Monthly Archives: July 2010

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.

One huge advantage of digital media for companies is that it is far too easy for consumer to make an impulse purchase without considering the amount of money involved. To this day it doesn’t feel real to me and far too often I purchase a song, film or eBook without considering if I will get around to enjoying them. I have many games and apps that I rarely use and the cost of these has risen over time to a level that I don’t want to even think about. I have a queue of eBooks to read and lots of one-off songs that are confined to a little space in iTunes and which have never made it to my iPhone. I even bought the latest Kylie Minogue single because it sounded similar to an old INXS song I liked. Yes, I am ashamed, but this is what happens when digital media is so easy to buy.

I got to wondering about this because I realised that CDs and paper books are always utilised as they should be. I have never bought a real book and not read it, I have never bought a CD and not listed to all of it (apart from the last Kings of Leon album which was dreadful) and I have never bought a console game and not played it properly.

Maybe it is down to cost and the fact that you pay more for physical goods which naturally causes the purchaser to sub-consciously make the most of what they have spent or the purchasing process. When you buy something in a shop you have a wander round comparing things, get your wallet out (or purse), pay the person serving you and there is an experience involved in the entire process. You actually feel like you have bought something.

When you buy an eBook or an app, you click a button and it’s yours. There is little physical interaction during the purchase and despite its obvious convenience, there is something missing. Don’t get me wrong, I love the digital purchasing process, but recognise that it does lead me to waste money more than I would in a shop.