, maybe it’s not the greatest thing for you. But parts of the rest of the world, like Sweden, loves it. Several megabits speed all over the city. :D
N
on 22 Jul 08Don’t blame the lack of 3G coverage on Apple – It’s your feet-and-inches cell network…
Danno
on 22 Jul 082.0 on an Edge iPhone here and I haven’t had any problems (except that I lost my iPhone earbuds somewhere :( )
john
on 22 Jul 08`
Phil
on 22 Jul 08Same here. The iPhone is terribly slow. Safari crashes constantly when listening to the iPod at the same time.
I happened several times not that the iPhone lost it’s uplink. It still said T-Mobile in the upper left corner but I could not make a call or use the web (no WiFi) until i rebootet (sic!).
Worst thing happened to my friend. After upgrading to 2.0 the iPhone refuses to play in his first generation BOSE SoundDock (because it is not officially supported. On my SoundDock I can at least turn on the flight mode and use it anyways).
kevin
on 22 Jul 08I just want to weigh in on the “no-problems-here” side. I have the original iPhone running 2.0 and have been very pleased. The only of the issues you describe I’ve noticed is the transition animation dropping out.
The fast-forward button not responding is an issue I had in 1.1.4 and which I no longer have.
Evan
on 22 Jul 08I’m in the market for a new cell phone (dropped my old faithful flip phone on a concrete floor and shattered the hinge), so I’m debating about whether to get one of these contraptions. Currently on Verizon so this would involve a switch and paying more money.
The idea to get an iPhone came after my last tour of the Verizon store to try out phones. Played with the Voyager, the ENV2, the Glyde, the Dare, and I concluded that the iPhone is the only single thing out there that gets the UI correct. However, the price plus the problems you guys are listing give me pause.
So speak, you Apple evangelists, is the iPhone still worth it?
Evan again
on 22 Jul 08I should note that I would be using this for:
Nightly hour-long girlfriend calls Lots of texting MapsPossibly for:
Running people’s apps, hacking own apps Photos, but not muchAnd probably not for:
Music VideosBret
on 22 Jul 08Dylan, having switched from a Windows-powered Moto Q to an iPhone 3G, let me assure you it’s far better than the Windows Mobile experience.
The delays and freezes I would experience on the Q seem like days compared to those on the iPhone.
The iPhone has crashed once in a week, which is about on average with the Q.
And the iPhone’s battery life is horrible, but at then end of the day, it’s still leaps and bounds beyond the Q.
Benjy
on 22 Jul 08On my honeymoon when the iPhone 3G/2.0 launched, I finally upgraded my first generation iPhone to the 2.0 software last night. So far, no issues with it—granted it’s only been 12 hours or so…
Still haven’t decided if/when I’ll upgrade to the 3G phone. Maybe I’ll wait another few months.
Marc Love
on 22 Jul 08The most insulting and negative part of the whole experience for me was the increased rate plans. I’m paying $10 a month extra for the “improved” data plan, but the 3G coverage is so poor, that my phone is hardly ever faster than my 2G phone was. And then they just totally ditched the included 200 txt messages and now charge me $5 a month.
Quite the scumbag move if you ask me. I’m sure a lot of blame for both of these lies with AT&T, but I blame Apple for allowing it to occur. Even if the 3G network was up to snuff, I shouldn’t have to pay extra for it. But it just adds insult to injury when they’re charging me extra for a non-existent speed improvement. And the text messaging ripoff is a total bait ‘n’ switch.
It doesn’t make me feel like Apple cares one bit about me as a customer and in fact is happy to take advantage of me. Funny…that’s the way most U.S. phone companies treat you…
Cale Bruckner
on 23 Jul 08Wow. I just scanned through the bulk of these comments and they’re overwhelming negative IMO. I’m also now a disappointed iPhone 1ST GEN owner running the 2.0 firmware. My phone shuts down multiple times per day and I don’t even have that many App Store apps installed. What good is the iPhone if it isn’t a good phone 1st? If I can’t count on it to stay on – what good is it? A disappointed iPhone owner.
Andres
on 23 Jul 08that’s SUCH a snobby expression…
Diwant Vaidya
on 23 Jul 08Ugh, mine is on its way. I guess I will look to 2.1. Like you said, much reminiscent of Windows releases.
