I can't bloody stand iphones.
My biggest gripe with them is when people give them to you to and expect you to know how to use it, firstly you have to rest it gently on its back in the palm of your hand 'cos the whole of the front is a touch screen, obviously making sure you don't drop it in the process due to the fact it costs about three hundred and ninety quid.

Then there's a bewildering array of coloured icons to fathom but absolutely NO buttons, and you have bugger all idea not only WHERE to press, but also HOW – you gently touch what you think might be the right icon, and invariably it doesn't respond. Do you have to press it harder? Or what?

But then they take it back off you tutting and it turns out you actually have to slide your finger across it, or do some advanced combination like put both your finger and thumb in the middle of it and move them apart. ::-) ::-) Well, if only I'd have known that. ::-)

Then there's the apps: my issue with iPhone apps is that they make themselves out to be some kind of new technology when they in fact aren't at all.

Most are just a java shell wrapping a browser, with a custom icon.
They are either simple accessors of content on the internet, i.e. basically just an internet browser configured to load a particular site, a feature that a fairly advanced smartphone should have anyway – i.e. not unique to iPhone, or a novelty demonstration of some sensor that the iPhone has got inside it.

These sensors have probably only been included purely to fend off the charge that apps are simple accessors of content on the internet.

It's a bit like 'podcasts', they make out to be some kind of new technology, some advanced protocol – but they're in fact not, all they are is a downloadable mp3. Any fool can bung an mp3 on a website and call it a 'podcast'.

For me, the four reasons I might want a smartphone are: mp3 player, camera, sat nav, and obviously, phone. BUt it's worse at each one than a device dedicated for that purpose. The problem them is they are jack of all trades, master of none.

my mate's got an iPhone and travelling anywhere with him can be infuriating 'cos he tries to use its google maps to navigate us, which admittedly when it works is quite good, as it uses GPS to display a dot representing where you are on a google map, but it relies on a connection to the internet, which to me is a bit unreliable, but he doesn't accept that that renders it unusable as a navigation tool.

For instance,
me: "look it's dropped its connection again, hasn't it? why don't we just use my garmin?"
him: "no it'll be alright soon, we'll be moving into an HSDPA [or whatever] area in a minute, it'll pick up" ::-) ::-)
If you try to use it as an mp3 player, it will run out of batteries within about an hour.

It's camera is pretty piss poor, as well.
Both these pictures were taken out doors on sunny days.
This was taken with an iPhone – grainy and not that well focused
This was taken with a proper camera – good colour definition, reasonably well focused and looks nice.
(I say 'proper' camera, probably not by most of your standards, only a compact and a budget compact at that, but it's a much better picture.)

So why WOULD you have an iPhone? It's not like cameras and mp3 players are massive so it can't be the ease of carrying them around – and a sat nav is in your car anyway. I'm convinced that it's a mixture of fashion, and the desire to experience the novelty of touch-screen technology.

It's the single most useable 'gadget' I've ever owned.

Bonj I think you make a very sound case for you not having one… I love mine, find little fault with it and judging by sales I am not alone…..

1/10 – You put too much effort into this, and didn't check facts.

Most are just a java shell wrapping a browser, with a custom icon.

If you find a way to run Java on an iPhone, give me a call. It's all Cocoa, real programming one of the best SDKs for any platform out there.

You hate a phone… Really?

+1

I kind of agree with you,

Why, what is all about, all I want a phone to do is (funny this) call people and text, so why all the other STUFF.

I know it's a "fashion" thing.

Explain to me why I should buy one (as per my previous post tonight), go on convince me, I bet you wont be able too.

🙄

It's the single most useable 'gadget' I've ever owned.

+1

I have a cheapo phone and an ipod touch – which camp does this put me in?

(At first, I didn't really rate the touch as it seemed an overcomplicated ipod – but guess what, once I got to understand it I understood it was a first rate PDA with ipod attached.)

I love 'em. I'm on my third now.

You hate a phone… Really?

