I’ve blogged about AQA 63336 (leaving our site) before. This afternoon, I’ll be pitting it against 118 118’s new Ask Us Anything service (leaving our site). To ensure complete fairness, the question will be sent to both services at 1415 GMT today exactly.
Right… allons-y…
So, to much fanfare and the infamous iHype, the iPhone launched in the UK and Germany on Friday.
I can see the expression on your face - you’re waiting for me to produce an image of my shiny new phone and then talk about how magnificent it is.
Well, I haven’t got one.
Why haven’t I got one? Well, there are several things that I find about the iPhone that discourage me from buying it.
- The fact that it’s locked into a pay-monthly contract: I simply can’t afford to pay O2 £35 a month for a phone. In the long run, the cost is nonsensical: for an 18-month iPhone contract on the cheapest tariff, (£35*18) + £269 for the cost of the phone = £899. And that’s only if you stop using the phone and cancel the contract after 18 months.
In my opinion, not offering a pay-as-you-go option was foolish, both on Apple’s and the providers’ part. True, it would be more expensive, but the market would be greatly expanded (improving Apple’s and O2’s profitability from the phone) and the cost to the consumer would, in the end, be lower. It’s a win-win situation.
- EDGE instead of 3G: EDGE simply isn’t as fast as 3G. Others’ experience proves it, research proves it, my own experience with the two technologies proves it - leaving 3G out may turn out to be a crucial error.
- No video capture: I can do this on a phone I can pick up on a pay-as-you-go tariff from Tesco for a mere £70. Or £55 if I also buy a few bottles of milk, some sausage rolls and a loaf of bread. It’s rather unfortunate that this was omitted, and 3G video calling would also have been nice. The camera could be mounted above the earpiece and cover itself with some kind of door when the sensor detects a face nearby.
- No GPS or sat-nav: If a GPS system, and perhaps some sat-nav abilities using Google Maps and a few speech synthesis voices were thrown in, the iPhone could effectively replace your wife in the passenger seat of the car.
- Voice commanding: It would be nice to be able to tell it what to do. I don’t just mean a puny voice-dial system like on most phones. I mean a proper speech commands system - eg it can tell you what day and time it is, it can read out your news and email for you, you can tell it to boot up your iMac at home in time for you to use it when you arrive, you can tell it to phone your PA and tell him you’re late, and so on…
In a way, I’m mildly surprised by the iPhone. Apple is famous for refusing to compromise in its products - which it seems it’s done quite a bit of with this phone. I can only hope that the next version will improve on it.
Of course, the iPhone is still a great machine, but I do think that it leaves some things to be desired. And, of course, this review is incredibly detailed for someone who’s never even touched one.
