Do not replace your smart phone with an iPhone yet...

i wanted to ask a lot of question before i dump my Nokia N70 and get myself an Iphone.
what you told me is certainly not very promising.
i was actually waiting for Iphone to have a GPS device some 30 GB harddisk and a pointing device funktion, with i could write in addition to typing!
but it seems there are many more ventures that need to be addressed !

I would have to agree. I love my iphone, I really do. And I am a huge Apple fan, so waiting was not an option. BUT...I do miss alot of the features that I took for granted on my Treo--my to do list probably being on top of the features I miss. Jobs was not correct when he said the iphone was THE ultimate smartphone. The flip side is that it has the potential.

It amazes me when people make sweeping statements about what a product lacks and should have, as if in some way they have a definitive insight. Imagine how that would translate into the car market - who would get to decide exactly which features and capabilities 'the' car would have... and what would happen to everyone else who wanted to buy something different - or who, heaven help us, might have different needs?

I'm amazed how many people seem to assume they are the only ones who actually count - and what's more, that their opinion is something the rest of the world has been waiting with bated breath to hear.

This all seems very simple to me. The iPhone is what it is. It doesn't stand any chance of being 'right' for everyone, and it's silly to believe it should try to be. As such, the 'lot of features' it needs 'before it can be totally integrated into your digital business life' is nonsense. It may be true for some, but it certainly isn't true for all.

For example, I don't have any need for anything other than casual review of the occasions PDF or Word document, always incoming via email. I don't need anything more in terms of document capabilities than that and what I need is therefore already there. I have no clue what iSilo is, so I certainly don't need that, nor have I ever found a to-do list feature that was ever much good or suited my needs. I don't live anywhere near an area with 3G cover, so I don't need that.... nor indeed any of the other features regularly complained about as being missing, like Flash. There are plenty of devices that have these things for those who need them - there's no need for Apple to emulate those devices by copying them. There is, on the other hand, a market to be serviced containing people who don't need such things - and the iPhone, it seems to me, is clearly aimed at them.

I've never come across so much utter twaddle as I see posted here about how lacking this thing is. It's simple. If it lacks what you need, it's not the right product for you. Move on, buy something else. How hard can that be?!

wow! man!
do we have a die hard fan or what!

i think AndyO got a lot of stuff right, but in his furry he over looked lots of phrases or sentences, for example: *"I think . . ."* and *"I would like to . . ."* and stuff like that, but anyways, its not about what anyone said or did not say, its about Iphone . . .

There are many things that a modern Smart phone can do and are taken for granted, for example, a simple bluetooth file transfer from a phone to another.
Whether man can live without it, so of course he can, but then, man has and can still live WITOUT a mobile phone device after all.

First when a mobile phone as invented it had to fulfill only one functionality and that is: it should be able to recive calls and should allow the user to make calls on the move! but then things got interesting, a mobile phone which doesn't really need to be 500grams, or a mobile which has a color display or one which can take pictures, and then these things got integrated to the essentials of a mobile, you can hardly find a mobile these days which isn't packed with such fucktions, does that mean man can't live without it, no, it means that they have become a part of true MOBILE TELEPHONE.

When i first got mobile (although i couldn't keep it for more than a week, i lost it in a bus) i could have denounced U2's music to get a camera into it, but now its just part of the deal, you a buy a mobile you get these things,
when i see a good book on the Internet i want to buy it and download it on my cell and read it on my mobile phone, or i want my mobile to remind me about my appointments, or when i am out on the road and lost (which i am pretty often) i want my mobile to tell me the way and the list goes on . . .
and if Iphone isn't up to the challange, then i am afraid AndyO got it right, i really should be loyal to my Nokia N70 and and forget about the luring touch screen of Iphone . . .


but i should again mention the word "I" in block letters or perhaps make it bold so that AndyO or any other fan of Apple wouldn't misread it and confuse it with the word "ENTIRE MANKIND",
because these two words are so similar that people do mix it up!


so here is for the record,
I, hereby claim, to take full responsibilty of the words i have just uttered (in this case typed) and I under no circumstances try to represent the whole mankind when i say the word " I ". My liking and disliking can in no way reflect the liking and disliking of other 6 and half billion like me out there. and i unlike others respect others opinions!
thank you!

