Sunday, August 24, 2008

My Phone is Better than iPhone

Genre: Technology

While the whole world goes gaga over the Apple iPhone, raving about its oh-so-sleek looks and innovative touchscreen interface, I decided to look at the other side of the coin and voila! the cat's out of the box! When compared to my current cellphone, the "feature-rich" iPhone loses out on hordes of features. And I am not even comparing the iPhone with some top-end hi-fi cellphone (I leave that to the dozens of "compare your stuff" websites)- my reference is my own good old mid-range Sony Ericsson k550i costing around Rs.7,000 only. And yet, my phone is better than iPhone.Here's why-

Starting with the most basic bloopers- the "super-cool" iPhone's camera does not have a video recording facility (my phone, and virtually all camera cellphones have it by default) nor does it have a digital zoom feature in it's camera. Also missing is a flashlight to take pics in the dark and there is no setting to adjust White Balance, Night mode, Brightness etc (ok, not a big deal, but my k550i has ALL these features!)

All you sms freaks out there- for some strange reason best known to Mr Steve Jobs, your iPhone does not allow you to forward an SMS! Nor does it segregate your messages into Folders like Drafts, Sent Messages and Saved Messages! (Needless to say, my phone has it all) Also, it does not tell you when your sms length overflows beyond the stipulated 160 characters (my phone does!). If you think all this is too troublesome and instead decide to call up your friends, be ready for another shocker- the iPhone does not have a Search function in the Address Book! So,all those who were raving over the so-cool touchscreen interface can keep on scrolling to their heart's content till they manage to find their desired contact from your Address Book! (Needless to say, my phone and even the basic thousand-bucks cellphones have this feature!)

The iPhone which is claimed to be the "coolest iPod" does not allow you to connect a portable Bluetooth headset to listen to music without interfering wires! What's more,even though the iPhone has Bluetooth, you cannot send images or music files to other cellphones via Bluetooth! (What the heck is the Bluetooth for then?) Not just this, the iPhone does not play videos if they are in any other format except Quick Time (my good old cell plays both 3gp and mp4!)

Ok, all this is about the peripheral functions. The main function of any cellphone is making and receiving calls and the iPhone fails miserably here too- there is no Voice Dialling, no facility to keep Personalised Ringtones for different callers and in fact, you can't even keep your mp3 songs as ringtones! (My k550i has ALL these facilities and moreover I can also keep Video Ringtones and even assign different display photos for different callers, let aside personalised ringtones!). The iPhone does not allow clubbing contacts to Caller Groups and when you select Call Forward, all calls get forwarded- there is no facility like Forward when busy, Forward when unreachable etc which is a default feature existing in my current phone as well as the one I had earlier!

Then, what does the iPhone have? Hype- lots and lots of it! And looking at the fact that it is sold at $199 (around Rs 8k), I may think of forgiving the makers for not including some of the features. But wait, is it really sold at Rs 8k? Not if you are in India!

Some super-greedy guys at Airtel and Vodafone decided to act smart and make the full use of the initial hype surrounding the iPhone and priced it at an astronomical Rs. 36,000 hoping that the gadget-loving Indian junta would go mad at the prospect of possessing an iPhone and flock in droves to grab it up the very first day, whatever be the price! But as always, the consumer turned out to be smarter than the seller. The result- compared to 70,000 iPhones sold in Japan on its launch day, Airtel recorded a sale of a grand 85 pieces of iPhone on Day 1!!! Someone gotta tell those guys at Airtel/Vodafone the story of The Goose That Laid Golden Eggs!

10 comments:

  1. And looking at the fact that it is sold at $199 (around Rs 8k), I may think of forgiving the makers for not including some of the features. But wait, is it really sold at Rs 8k? Not if you are in India!

    It would be really unfair to compare the iPhone in India to the iPhone in the US. The US iPhone comes bundled with plans where the least you have to pay each month is the equivalent of about 3000 Rupees- that too for about 450 minutes with additional minutes priced at about 20 Rupees per minute. Would you be willing to pay 8000 Rupees for a phone where you had to pay these call rates?

    All you sms freaks out there- for some strange reason best known to Mr Steve Jobs, your iPhone does not allow you to forward an SMS!

    Yeah, I agree that's dumb, but it's not like you can't do anything about it. You always have SMS'd to take care of that.

    What's more,even though the iPhone has Bluetooth, you cannot send images or music files to other cellphones via Bluetooth! (What the heck is the Bluetooth for then?)

    Bluetooth is crippled for the same reason you can't transfer music from just any computer to your iPod. Remember that Apple has its own online music store- iTunes. If you allowed people to transfer music and video, that would invalidate the whole point of having a business model based on selling music and video online and encourage piracy wouldn't it? Again, that's how Cupertino thinks- I have different opinions. I don't see why transferring images is not enabled. But restrictions are meant to be bypassed right :-) Ever heard of jailbreaking the iPhone?

