Ars iPhone Review
It's funny. I just read Ars Technica's exhaustive-as-usual iPhone review, and in the conclusion they write:
Why is this funny? Because the Ars crew and I completely disagree when it comes to the things we love and hate most about the iPhone. Particularly Safari — it's their "home run," but my least favorite part. This discrepancy is primarily a matter of perspective. I am a typical, non-smartphone using cell phone user. Or at least that's where I'm coming from. I'm used to surfing the web on a computer and using a phone as a phone and contact device. So everything that improves upon the telephone experience is a boon for me, but I never surfed on my phone anyway, and compared to my computer the iPhone just can't stack up. Smartphone users, on the other hand, have been frustrated by this crippled, mobile version of the web on their phones for years, so the iPhone's version of the web is a huge boon for them.
What's amazing, though, is that in the end we both come out fairly pleased with the device on the whole. Ars gives it an 8 out of 10. I'd give it a 9. But overall there is enough good about the iPhone to please both the cell phone crowd and the smartphone crowd. Now that's what I call balance!
If you really want a thorough review, I highly recommend the one at Ars.
It's clear to us that the iPhone wasn't meant, at the outset anyway, as a smartphone for smartphone people (who typically end up being business people). Instead, the iPhone was meant as a smartphone for everyone else: average people who, until now, had no reason or motivation to get a BlackBerry or something similar that may have been more difficult to use and had way too many features for the average phone user.
Why is this funny? Because the Ars crew and I completely disagree when it comes to the things we love and hate most about the iPhone. Particularly Safari — it's their "home run," but my least favorite part. This discrepancy is primarily a matter of perspective. I am a typical, non-smartphone using cell phone user. Or at least that's where I'm coming from. I'm used to surfing the web on a computer and using a phone as a phone and contact device. So everything that improves upon the telephone experience is a boon for me, but I never surfed on my phone anyway, and compared to my computer the iPhone just can't stack up. Smartphone users, on the other hand, have been frustrated by this crippled, mobile version of the web on their phones for years, so the iPhone's version of the web is a huge boon for them.
What's amazing, though, is that in the end we both come out fairly pleased with the device on the whole. Ars gives it an 8 out of 10. I'd give it a 9. But overall there is enough good about the iPhone to please both the cell phone crowd and the smartphone crowd. Now that's what I call balance!
If you really want a thorough review, I highly recommend the one at Ars.
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on Friday, July 13, 2007 at 3:11 PM.
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