Justin M
on 23 Jul 08I still can’t believe Apple hasn’t bothered to put in REPEATING calendar appointment alerts—I’ve missed quite a few appointments since I switched to my iPhone from WinMo because I didn’t hear the quiet double-beeps. Alarm clock/timer have it, why doesn’t the calendar? Oh, SMS repeating alarms would be nice too, but I’m sure that’s too much to ask. :(
Justin M
on 23 Jul 08One thing though (wish I could edit previous post): the battery life on iPhone 3G is light years better than the battery on the AT&T Tilt. I get a full day out of the iPhone—I could barely make it 5-6 hours of heavy use on the Tilt. So yeah, the battery sucks, but it’s a lot better than the other 3G phones out there.
Daniel Sofer
on 23 Jul 08David: If my experience at the Adobe Max convention last fall is any indication, getting solid EDGE signal in Chicago is not a big improvement on that roulette corner… My Edge/3G experience in LA has been much better.
Jon
on 23 Jul 08Like Mike above, I am a first-time iPhone owner and am really, really happy with my experience thus far.
Yes, I get some minor delays when opening Contacts. Some third-party apps are buggy. Overall, though, things are working really well. I get very good call quality on the 3G network, and have found coverage very good where I live (Syracuse).
By the way, folks complaining about battery life should remember what Steve said about why the first-gen iPhone didn’t use 3G. People still complained about the slow speeds of EDGE and said it was a poor decision. Also, one of the PC mags compared battery life among 3G smart phones and found the iPhone surpassed the others, so we should just accept that 3G means shorter battery life.
Mogden
on 23 Jul 08I still like the phone, but yeah, it would sure be nice if it didn’t crash apps left and right.
For a good chuckle look at your ~/Library/Logs/CrashReporter/MobileDevice/ directory. Let’s see… about 50 crash dumps in the 2 weeks or so since 2.0 came out.
TheOtherSteveJobs
on 23 Jul 08apple is a victim of their own success. No one could ever equal the flawless, errorless launch that was the iPhone 1.0. not even Apple.
Every single star from here to the quasars were in alignment for that launch, and now, everything will be measured against it.
iphone 2.0 leaves me feeling like i did when i got my Mac OS X Public beta (which i still have).... different, promising, but holy carp, there are a lot of bugs that make this totally unusable.
Perspective
on 23 Jul 08Last year people complained that the device was “closed” and wouldn’t permit 3P applications. Then, when the SDK was announced, developers whined about the inability to run apps in the background. Now, we have people complaining the phone software (which had to be adjusted in order to permit thinks like on-the-fly installation, etc) is buggy. Now, if Apple had told everyone these things were going to happen, the masses would’ve assumed that they were a list of horribles intended to convince people that a closed device was the way to go. Now they just want the old software back. Comical.
And yet people wonder why hardware and software makers alike don’t always pay close attention to 3P developers and/or what the masses “think” they want. Are you paying attention? You demanded, Apple delivered, and now you have buyer’s remorse. In other words, it’s a you-problem.
burpboy
on 23 Jul 08Oh cut it out. My touch is fine. Lets see you put the blackberry in your backpocket and take the train or bus every day for a month. I have jailbroken 1.1.4 and 2.0 several times on a single ipod touch. Its a hard thing to break software wise too. GUI on a cell phone anyone?? Blackberrys cut and paste big deal, with att and others doing voice input this point will become mute for phone users in general.
OMG look what it cant do.
Josh
on 23 Jul 08I have an original iPhone and updated the software to 2.0 and have had very minor problems. I have had complete system crashes a couple of times, and each of these was loading a very intensive game like Monkey Ball. I have noticed battery life has decraesed, but I do notice that I have been using the phone more. It may be that people just aren’t realizing they are using their phones more. I never get any trouble with UI lag or typing lag. I have been very happy with it overall.
Josh
on 23 Jul 08One more thing I want to mention is that I do not have the phone’s memory completely filled. I have about 750MB – 1GB of free space on any given day. Just something to think about.
tswan
on 23 Jul 08Running v1 iPhone with v2.0 software and seeing some of the same problems. It seems as though people are placing all of the blame on Apple, when there are multiple places it likely rests.
Apple: Responded to people’s demands to release a 3g phone, even though they warned that battery life on 3g phones stinks. To then be surprised that 3g battery life isn’t as good as Edge… The 3g battery life is excellent when 3g is turned off, and is at least as good as any other 3g phone.