Agree 100%! I love the form factor of the iPhone, the screen, the GUI. But darn it if I have to admit that he Treo was a lot more useful; defintely a much better tool or PDA. But I have stuck it out with Apple waiting for the potential you raise as a...potential. This phone could be revolutionary if Apple chose to make it so.

I'm going to plaster this everywhere I can because I simply cannot believe it has been left out of the iPhone: Professionals must be able to invite people to meetings/events from the calendar. Period.

It's not a *would be nice*. It's not an option. Many organizations rely on Smart Phones for business and the iPhone has fallen woefully short in several areas. Top of that list is Calendar functions.

Nice interface, yes. But the "Best Smart Phone Ever" it does not make. Nor does it come close. It's a toy and that's all.

I like my Apple products, but sometimes Jobs and company are just so hardheaded they are their own worst enemies. Can any professional truly survive without a robust calendar on their PDA??

Why don't you send in feedback, where it will actually do some good?

I have, of course. But I am convinced that Apple pays little attention to feedback unless many people request the change.

Let's see how many people we can get asking for better calendar support!!!

Derek Schaible wrote:

Nice interface, yes. But the "Best Smart Phone Ever" it does not make. Nor does it come close. It's a toy and that's all.

Well I'm not sure Apple markets it as the "Best Smart Phone Ever." Best iPod was the marketing goo that I heard. Now to your main point -- you aren't wrong but you are narrow in your interpretation of business needs. I am a business professional. I work at a large company with distributed locations and my typical calendar is booked solid from 8 to 5 and often has overlapping/conflicting meetings. Each of these meetings is in a different location. Some are recurring, others are one-shots.

The iPhone completely replaces my old Sony Clie for calendar managment. Now I do not create many meetings on the iPhone or add attendees. That's done on Outlook by myself or my admin and I have no need -- zero -- to modify the calendar on the iPhone itself. I realize that your use case is differnt and that you need this but don't assume that 'everyone' or 'most people' need this. YOU need it. Others may not.

This means the iPhone isn't useless or a toy. It's myPhone and not yourPhone.

I agree, with what a lot of yall are saying. I have a Treo and loved that phone, but I am not a business person that would use all of what it can do. I like having a PDA cause of what you can do with it, but I also don't use all the features that it has. I like the iphone because it's simple but yet it can do a lot of stuff. I don't really think it was mean to be used with business work. I agree on the point that it could use some up grades to the calendar. I put all kinds of stuff that I have to do in it, but it would be cool if they changed it up a bit. If apple wants to they could go really far with the next iphone, and I bet a new one is already being thought of and everything else. So who knows what we will see when the next iphone comes out. I can't wait to see what they do next.

I'm curious because I must have missed it but who with Apple called the iPhone the "Best Smart Phone Ever"?

And how has Apple indicated that the iPhone is specifically targeted at the business segment or market and "professionals" as is the Blackberry or Palm?

I didn't get this from the initial introduction - a phone, an iPod and an internet device, and I certainly don't come to this conclusion from any of the tv commercials or by any other means.

The iPhone is much more of a consumer device than a business or professional device and has certainly been marketed as such. I don't use my iPhone for much business at the present time - primarily because my partners went with Verizon before I became involved with the business but we are considering making the switch to AT&T as the contract with individual lines has expired - we can't make a wholesale change with the entire account - there is an separate contract for each line when it was acquired, but the iPhone is more than just a toy to me. I use it in place of a landline at home and I have it with me each day along with my Verizon phone. It has come in handy for small scale business reasons/use - I access my business POP account with my iPhone along with my personal .Mac account and website access has come in handy numerous times which I wasn't able to do before or the interface with my Verizon phone is so terrible it isn't worth the effort. If I still worked for a large corporation accessing an Exchange account, requesting and accepting meetings, needing the ability to view and sometimes edit documents, etc., the iPhone certainly falls short but just because it is considered a "Smart Phone" or is in this category doesn't mean it was specifically targeted for business use as is a Blackberry and it may never come close.

