Those of us who bought iPhones when they came out haven’t been very popular over the last year. We’ve been viewed as impulse-buying fanboys who got suckered into paying to beta-test an incomplete product on an inferior network. Then Steve Jobs sold us out. Now our co-workers won’t stop making fun of us. I bought my iPhone on June 29th, I still love it, and I can’t wait to buy a new one next week. Inside, my reasons why.
For all of the iPhone’s flaws—no 3G, no multimedia messaging, no flash (on the camera) or Flash (on the browser)—it’s still got more features than any phone I’ve used. The day after I got it, my fiancee and I drove out to Shenandoah for a friend’s party, and got lost. We always travel with an atlas, but it was useless for rural roads, and if I hadn’t had the iPhone and Google Maps, I might have actually had to get out of the car and ask directions. A GPS-equipped car could have done the same thing, but I don’t drive much, though, and as it turns out, I’m most in need of geographical assistance when I’m stumbling home from some bar, not driving. DC has a lot of circular roads, and although I know Fox & Hounds is near Dupont Circle, it usually wasn’t my first stop, so I couldn’t remember how to get there unless I checked Google Maps. While I’m on the subject of drunk iPhone use, let me also say that having access to YouTube and Wikipedia at a bar or in a hotel that doesn’t have WiFi is worth the full price of the iPhone by itself. (Ironically, if the iPhone had never come out, I not only wouldn’t be able to watch my favorite YouTube video (NSFW) on it, but the video couldn’t have even been made, as the iPhone is heavily featured in the video’s plot.)
Was the $500 I paid for my 4GB iPhone too much? Apple apparently thought so, as they dropped the prices pretty soon after, upsetting early purchasers. But they made up for it, in my opinion, by giving me a $100 Apple Store credit, which I’ve saved until the 3G is released. Before the new iPhones were announced last month, our techie brothers at Gizmodo posted a story called “How I Sold My iPhone In 24 Hours For More Than I Paid.” I followed the advice, and sold my year-old, 4GB iPhone for $300 the day after the 3G was introduced. Along with the credit, that’s $400 I’ve gotten back from my original $500 purchase. The 16GB iPhone will only be $300. Essentially, I’ve gotten to use my iPhone since it came out, and in a week, I’ll have a newer, better one, and $100 extra. Which I’ll use to pay for 20 months of previously free text messages.
Sent from my iPhone
(Photo: Ezee’s Emporium of Urban Treasures)
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If it were not for the early adopters, there would not be a 3G iPhone.
I have a windows mobile device for work and a verizon navigator ready phone for home. 9 times out of 10 the directions are easier to follow and are more direct on VZ navigator than on google maps (it uses the same general software as the iPhone). My verizon phone: free with 2 year contract, vz navigator: 2 dollars per use or 10 per month. Winner (in this case and this case only, pretty much the only case that this guy uses to justify his iPhone) Verizon
proof positive that early adopters care more about what you think than what they think.
The 8525 was released like 8 months prior to the Iphone, had all the iphone features AND 3G AND a real qwerty keyboard.
So yes, I made fun of you fanboys for waiting in line for a pretty, yet inferior phone…that didn’t sell out anyway.
The point of the iPhone is not that it can do the same thing that many other phones out there can do, its the elegance of its solution. There is a reason people pay $400 for a Kitchen-Aid mixer, when they could use their forearms and a whisk to do the same thing.
I’ve had an iPhone since about a month after they came out. The day they announced the price drop, I called Apple and they gave me back $200 cash – not a credit like they announced the next day, so I paid $400, and I believe its worth every penny.
I have a job for which I need to be resourceful, so every time I am presented with a challenge which I have to solve with a time limit – I do a search on Google maps, then make a call to make sure they have what I need, then follow the turn by turn directions. I’m sure I could do the same thing on other phones, but not as quickly, and I would waste time doing things which the iPhone does seamlessly.
Of course there are things I would change about this phone – all of which have been mentioned previously, but those are all features like seat warmers or a power sun roof. They don’t change how the car drives.
Honestly, I don’t care who bought it the day it came out or who is waiting for 3G iphone, do what you want. I’m happy with my Blackberry that I got from Sprint SERO free (actually -$100 after rebates) and my $30 a month unlimited data and texting and 500 minute plan. If you choose to spend more than that so be it. Paying that kind of money for a phone and data plan is just not something I have any interest in.
@AlexTNOA: I don’t know if it’s a fair analogy to a Kitchenaid mixer. The $400 +/- spent on a Kitchenaid mixer is a lifetime purchase. The motor is a workhorse and the attachments are universal with all past/present/future Kitchenaids.
At the end of the day, the iphone is a fancy cell phone, and I doubt if any of the early adopters will still be using it in 5 years.
I don’t care who bought iPhones at all, though I do find it curious that people are so invested in them that they care what other people think and they feel they have to flaunt them by making sure everyone knows they have one.