The UI unresponsiveness is a serious issue that I’m sure will be addressed with the first point-release.
AT&T: 3g coverage sucks. Data plan rates (which are in line with other unlimited 3g data plans) are still too high.
3rd party apps: They crash too much, sometimes hard-crashing the phone. Because of the NDA, it’s hard to know whether this is a flaw in the OS, or in the application causing the crash. Hopefully Apple and the developers will get it together.
I can understand being unhappy with the way things are, but I’m pretty sure it’ll get better, and that we won’t have to wait until September. The iPhone is just too important to Apple.
Eric
on 23 Jul 08Another bug: you can’t activate an inactive mail account in settings on the first try. Despite turning the slider on, it continues to display as inactive on the mailbox list. You have to do it twice to get it to work, which I find downright peculiar.
Ted
on 23 Jul 08Yeah, the iPhone 3G battery life is the biggest disappointment, because it’s unlikely to be fixed with a software update.
The biggest thing you can do to get more out of your battery is to turn off push email (if you are using it), and turn off email checking. I had mine set to every 15 minutes (along with push on for MobileMe) and I was get about 12hr45min standby and 5hr35min usage. Turning off email checking and push email extended that to about 18hr standby, and 7hr20min usage – nearly 50% more.
Along with stability, Apple really needs to put all of the battery related settings in one place that is easily accessible from the home screen. I’m constantly turn wifi on/off, and turning off 3G when at home because we don’t have a strong 3G signal here (EDGE is pretty strong. Go figure).
Derek Giromini
on 23 Jul 08I bought my white 16GB iPhone 3G on 07/11. I am happy with it, but I can tell there is something not quite right under the hood. I see much stuttering, most notably when switching from portrait to landscape.
Those I know with iPhone EDGE who are also complaining about OS 2.0, including the fact that their battery life has worsened since the upgrade. If Apple guys were saying it wasn’t ready, I can see why. If there are service processes that have not yet been groomed, the CPU could be doing much more work than is necessary. I suspect there are a few nasty memory leaks at work as well given the tendency for things to crank almost to a halt then loosen again—as if some service processes were bus-faulting and restarting.
I find that fact a bit funny. Here they were being all lofty and demanding with the third-party developers, and they weren’t able to ship their own OS in a responsibly stable manner.
I await OS 2.0.1 or 2.1 with bated breath.
Kevin Elliott
on 23 Jul 08David,
I couldn’t agree more. I was hyped, like last year, but sorely let down. I waited in line for 17 hours (#8 in line), but then had hours of activation delays in the store. I went home with a phone that wouldn’t activate yet.
Then, while some features in the new OS are improved, there are drastic delays in the UI. App Store is great, but various apps crash at various times - I feel a little cheated since I’ve put so much money into this platform. The entire phone reboots randomly, and occasionally gets the black screen with apple logo forever, requiring a full iTunes restore (which takes forever to get my content back on it). I’ve been out for whole business days now.
The biggest disappointment, is not that these bugs or problems exist, but that Apple has made no acknowledgement of the problems, and continually makes us feel like idiots when they walk us through iTunes Restores (only for the problem to resurface hours after we leave the store). We all know that bugs are no stranger to software development, but poor customer service is unacceptable for a platform that costs this much (First gen iPhone $499 + 12 months of AT&T ~$850 + Second gen iPhone @ $299 + upcoming months of increased service rates) - Some of us have bought these for our whole families, and we’re even deeper in the hole. Why can’t they just say “Hey loyal fans, we know you’re hurting and here’s the bugs, but we’re working on a fix! Expect one within 2 weeks.” ?
This demonstration of no commitment to superb customer service is very frightening to any potential enterprise customers. Why will people switch over to enterprise equipment and software provided by Apple, if they continue to prove that they leave their customers in the dark until a fix is found?
Anyway, I’m glad to see there are some people like you speaking out.
Thanks, Kevin
Kevin Elliott http://www.kevinelliott.net/blog/
Wes
on 23 Jul 08What’s the Tetris app you’ve been playing? I can’t find it in the app store.
dave griffin
on 23 Jul 08how about this one? It’s got me a number of times. WHen you are on a call, and plug in the headphones, the call is dropped!!!! Major bug in my book.
