Some thoughts occurred to me tonight regarding Apple using competing phones to defend the iPhone 4 antenna problem in the press conference earlier. Technically, it is easy to show similar behaviour between a vast array of phones, but this still leaves me with some questions about my history with the iPhones-
Why have I never had a signal problem with any BlackBerry, Nokia or Samsung smartphone?
Why have I consistently lost service on the iPhone 2G, iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4 in marginal signal areas, but not on other phones?
Why is my BlackBerry Curve currently displaying 5 bars right now and my iPhone 4 only 1 bar? They are both on Vodafone.
The fact is that while I do not believe the iPhone 4 antenna problem to be as big as some have made out, no iPhone has ever come close to the likes of Nokia, BlackBerry or Samsung in terms of signal and ‘phone’ performance. I can see the light here though because I fully expect the last two weeks to spur Apple on to improve iPhone voice performance even more with iPhone 5. The iPhone 4 is good for voice, but there is still some way to go to match some of the competition and holding up rival phones only highlights its own weakness in my opinion.
Of course the real irony is that Apple has probably got it right in neglecting the voice side during its iPhone history because it realised before the rest that voice is a declining feature in all smartphones.
I can only comment as a person who uses his Smartphones as a business tool. For me a Smartphone allows me the ability to have a mobile office (and enteriantment when away from home), but I still make as many calls now as I did 5 years ago. In the past I may have used a fixed line more, but now I tend to use my phone to call others not on thier extention but on their mobile phones. Voice has not reduced in importance for me. In fact, in my line of business I would say phone call quality has always been important and this is why until very recently most big businesses had a Nokia phone as one of the 2-3 phones on offer for staff (no days RIM and HTC seem to dominate).
so why not buy an ipod touch and a mifi if the phone feature is so pointless. your point demonstrates one of the worse aspects of fanboyism – saying that because apple don’t do something or don’t do it well then it isn’t important because apple know best.
mobile phone design hasn’t been rocket science for 5+ years, but apple are so determined to reinvent the wheel in terms of design they are having to reinvent all the problems that every existing mobile manufacturer learned years ago.
Shaun, you are such a fanboy.
Yep. Yesterday I am shouted at for always having a dig at Apple, today I am an Apple fanboy.
I was wrong in one aspect though- some of the early Windows Mobile smartphones were appalling for voice so they beat Apple to it.
Just had an email from a colleague in my previous company. I was head of IT and IT Security at the time (and other things….) and he made life difficult as he insisted on using his own non-encrypted MacBook instead of the company laptop and he had every Iphone released until…the iPhone 4. He has had enough of poor call quality & battery life and the ‘mess-up’ with the latest Apple creation – he’s switching to HTC :-O
OK, let’s remember what we are dealing with here.
Almost every iPhone and almost every HTC device has had poor call quality. Every HTC and iPhone device has had poor battery life. It’s inherent in both companies and that was the point of my article- at last focus is being put on one of these areas.
Nokia and RIM make smartphones that have great call quality and battery lives, but fail to capture the imaginations of the masses. Samsung is also making some exceptional phones and the Galaxy S has the best call quality I have ever heard. These companies make phones that are very smart whereas the others make smartphones.
Despite all of that I own an iPhone 4 (personal) and a BlackBerry (work). I will always own the best phone for my needs and the iPhone 4 is an extraordinary product in many ways. I won’t let my feelings for a company affect what product I buy if it is worthy of my money. If I did, I would own no Apple products at all.
Every single Palm and the single Blackberry I have owned had worse connectivity and call quality than the iPhone (going back a bit, though). I’ve also had dumb phones that were worse, too. Having said that, I’m sure there are phones with far better reception as well.
iPhone 4 works just fine for me. One dropped call in three weeks, and I live in an area with really crappy, inconsistent reception.
“Every single Palm and the single Blackberry I have owned had worse connectivity and call quality than the iPhone (going back a bit, though).”
Agree about Palm, but the Bold 9700, Storm and the new Pearl are streets ahead of any HTC phone or iPhone in terms of call quality and connectivity.
Probably true, but I haven’t used any of those phones. My wife’s Curve seems decent enough, as far as the phone part goes.
HTC Desire and HTC HD2 have fantastic call quality. Never had a dropped call on O2, Vodafone or T-Mobile with these two phones. Been in the same office as two people with an Iphone 3G on O2 and even my Plam Pre on O2 was better at making calls.
“Almost every iPhone and almost every HTC device has had poor call quality. Every HTC and iPhone device has had poor battery life. It’s inherent in both companies and that was the point of my article- at last focus is being put on one of these areas.”
Interestingly (for me) I agree 100% in the WM days, I much preferred Samsung WM phones as HTC had terrible signal and battery despite their popularity.. BUT with Android OS things have changed, strange as it is only an OS change but the HTC Magic I have has substantially better signal and battery than any HTC phone I had before it, and was probably the cheapest I have bought too.. Will be interesting to see how HTC go with WP7??
Probably just co-incidence that around the time HTC started moving to Android they realised the signal and battery problems were unacceptable.. Though OS differences could impact on battery life..
My HTC HD2 was the best phone for signal strength – the antenna must be huge
The battery life on my Dell Streak is remarkable for a big screen device. Always get a full from one battery charge. My iPhone 3 owning colleagues seem to be constantly looking for USB ports to keep their phones charged!
Whilst we all agree all models of smart phones have faults, is it acceptable that we accept them?
Is it not of a coincidence that apple sell bumper cases, they knew they had a problem even before release.
They then work out post launch what to do – if you don’t want your iPhone 4 you can return it or get a free case. Clever stuff. You have committed to the phone, apps etc so it’s not as simple as returning the phone, is it? And then you have to get a different phone.
I do believe apart from 2 issues, the iPhone 4 is the best out there. I am restoring my new iPhone 4, so will test the antenna and sensor once phone finished restoring.
Signal strength on my HTC Legend is the worse of any phone since my iPhone 2G, BlackBerry phones tend to have very good signal and call quality