People may think I’m just envious of the expensive Apple tech that I can’t have, but the truth is that I don’t want any cell phone and I can easily afford anything I want when it comes to consumer electronics. I just don’t care and I don’t want to be available to anyone who feels like ringing me up any time and anywhere I happen to be.
Seriously, it’s not a good sign if you identify so much with an electrical device. It doesn’t matter who makes your gadgets. You shouldn’t feel they define you or provide insight into what sort of person you are. If that’s not why people flaunt them, then they are really just consumerist whores trying to show off because they have some insecurity.
“Sent from my iPhone,” indeed. It’s not telling me what you think it is.
If I want to find the Fox & Hounds, I just ask the closest hipster with little glasses and a courier bag riding a fixie for directions.
Too bad your store credit had a clause that subtracted a percentage of the balance over the duration… Now you have a $34 credit balance.. LOL
Just kidding! That’s great and what a smart consumer you are. I have no desire whatsoever to get an iPhone because I’d rather cut my left hand off before I left verizon wireless.
@xenth:
This is why the Nokia N95 is still my Jesus Phone nearly two years after introduction. Sadly, Nokia never bothered to promote it properly here in the U.S., and never partnered with a carrier to subsidize it (probably because the U.S. carriers are rotten companies to do business with). That iPhone UI is sweet, but nothing else about it is. I long for the day Nokia figures out that S60 can be a great OS and have an intuitive UI, but who knows if that will ever happen. Their current touch UI demos are pretty depressing.
The iPhone is such a triumph of form over function–and its tightly controlled software model is so locked down–that my stomach knots up whenever I see someone using it. It’s gorgeous, but there’s so much it can’t do or that Apple won’t allow you to do! The iPhone’s success has taught me that good marketing can actually change a whole product category, although it probably also benefited from Apple’s reputation and, yes, the sorry state of the cellphone market in the U.S.
And the reason the “locked down software” thing bothers me is this: your power as a consumer is weakened the more tightly a company controls the software.
I guess I’ve got to give credit for putting smartphones, previously pretty much only targetted towards business users, in the hands of the unwashed masses. That said, most smart phones definitely have MORE features than the iPhone and of course more available as add-on software.
What the iPhone DOES do it certainly does better, but all these people who upgraded from a RAZR to the iPhone and then raved about “more features than any phone I’ve ever used!” are really really annoying. “OMG you can surf the web on a phone! Thank you Steve Jobs for partnering with Al Gore to invent the mobile Internet!”
@Michael Belisle: It’s not hard to look at the streetsigns that are posted at every corner. I agree that a proper GPS would be nice, but DC is good about labelling their streets, and is on an easy to follow grid. I’ve made the walk from that area to the Dupont Circle Metro while drunk many times.
Everyone should buy an iPhone. And for everyone who bought a first gen, go get a second gen next week.
/Apple stock holder
//don’t own an iPhone
@EndlessMike: DC is the WORST city for navigating. There are 4 different versions of every street (NW, SW, SE, NE), they don’t properly label on ramps to 495 or OFF 495 so you don’t know if an exit takes you to 95 or is the beltway or what.
I would have been SO lost this winter had it not been for Google maps on my cell phone.
The 3G iPhone is a compelling phone for me, except its on AT&T, and the “new” service plans are insanely expensive- and don’t even include text messages? WTF?
I may still get one, as I use iTunes and the iTunes store for my music, but the service plan price gouging is really making me thing twice. And I am a Sprint customer, and they basically are willing to give the service away at this point to keep you. Too bad all their phone suck. The Instinct- bleh.
My favorite part is when he said:
“I might have actually had to get out of the car and ask directions.”
Oh no! You might have to talk to some rural local (cue music for Deliverance). Then again I hate the whole concept of GPS navigation systems too. Sure if you drive for a living it could be handy, but for the rest of us not so necessary. Then again, I drove a truck professionally for 5 years and pretty much always know how to get home no mater where I am.
My point is that we are learning to be helpless due to all of these gadgets. I love my shiny electronic toys as much as the next guy. But some people really seem hopeless without them.
@B: Do you live in New Mexico?
Just because you enjoy beta testing Apples products doesn’t make you any less of a financial idiot fanboy.
@chargernj: You tool. He clearly was saying that sarcastically. And just because someone doesn’t want to ask for directions, doesn’t mean that in the future he’d be unable to do so. I think if he lost his iPhone and had to ask for directions, he’d figure out how to accomplish the task real quick, thus not rendering him “hopeless.”
I’m glad I returned mine two days after it came out. I remember going back into the Apple store. Everyone was buying an iPhone and I was returning it. They all gave me weird looks on why i was returning my phone. I got back my $600 bucks back and walked away happy.
