10 Things I like About the iPhone 3G : ex-Windows Mobiles User

Thanks for a good post Arnold. I dugg it!

I still don’t see great improvements over my Windows Mobile 5 HP 6945 iPaq PPC. No 3g phone service here yet. My battery lasts 2-3 days, even with frequent wifi.

I did improve speed and function by installing closeall to exit all running programs at the touch of a button. Syncing with MS Office 2007 is a snap, Excel is my primary program after Contacts on my PPC. I love how my GPS automatically imprints the location in my photos’ data.

My 2 gig mini-SD has 260 meg free space. It is easily snapped into other people’s computers or devices to share data, using the SD adapter in my wallet.

Three cheers to you, for being the first in Australia to have an iPhone 3g!

1. Yay

2. I hardly use stylus on my Cruise

3. That’s all perception and frankly, iPhone is nothing special

4. That would be nice for WM but users are so in-tuned with zipped files they dare not break it; tragic

5. WM has it

6. HTC Touch series

7. WM can close or minimize depending on settings used.

8. Not sure what you mean; sounds like something WM does too

9. HTC Touch Diamond

10. One of the few pros of the iPhone.

All in all, nothing special.

Quote MrGadget “Agree with possibility to do CAB-on-the-fly-installs, however as you mentioned, they aren’t all in the one place and you have to find them. The iPhone does this for all available apps, through the one interface and in the same way”
You can see that as an advantage and it’s certainly user friendly, but it also means that you MUST get every app you want/need from Apple. There’s little room for competition and Apple have no good reason to ever want competition anyway. They can tie up their exclusive deals with developers and “sell” their developers a monopoly of the iPhone user market in that type of application. This is clearly a disadvantage as well, and ties every iPhone user to a particular system or application. Echoes of Microsoft?

I know anyone can write an app for the iPhone – but Apple maintains control over what gets onto the AppStore, and for what price. Apple say this is so they can maintain quality control (and it works, presumably) but it also means Apple can dictate what’s available for users.

For instance, I have read that Apple (in all their wisdom) won’t allow turn-by-turn navigation from iPhone. That means that despite having a good GPS receiver, a fast processor, a nice big bright touchscreen and an external speaker, there is never any prospect of having turn-by-turn navigation, even if the developors queue up to make software to do that. Why? Because Apple said so, that’s why.

Alternatively, they could let, say, Tomtom make a navigation program for iPhone, and prevent anyone else from releasing a competing product. So Tomtom can charge whatever they want, knowing that people will suck it up regardless of cost because there’s no alternative. And then they can sell map updates to the same captive audience at whatever price they choose.

Google Maps is “poor cousin” alternative, but it isn’t proper navigation and requires a data connection – which costs money every time you use it and relies on having a decent data signal.

Sorry for the long previous comment, I may have gotten a little carried away….hopefully my point is clear though.

I agree that the Apps site is potentially a great idea….but it also means Apple hold a lot of power over iPhone users. I just hope they don’t abuse that power, like Microsoft does.

I will wait to see the details of the iPhone Tomtom deal, as it would be a deal-maker or deal-breaker for me. GPS navigation requiring a data connection (eg Google Maps) is a rort designed to keep telcos happy.

BTW I’m a regular on Mtekk too, and I have found it very useful on a number of occasions.

From what I’ve heard, the GPS is pretty battery-hungry, so it’s been designed to fire up, get coords and then shut down again. Presumably turn-by-turn would require it to be on continuously and the ban on turn-by-turn apps is to avoid problems with battery life (especially since you can’t swap the battery out for a fully charged one).

I’ve used PDAs with built-in GPS for about 3 years, and there’s no doubt GPS uses a lot of power – you’ve got a screen that’s always on, a GPS receiver going flat out, voice instructions and quite a bit of processing. It gets even more intense for Google Maps where a data connection is also required.

If you’re using navigation in the car (which you will, 99% of the time) just get a car power adaptor and plug it in – money well spent.

[...] the end of the day, it is still a fantastic device – see my post on the top 10 things I like about the iPhone 3G. I think that both these posts together will give one a well-rounded [...]

one thing iphone has and no other WM device come close is the OS. there is indeed nothing special about iphone apart that it has a build in ipod touch features. the few best things i can say about what iphone current has that no other WM device feature could come close are

1. The OS itself, admit it M$ never make good OS.
2. Best touchscreen available to date.
3. ipod features which is one of the best multimedia player out there right now.

[...] Once you see this video you’ll agree that it’s manufacturers like HTC who are still giving viability to the Windows Mobile operating system. Although it’s got some very droolworthy specs, it’s still not enough to sway me from my new found love for the iPhone OS. [...]