[louielu12]

I agree with Mississauga, The camera isn't terrible. 2 MP is great compared to almost all non-smartphone camera's on the market (Well my Sony Ericsson W810i has a 2 MP camera too, and with flash, but the dedicated camera button has worn out after a few months and I can't even take a picture anymore).
Good review though. I'm glad you didn't add very much about enterprise features; a lot of Macworld articles have basically the same paragraph listing the new enterprise features, and I know them well by now.
Can Jason or anyone else confirm that the camera hardware is capable of recording video? I would think that with the 2.0 software, either Apple or a 3rd party devloper--or both-- would have added that feature if it was possible.

[magic_wire]

Thank you for this good review.
I'm still with my 2G iphone and with the new software release I hoped for some fixes. Well, they are still there:
- sms. It is still not possible to see how many characters you spent in a text messages. Every messages is pricey when you are abroad.
- iCal: no weekly view
- calculator: still very basic.
- notes: why is it still impossible to sync them with your mac?
Also I realised that "contacts" needs several seconds to show up or to switch to different letters. That is annoying. The whole software seems to be slower than the old release. Or am I the only one to experience this problem? I dumped all additional applications from the phone to figure out the problem but it persists.
One more thing I want to add as a general problem: my camera lens is getting scratchy after just 2 months. And I really look after my phone. The result is that my pictures get totally blurry. Anybody else who has this problem?
Looking forward to reading your software review. Thanx

[Jason Snell]

k2director said:

Seriously, does Apple bribe the press to not mention the fact that the iPhone doesn't have a To Do application, or that of the many To Do apps (mostly crappy) now in the iPhone App store, none of them can sync To Dos with those you have in iCal and Mail on your Mac??

We've mentioned it over and over again. I tried to stay light on the software issues since, as the article says, we have an entire review of 2.0 coming in a day or two. I threw in some of what I view as the key shortcomings, and honestly, no built in to-do app doesn't end up on my top 5 list, especially since there are to-do apps now out there.

Quote

I smell bribery

Smell again.

Quote

Really, are you guys just a bunch of overgrown kids that have so much time on your hands that you don't need to make a To Do list?

Note to self.

New to-to item:

Stop replying to people in the forums who call me names and suggest that I'm on the take.

Damn, can't check that one off yet. Let's set a due date of.... 7/15. That's it.

Quote

Thanks for nothing!

Likewise.

[ki2594]

download evernote on ur pc/mac and on the iphone and it automatically syncs notes that u create on it.
Theres also an application called To Do for to do lists.

[Photonerd]

No video support is about the most useless "Con" I've seen in a review here. It's a PHONE, not a video camera. The quality of digital phone pictures is directly linked to the physical properties of the tiny, crappy little lenses they use as well. It is unreasonable to expect high quality images from a phone at this time and bordering on ridiculous to expect anything but awful quality video, should such a feature ever be added.
Next people are going to expect your phone to automatically follow-up on your voice-mails for you and order you dinner. :rolleyes: Phone first, emailer and organizer second, game platform (no idea why) third, everything else fourth.

[Jason Snell]

Photonerd said:

No video support is about the most useless "Con" I've seen in a review here. It's a PHONE, not a video camera.

We're living in a YouTube world. The Flip video camera is very popular. We know that jailbreak apps can record video on the iPhone camera. Why isn't there video support in software?

>The quality of digital phone pictures is directly linked to the physical properties of the tiny, crappy little lenses they use as well. It is unreasonable to expect high quality images from a phone at this time

Nokia N95: 5 megapixel camera with auto-focus and flash

Blackberry Pearl: 2 megapixel camera with flash, zoom and video recording

Smartphones like these are the iPhone's competition. Generally Apple likes to lead on features, but the iPhone's camera is truly second-rate.

[dalegattis]