I love tech, but I just don’t see what the fuss is all about. I have a great camera that takes great photos. I have a great mp3 player that plays great music – for working out, not walking down the street – or God forbid – DRIVING. And I have a Motorola phone that gives good phone. And it doesn’t take photos or play music.
I have an ATT Tilt (TYTN II) and it does everything an iphone does (Google Maps, Youtube, etc)as well as blackberry server support, and cut and paste.
@theblackdog: Vermont. We also don’t have a Starbucks nearby. There’s one or two in Burlington, but the rest of the state is Starbucks free. Lots of Dunkin Donuts, though.
@missdona:
I think the analogy stands – you could conceivably still use an iPhone for as long as they upgrade the software and keep it compatible to the first gen. Kitchen-Aid mixers are workhorses, but do you see anyone using one which is over 10 years old in a professional setting?
Actually, the analogy wasn’t regarding the workhorse nature of the Kitchen-Aid, of which I am never failed to be impressed by, but rather, the elegance of the solution it has found to mix ingredients or grind meat or knead dough. People use it because it is the best way to do a task. People keep it because it is a workhorse.
Hey, I am an early adopter too and am glad I bought it. I also took the next step to buy Apple Stock. So a real believer I think (see my blog for more on this). The 3G model should be sweet so I’m going to get that one too and my current one goes to the wife.
I guess I wasn’t clear about why I couldn’t find Fox & Hounds in the post, so let me clarify: If I had known the address of Fox & Hounds, I’d be able to find it, thanks to DC’s magnificent street grid. I didn’t know the address, though, because I was drunk when I went there. I just remembered it was in the Dupont area.
I didn’t address this in the post, but I’m surprised by how many people are concerned about the two-year contracts, given the amount of stories we post about materially adverse changes, and ways to cancel without an ETF. I think AT&T will give customers plenty of outs over time.
@Cynicor: It doesn’t empty your bank account and give gadget geek guys hard ons. Well at least not nearly as stiff.
That says more about your ignorance than about the iPhone’s amazingness.
Alex, if you’re not stumbling around New Orleans too drunk to operate your iPhone, you’re not studying for the Louisiana bar in the most effective manner.
@Cynicor: It’s not what it does, it’s how it does it. Because you choose not to see how well the things work together, you’ll never understand what the big deal is and you’ll continue to use superior hardware with inferior software for a mediocre experience.
I used to buy cell phones like crazy trying to find one that did all of the things I needed to do but each one failed in one or more areas and I would move onto the next phone. Until I bought my iPhone on day one last year. I still have it and I’ve used it every day.
@LINIS: Had to reset my HTC Touch at least four times a day. Sometimes hung while I was trying to answer the phone! Returned it. A shame, since I liked the hardware; too bad the software was crap.
Tried two or three other Windows devices – same problem.
@elforesto: You know what I really hate about the iPhone? How developers are falling over themselves to build apps for it when platforms like Symbian and Windows Mobile represent several times the market share”
Problem is, Windows Mobile is crap. Every WM device I’ve tried has had to be reset several times a day. Sometimes when the phone is ringing! Idiots.
I’m sure I’d have lots of fun with an iphone, but I just can’t justify the price. You could get a DS or a PSP plus a great SONY Ericsson camera phone for the same price, including real games.
@dorkins: I’d say there’s something wrong with you. My wife has the HTC Mogul, I have the HTC Apache (running a custom WM6 rom). Neither of us has had to reset our phones in months.
@Michael Belisle: “Nah, it’s your money and doesn’t affect me. Blow it on strippers and alcohol for all I care.”
Just not really good alcohol or good-looking strippers.
@sean77: Maybe he got a bum piece of hardware? I have two coworkers with Touches and they love them…no complaints about having to reset.
I have an aging WM5 HTC Wizard that I never have to reboot either.
THIS AND THIS! After a year or more of being the only person who pointed this shit out in post after post on the iphone, finally I’m getting some support. How about a post on the N95 next?
/itsaphoneandinternetcommuncationsdeviceomgimgoingtocome
You make it sound like you made money on this deal. You don’t have $100 extra when you consider the $500 you spent up front (only $400 of which you got back).
The whyphone is missing alot of features that are standard on most cheap low end phones. Stereo bluetooth, multimedia messaging, a resemblence of a today screen, tactile buttons……It does however have a very nice screen which drains the battery out very quickly. Needs a built in charger.
never been made fun of for having an iphone – quite the opposite – and i am a business professional user. most of the time when i am out and about and someone needs help with information on anything, they always turn to me. sure, there are a few things that i wish it could do, but what it can do is literally amazing and no other phone even comes close to most features – esp the web experience – using internet on most phones is more of a headache than useful.
and with the new 3rd party apps, enterprise features, and cheaper price, the iphone will have an even deeper market penetration…finally all my friends can get their own and not be so jealous…