If I needed a Smart Phone specifically and primarily for business use, I wouldn't purchase an iPhone in the first place and I certainly wouldn't purchase one and then complain about all the features it doesn't have for business use after the fact and calling it a toy as a broad brush description which is an insult to those who don't consider or use it as such and don't need it for more serious business/professional use.

Interesting. No one jump on Gabriel Garay1 when he made this claim above in this very thread: "Jobs was not correct when he said the iphone was THE ultimate smartphone."

Sorry for the mis-quote.

I can't believe the complacency stated here.

And let's quote Jobs from his Keynote Speech at Macworld 2007:

"Before we get into it, let me talk about a category of things ... the most advanced phones are called smartphones. They typically involve a phone, have plastic little keyboards on them, the problem is they're not so smart and they're not so easy to use. If you make a biz school 101 graph, cellphones are at the bottom... smartphones are a little smarter, but they're harder to use."

"We don't want to make either one of these things -- we want to make a leapfrog product, smart and easy to use. This is what iPhone is."

Now, I could not find the full transcript. This was from a blog at http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/09/live-from-macworld-2007-steve-jobs-keynote/ - but I do believe he goes on to call the iPhone the best or ultimate Smart Phone.

Please, can't we just get send Apple all of the Feedback we can to request a functional calendar app??

If you follow Apple logic.. the iPhone is not a "smart phone" it is a "totally new experience" therefore they are free to make the feature set as they wish, if it doesn't fit your needs then you wouldn't be buying it. The functions are all clearly documented by apple, and they let you use them for yourself at the apple stores so nothing should be a surprise. I for one, do not do buisness with a phone, I would never ALLOW myself to do it. I work enough hours without carrying around a way to do more work when I should be idle.. (like on the toilet.. or in a taxi.. or in line to pay for my movie tickets) Smartphones are the worst thing which ever happened to business.

Skibsted wrote:
Just wanted people to know that the iPhone still needs a lot of features before it can be totally integrated into your digital business life.
No direct file (pdf, doc, ppt etc.) transfer between your mac and the iPhone, No iSilo support, No to do list, No 3G and I could go on.

I think the iPhone is an awesome little gadget, but honestly we should probably wait for version 2.0 or 3.0 before it can be a direct threat to the smart phones.

This is not meant as an attack at apple:-) I'm a mac user and love mac stuff but from a business standpoint the Iphone lacks a lot of important and crucial features.

Message was edited by: Skibsted

Message was edited by: Skibsted

Interesting. No one jump on Gabriel Garay1 when he made this claim above in this very thread: "Jobs was not correct when he said the iphone was THE ultimate smartphone."

I didn't "jump on" you - I asked you a simple question and there is a big difference between the two so let's not be so sensitive or I certainly shall. If you are going to make such bold, broad brush statements, you should expect a question or two and if you don't want that then keep such bold, broad brush statements to yourself.

- but I do believe he goes on to call the iPhone the best or ultimate Smart Phone.

Steve Jobs did not call the iPhone "the best smart phone ever" - end of story.

Please, can't we just get send Apple all of the Feedback we can to request a functional calendar app??

You can provide Apple YOUR feedback about this here - which does not represent everyone's feedback about this. For MY needs, the iPhone's calendar is functional.

http://www.apple.com/feedback/iphone.html

Die hard fan? Not hardly. It would, on the other hand, serve 'debate' if you'd taken the time to read my contribution rather than interpret it.

furry

I suspect you mean fury - though in fact there was none of either involved. I was merely pointing out something simple - that while it's great fun to give voice to personal opinion, doing so doesn't turn that opinion into fact. I'm sorry if you have a problem with that, but it's true, and it's also why I ensured I described +my opinions+ on the iPhone in order to counterbalance the erroneously claimed facts otherwise being presented to us about the failings of the thing.

And I'm afraid all you're doing is repeating the same stuff. Your view works perfectly well for you, but why on earth should you think it works perfectly well for anyone else? You want things the iPhone doesn't have? That's fine, why would anyone have a problem with that? However, the fact you do doesn't mean anything more than that the iPhone isn't for you. Describing it as deficient because it doesn't meet your needs ignores all those people for whom it works and serves their needs perfectly well. Don't those people deserve their choice as much as you deserve yours?

And please, being patronizing or demeaning is not the way to hold constructive discussion.