I would like to discuss a few points from the review as I purchased the black 16GB on Friday:
The metal buttons on the side
Voice mail via Bluetooth
Voice dialing is available – at a price
iPhone overall price
The metal buttons on the side
I have not found the metal buttons uncomfortable and I think they make the iPhone look so much nicer.
Voice mail via Bluetooth
I use the original Jawbone Bluetooth earpiece and I am still able to listen to my voice mail through the Jawbone Bluetooth just fine.
Voice dialing is available – at a price
AT&T has voice dial available via 8 for a monthly fee of $4.99. I know – it sucks to pay for something that I agree should be included with a phone with this level of sophistication! However, since it is not, I have subscribed to the 8 service in order to get voice dial on the iPhone.
Overall price
My AT&T plan, not including taxes was $149.99 for 4,000 rollover minutes, $20.00 for the data plan and $4.99 for the voicedial (*8) a monthly charge of $174.98.
The new AT&T plan is $129.99 for UNLIMITED minutes / UNLIMITED Data, $5.00 for SMS, and $4.99 for voicedial a monthly charge of $139.89.
From the iReady Checklist:
Anytime Minutes: UNLIMITED
Night & Weekend Minutes: UNLIMITED
Additional Minutes: N/A
Per Month: $129.99
I SAVE $35.09 per month, get GPS, AND 3G.
So, I have an initial investment of $299 for the 16GB and I save $842.16 over the 24 months, and net $543.16 total SAVINGS over my current plan, and I get a new 16GB iPhone, GPS, AND 3G.
Technology is not free so I was there to get my iPhone on Friday! However, I am miffed at having to pay the $5 for SMS – for $5 is could at LEAST be MMS!

[jedimacfan]

It was bad enough to see Steve Jobs claim 3G was almost as fast as "Wi-Fi" let alone Macworld. Wi-Fi isn't a speed, it's a way to connect to the Internet without cables. Comparing 3G to "Wi-Fi" speeds is misleading. What about people using Apple AirPort base stations with dial-up modems? That's Wi-Fi, but it's not fast. You should change your article to compare to "wireless broadband" instead of just Wi-Fi.

[bdk184]

when I took my dad to the crapple store 2 days after the launch to look at the phone, I pulled my old 1st gen out and he said "How cheep!? They shrunk the screen!" I then took like 5 minutes to explain that the border got bigger and the screen didn't get smaller. Unfortunately because the apple store was in a mall on the lower level I couldn't test 3G or A-GPS because it was indoors. I was also grossed out by the white one (that I originally wanted to get) because after the 2 days of it being on display it was almost as black as the black one! EWW! I wound up not getting one because Im waiting for the 32GB iPhone 3G so I can laugh I the early adopters (like myself who bought an iphone EDGE 8GB on release day) and say haha! i got a 32GB iphone! what about you? A 8GB! Thats soooo small you couldn't fit five songs on it!

[nzmacguy]

Actually there's two great solutions that you can get for the iphone that will fix this.

1. Evernote - There's now an iPhone version. You can sync notes with Windows, Mac, iPhone. And it's free.

2. Omni Focus - There's now an iPhone version of this also, but it's not free.

In regards to the camera on the iPhone. I've been using the camera to capture my new baby with the iPhone and it's been great because it's portable and simple. No need to worry about settings, just turn on, compose and shoot. I agree it's not the best quality, but it gives great results compared to my other phone cameras. I've taken more baby photos with my iPhone than my Canon SLR.

See my link for some of the photos taken with the iPhone. (Note: You're all some taken with the Canon but those ones should be pretty obvious due to the depth of field of the photos)

!http://www.me.com/ro/chris.ing/Galleries/100047/IMG_0122/web.jpg?ver=12150870540003|thumbnail=true!

[Hank33304]

Had I known these features were missing or didn't work, I would not have bought the phone:

- Even though the User Guide says you can search your contacts on any field, you can't; you can only search on Name. (Apple confirmed to me that the User Guide is wrong and that maybe this will be implemented in a future release.)

- The assistant/spouse/friend field in the Mac's Address Book doesn't carry over to the iPhone (but it does to MobileMe). Not good if you're on the road and your contact is busy and you can't remember the name of his/her secretary.

- The Note section of a Contact (using Address Book) is truncated on the iPhone (although not on MobileMe) to the first 2,500 (approx.) characters. I have several companies with note sections about 5,000 characters long where I list their recent orders. If Address Book had a preference option where you could limit the Note section to what would sync with the iPhone then I could deal with it.

[dalegattis]

nzmacguy,

Thanks for your post as I did check out Evernote. What I am looking for is a way to sync my Entourage notes and tasks to my iPhone 3G without having to duplicate the work.

Any suggestions?

Dale.

[sheilanolan]

I agree that there are many important features missing from this major upgrade. On top of this is the fact that those of us in the UK still can't buy ringtones and are stuck with the lame selection that come pre-loaded, I mean, do you really want to have your phone quacking while on the morning commute???

[dalegattis]

sheilanolan,

I agree that having to pay for the ring-tones on a $600 iPhone (full price) is stupid! I am an original iPhone user and moved to the iPhone 3G (IP3G) last Friday and LOVE the IP3G). To get my ring-tones, I use a free service, Nakko at http://www.nakko.com/ which has a GREAT selection of ring-tones for FREE! The ring-tones are moved to the iPhone via iTunes.

I hope that helps!

Dale.