-Dave
nobbycat
on 23 Jul 08bigest turnoff in 2.0 for me, is poor GSM signal quality. On my 90 minutes journey home, with 1.1.4 there were three area’s where cell call always dropped (poor cell coverage).
Since moving to 2.0, there are 10.
It feels like the software turns down the GSM to save battery or something.
Anonymous Coward
on 23 Jul 08The bug list for the 2.0 firmware is getting quite long, everything mentioned in this post is absolutely true. I’ve been using my 3G since release day very heavily and have witnessed every single item in this list AT LEAST once. Between “Call failed”, the keypad lag, the random app crashing, the below average 3G coverage, and the battery life, there are some serious problems yet to be ironed out.
One problem I have which was not mentioned here, and it is a huge problem, is that after some undetermined amount of time, the GPS will completely not work, the Maps application just sits there spinning forever (20+ minutes). I reboot the phone, it works instantly.
Lets not forget about what happens when you try to answer a call while listening to the ipod with the headphone jack plugged in, you CANT HEAR THE OTHER PERSON! you have to UNPLUG the headphones to answer a call? wtf?
vb
on 23 Jul 08I would guess that all of your problems are related to the lousy 3G network, and the phone spending enormous amounts of effort and battery trying to get a signal, and floundering when it loses that signal.
Try turning off 3G, wifi and Push for a couple of days. I’m willing to bet that your battery life will improve to v1 iPhone numbers, and the stutters will all but disappear.
That’s not an acceptable solution, I know, but it’s a worthy experiment.
Bucky Slingshot
on 23 Jul 08@Joe:
“For a free app, it pulls off a decent UX.”
UX? WTF!?
Joe
on 23 Jul 08Let me guess: you donwloaded at least 100 apps—sounds like you got what you deserve. And no doubt, Apple is personally responsible for all those flaky 3rd party crashing apps. right.
Jordan
on 23 Jul 08Tiime for a reality check people.
iPhone 2.0 software has outrun iPhone’s hardware. iPhone 3G after all is still just a 1st gen iPhone with a 3G transmitter and GPS added. No wonder our phones are laggy, crash-prone and battery life is down!
You can’t multi-task because the phone simply isn’t powerful enough. You get much poorer battery life because your phone is now pushing contacts, calendars, and mail over MobileMe. 3G and GPS only worsten that deficit.
I’m sure Apple will fine-tune the software for better stability, but these phones will never do what your laptop will. Get a grip people. If you want a laptop experience in your pocket you’re going to have to wait for iPhone 3.0 or maybe 4.0?
Stephen Fleming
on 23 Jul 08I’ve had basically all of these problems, but they’re annoying, not disabling.
I have noticed that the lack-of-responsiveness is worst when I’ve made calendar/contact changes on my Mac/MobileMe, then open the same app on my iPhone… it looks like the iPhone app is frantically reshuffling records in the background, and there is no UI feedback like the spinning pizza wheel.
Maxime Brusse
on 24 Jul 08Apple really needs to put all of the battery related settings in one place that is easily accessible from the home screen
If you have jailbreaked the phone and have the installer, you should install “bossprefs”.
Anonymous Coward
on 24 Jul 08“Has anyone else noticed that iTunes will occasionally take an exceedingly ridiculously long amount of time to backup when synching for no particular reason?”
I think backup involves copying all your apps back over in their entirety at the moment. so super monkey ball thats like 50meg? so thats 50 meg each time
Anonymous Coward
on 24 Jul 08“WHY …WHY can’t we have a “turn screen off, but don’t lock” option? If I leave the phone on my desk with headphones on, I don’t want to have to swipe to unlock everytime I want to do something with it…”
BLOAT
Anonymous Coward
on 24 Jul 08Who are you guys to criticize Apple?? A bunch of graphic designers who built some simple web apps. Be very careful of throwing stones. This is just an example of blog trolling by mentioning Apple to get more viewers to your blog.