No I don't hate it like I would if it had for example murdered my child, say, but I … shall we say, despair, at all the hype that is associated with them. Most iPhone users start out denouncing them as naff, but then fall victim to the lure of the process of merely just discovering what apps you can get for it. They sit there mindlessly jabbing at it and then suddenly announce that hey! you can get an app for it that does so-and-so, and you're supposed to be impressed. 🙄
It's not that people actually find using the apps useful, but that they are addicted to the process of finding what ones you can get for it. They see it as 'upgrading' their phone – people love uprading things, so I must say in their credit apple have cottoned onto an extremely profitable business model, by finding a way of just exploiting people's sense of novelty.

Then there's a bewildering array of coloured icons to fathom but absolutely NO buttons, and you have bugger all idea not only WHERE to press, but also HOW – you gently touch what you think might be the right icon, and invariably it doesn't respond. Do you have to press it harder? Or what?

There's 1 button.

But really? The number of icons on an iPhone screen bewilders you and how you struggle to fathom out that you're meant to tap the icons? You are my 89 year old Grandfather and I claim my £5.

If you can't use an iPod / touch then god help you. My 3 year old son navigate his way around mine!

There's 1 button.

But really? The number of icons on an iPhone screen bewilders you and how you struggle to fathom out that you're meant to tap the icons? You are my 89 year old Grandfather and I claim my £5.
oh, TAP now, is it! 🙄 Christ, what's actually wrong with buttons? What does it actually GAIN by being touch screen? (For the user, I mean, not for apple.)

This is a telephone. I have one. I have no idea what all this smartphone / iPhone / texting you are on about it

I love 'em. I'm on my third now.

I would hate them if i was on my third already because something that costs that much should last a bit longer than that. That's my other gripe with them – they're probably designed to only last a certain amount of time, so then you'll go flocking back to the shop for another one which will have a slightly different colour scheme and you will therefore regard it as better and therefore worth it anyway.

TJ – that raises another grumble, what was actually wrong with the dial? Why is it that if you manage to discover a seller of phones with a dial (which we did to get my brother one for christmas) , do you find that it has to have some internal gubbins to convert the signal from the dial into the signal that buttons would make? WHY? 👿
Why isn't it the responsibility of the buttons to convert into the signal that a dial, which was there first, would make?

what was actually wrong with the dial?

It was fine when numbers were 4 digits long – you'd soon be pissed of dialing the 11 digit numbers we have now!!

no actually i would quite enjoy the process of dialling. It's quite therapeutic.

Oh – and I have an iPhone and I think its a rather fantastic device!

bonj – mine is a dial phone with the pulse dial mechanism and it works fine. Some are converted to tone dial so you can use automated systems with it as you can't with a pulse dial phone.

MY favourite thing about a real phone is the ring – 2 nice bells not some horrid electronic bleeping

I think, for me, it wouldn't require many modifications to convince me that it would be worth it:
* camera as good as budget smartphone
* red and green buttons for ending and starting calls, and up/down key
* good sat nav that doesn't rely on the internet
* good durability
but that would require actually making it functional and would divert the effort of the designers that are employed to make it addictive to the proles.

can use automated systems with it as you can't with a pulse dial phone.

no great gain is it! 😉

bonj – I can't stand them either because I'm a saddo linux using geek type **** that insisted on an Android phone instead..which has buttons and swipe screen.

Um, if you don't like iPhiones and don't see the point that's great, get a simple phone or no phone, I really don't mind.

I like my iPhone, I use it more than any other phone I've had and I no longer have to remember to pick up my iPod to listen to my music in there car. So if you don't want one fine, just don't knock something that other people obviously do like just cos you don't get it.

I don't get single speed bikes, fixies or tandems but I'm not about to start a thread about it, other people think they're great, I think they're (the people) weird, but that's my problem, not theirs 😉

I have a dial phone and love it, but takes ages to dial mobile numbers as they are full of 0's and 7's

Dad has loads in the loft, including a bright red one I really want but can't have

As for I-phones, all gimmick, toy and fashion? no use for working in the outdoors, especially as someone with 'sausage' fingers that can press a quarter of a screen

Um, if you don't like iPhiones and don't see the point that's great, get a simple phone or no phone, I really don't mind.

I like my iPhone, I use it more than any other phone I've had and I no longer have to remember to pick up my iPod to listen to my music in there car. So if you don't want one fine, just don't knock something that other people obviously do like just cos you don't get it.