    What is really stupid is that you can't copy paste data. Something that is expected to be fixed with the 2.1 update.

    If you think all this is too troublesome and instead decide to call up your friends, be ready for another shocker- the iPhone does not have a Search function in the Address Book!

    That's funny. Apple says they do.

    Some super-greedy guys at Airtel and Vodafone decided to act smart and make the full use of the initial hype surrounding the iPhone and priced it at an astronomical Rs. 36,000 hoping that the gadget-loving Indian junta would go mad at the prospect of possessing an iPhone and flock in droves to grab it up the very first day, whatever be the price!

    As far as the price is concerned- give it a while. Early adopters are the bread and butter of the electronics industry. Even the N95 was launched at about the same price bracket- 36,500 if I remembered correctly. You can get it at just above 20,000 now.

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  2. @Aditya

    the iPhone does not have a Search function in the Address Book!

    That's funny. Apple says they do.


    And NBC's iPhone review lists the absence of Search feature as the first of the "25 features desired on the iPhone."
    "1) The iPhone needs a contact lookup feature. Other cell phones offer users the ability to tap out the first few letters of a name and see matches. The iPhone offers contact lookup when creating an SMS text message or email, so why not with phone calls?"

    So, who's right? I dont know until I check an iPhone myself!

    PS: I guess the original iPhone didn't have this facility but the guys at Apple realised their stupidity and corrected it in the new 3G.

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  3. I got that link off the Apple site. 1.0 didn't have contact search. 2.0 certainly does. Since neither of us have an iPhone, here's the next best thing-

    http://images.apple.com/iphone/features/images/supp_phone20080609.jpg

    Again- from the Apple website. It certainly seems to have a search box in the contacts list.

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  4. As I always say, my itouch is way better than the iphone. (I do wish it did have bluetooth though).
    There are hardly any 3G networks in India to make use of that feature anyway.
    No radio!!! WTH!!! I wont use iphone if Mr. Jobs pays me to! :)

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  5. Guys, as far as your debate on the scrolling feature goes, scrolling on the itouch is REALLY REALLY fast if you choose that option. And the names are in alphabetical order, and you can jump to the first name in any alphabet. Assuming that this feature is provided by the iphone, the scrolling doesnt seem to be much of an issue.

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  6. There are hardly any 3G networks in India to make use of that feature anyway.

    Correction: There are NO 3G networks in India to make use of that feature. Not yet anyway. And when they do arrive, they'll probably be ridiculously overpriced given the current fiasco between the finance ministry/DoT/TRAI/mobile operators over spectrum bandwidth and licensing fees.

    No radio!!! WTH!!! I wont use iphone if Mr. Jobs pays me to! :)

    If Mr. Jobs paid me to use a phone- even if it were the worst phone around (not that I think the iPhone is the worst phone around), I'd certainly accept it. I assume your bills would be taken care of there.

    On a (slighly) more serious note- if you had an iphone on a 3G network, streaming radio would solve the problem of not having any FM radio for you.

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  7. Airtel and Vodafone launched their iphones by opening the stores at 12midnight and cutting the cake and all...and all this for a phone in which Mr Jobs has left out some of the most basic features...
    Whats more...our Govt is yet to allot the 3G spectrum as all the operators and fighting like anything over it...and there seems to be no end to it...so the basic purpose of having an iphone is not served...it seems N96 is a much better option...
    So let all of us "Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish"

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  8. I do not see anything new in this blog. There are hundreds of blogs floating on the net on the same issue and you have summarized them.

    It would have been better if you compared an actual iPhone with your phone and written down the comments.

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  9. @Venkata

    I take your comment as constructive criticism.

    When I learnt about so many basic features missing in the hyped iPhone I could not help comparing itself with my good old Sony Ericsson k550i and I realised that my current cellphone has more features than the iPhone! And this is exactly what I posted!

    If you read the first para of my post,I have clearly mentioned that I am not doing a routine "Compare A with B" job here, just wanted to bring out my disappointment towards the iPhone.

    And btw, you suggested that I should have compared an ACTUAL iPhone with my cell.. after all this anti-iPhone sentiments, do you think I am gonna buy one? ;-)

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  10. @blue Indian
    I have never asked you to buy one to compare.

    You have taken all the facts from some site which may not be completely true.

    Recently I read an article about Windows Vista where people hated that product even without using it. When the same Vista was packed as a new product and shown a demo to them, these people who hated Vista actually liked it.

    So, one cannot know about a product without actually experiencing it.

    I short I want you to compare the products actually and give your feedback and not have a prejudged mind.

    ReplyDelete

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