Beerzie
on 24 Jul 08I’m running a 1st gen with 2.0, and several apps. I’ve had a couple of freeze-ups, but nothing too egregious. I’d be irritated and disappointed if I had a bad eperience, but it’s been an easy ride so far. knocks wood
sensei
on 24 Jul 08@Noah – Yeah I had one of those “other” phones. Even with the iphone crashes, all the “lack of features” that other phones tote (talking about most Symbian Nokias, in particular the Nokia N95 here), the iPhone is still SO much better. The core phone features are SO freaking kickarse compared to other phones. It’s great :) Syncing is ridiculously fast and good. It’s just great.
sensei
on 24 Jul 08@anonymous coward – who are we? Last time I checked, we’re the users, the domain experts for the hardware and software we use! That’d put us in THE best position to criticise the things we use, no? :)
sensei
on 24 Jul 08Apparently doing a software restore straight out of the box will fix most people’s issues. I haven’t really had issues unless I’m using third party software. Funny that.
Icelander
on 24 Jul 08This makes me kind of glad that I’m too poor to afford an iPhone and have to wait until Christmas or my birthday to get one. Hopefully they’ll have the kinks worked out by then.
anonymous coward
on 24 Jul 08sensel – I suggest you have a deeper agenda here. Any time anyone posts a negative article about Apple, you get a lot of traffic. It is easy to find fault with any application. Basecamp has more flaws than I can count. Perhaps some introspection should be in order.
Philby
on 24 Jul 08Add another iPhone 1 customer somewhat disappointed with OS 2.0 (no crashes yet in light use, but the described lags in SMS, contacts, etc.). It feels a little like Leopard: a very nice OS, but just too unstable – frustratingly more so than the previous release (OS X 10.4, iPhone OS 1.1.4).
Si
on 24 Jul 08I am not on the iPhone, but I experienced the same thing between iPod touch 1.1.4 and iPod touch 2.0 firmware. The 2.0 firmware just feels slower, and I am getting many more hangs. In particular, I find Contacts and typing in Chinese excruciatingly slow.
I really do enjoy the new applications – particularly Facebook (chat) and Myspace (which really turns millions of unnavigable Myspace pages into something rather neat), though it doesn’t feel polished.
However, contacts often freezes simply while searching for another name; while typing in Chinese (Traditional or Simplified) with the pinyin input is often involve multiple ‘freezes’ between characters.
I have my hopes high though—one could say Mac OS X 10.5.0 shipped with a number of outstanding bugs, though in the couple of weeks that followed, they were ironed out with 10.5.1 and so forth.
The lags in iPhone 2.0 are annoying, but I think they are nothing that can’t be fixed with a patch (or two) over the next few weeks.
Jamison Wieser
on 24 Jul 08@Steven Fisher My iPhone it not just slow to sync (last night was a new record: 45 minutes) since the 2.0/iTunes 7.7 update, my MacBook comes to a near standstill. When I plug it in, something named SyncServer starts running (it’s a background app you never actually see) and with the Activity Monitor utility I can see it taking between 30-50% of my CPUs during the sync, though I could tell that already because my fan goes up to full speed and I see a lot of the beach ball.
KingBee
on 26 Jul 08This is a major issue affecting thousands of people whose phones are unusable a good deal of the time. Just go up to the discussion forums on Apple’s support site to see the hundreds of people experiencing these stability problems. (And think of those folks who don’t even bother to post who are most likely experiencing the same thing!)
I am experiencing daily freezes and spontaneous reboots during iTunes sync where the system gets stuck on the Apple logo and never recovers. The only solution is to do a full restore from recovery mode, which, given that it takes 1-2 hours per day is, shall we say, getting more than a bit tiresome. It would be nice to see some acknowledgement from Apple about the issue and some workaround other than having to do a full restore of the phone every friggin’ day. Apple should be embarrassed to have released such shoddy work. Let’s just hope that this proves to be the exception rather than the rule.
Bud
on 26 Jul 08It is probably just one popular free app that slot of all of us are downloading and it is causing problems. If every one would post a list of these apps we could prob find a trend. I know that I could not wait to download some apps once I updated my edge 1 phone and the ones I did were mostly free. We should have some firewall virus protection for these so some of these 3rd part apps arn’t stealing our personal info. I am half tempted to just delete all of the apps off my phone and see how the performance and battery life are affected. But I have noticed all of the above mentioned problems as soon I installed 2.0 and the apps on my original IPhone, so it is either the new firm ware one or a few of the popular apps, and I am leaning toward the apps because not everyone is having the problems, & everyone has the 2.0 but not everyone is going to have the same apps!!
This discussion is closed.