I don't get single speed bikes, fixies or tandems but I'm not about to start a thread about it, other people think they're great, I think they're (the people) weird, but that's my problem, not theirs

don't get me wrong i don't have any issue with people that like them, I just, as you put it – "don't get it", would be a fairly accurate way of putting it.
I suppose it's not the devices themselves but the users of them – and there's different classes of users of them – there's those that love it to the point that they can't understand why anyone WOULDN'T have one and think you're a moron if you don't or don't know how to use theirs, and there's those that just have them 'cos they like them but appreciate that it's their choice and don't expect everybody else to buy into it.
If you're in the latter category, then fine, but it's the former that I've got a problem with.
Part of my issue with that set of people is they think that just because it's an iphone and it's famous, that everyone should know how to use it. Sorry,but they don't, and some have no desire to. If you have, say, a Samsung SX500, you wouldn't give it to someone and expect them to know how to use it and tut when they don't, but people think that because it's an iphone that everyone knows how to use it.

You don't like them? Don't use them then.

You think all the users are "forced" to use them or something? Say what you want about fashion, but gadgets that are fashionable go "out" of fashion very quickly if they don't work very very well.

Actually, just reading back through your postings….I don't think you have issues with iPhone users, I think maybe you just have issues in general 😯 😆

Spend half an hour using one for things that you think you'll find useful, and I'd be very surprised if you didn't want to stick with it. My problem is my inability to put the bloody thing down.

Spend half an hour using one for things that you think you'll find useful, and I'd be very surprised if you didn't want to stick with it. My problem is my inability to put the bloody thing down.

Such as?

What would I want to do that it would be useful for?

THe things I can think of – sat nav, mp3 player, camera, and even phone – a dedicated device is much better at the job than the iphone is.

I find it a lot more convenient than a laptop for stuff like this for example. It's brilliant at the Internet. (even capitalises Internet for you :-))

If you try to use it as an mp3 player, it will run out of batteries within about an hour.

Absolute nonsense!

The iPhone does exactly what a regular, stand-alone mp3 player does. It also does everything a regular mobile phone does.

If you're going to try and put up a valid argument, at least try and use some kind of fact in there 🙄

Part of my issue with that set of people is they think that just because it's an iphone and it's famous, that everyone should know how to use it.

it's a phone – are you saying that i hand you a phone and you cant use it!!

maybe you should stick to writing letters! 😉

iphone perfectly usable for 3 year old, but not bonj, apparently 😉

So the satnav is useless because it's web based like all the other apps, is it? Clot. Virtually all apps are native to the iPhone, including navigation. I have two gps map based apps, Copilot Live and Outdoor. Copilot is turn-by-turn UK voice guided that has all the maps for the UK installed in the phone. Outdoor is 1:50000 OS mapping, where the maps are installed in the phone. Mine covers the whole South-West of England from Tewksbury down to Cornwall and Abingdon across to Llandogo. Cost of each £25. I also have WeatherPro, which I use almost every day, which is web based, but you'll be pushed to find better weather forecasting, with radar and satellite mapping. I have three ebook readers with dozens of free and cheap books installed in the phone, not like Google books, that are all web based. I have apps that allow me to listen to streaming Internet radio at work, so that I have 6Music, or CBC Radio 3, (Canadian Indy channel), then there's useful little apps that give me spirit levels, conversion tables, cinema listings for all the cinemas in a fifty-mile radius, and on top of that the web-browsing is superb, I hardly ever bother getting my laptop out, I can easily use eBay, Facebook, where I can take a photo while out for a walk, then upload it with a caption straight away, I get all my email pushed straight to the phone, the text system on the iPhone is the best and easiest to use of any phone I've ever used, and if you found such a simple to use devise so difficult to grasp, I truly dispair of your competence when faced with something that is actually complicated, like a video recorder.

my kids (9 and 4) can make calls and navigate to and play the games.

i got an i-pod touch and can hosestly say i have no need for the i-phone, the apps are fine for pissing time away on a train and its good for lieing on the couch surfing the net coz i'm too lazy to walk 10 feet to the computer

other than that it annoys me that people think they invented the damn thing

I don't think I'll ever really use it to its full potential but it's the first time I've ever properly, without ages of arsing about, had properly synced email and contacts between my phone and computer and web – and no effort whatsover expended.