The iPhone proves one thing for certain: Steve Jobs despises buttons. The ’80s saw a minimalist Mac keyboard that lacked direction, function and scroll keys. The Apple mouse was uni-buttoned. The iPod has a button and a wheel. Hell, Steve Jobs even wears button-free shirts. So true to form, the iPhone trades buttons for a touch screen. But does the device live up to the hype? Wires, brandishing its journalistic machete to hack through the dense jungle of media hyperbole, polled iPhone users at EverythingiPhone.com.
Minding the source, responses gushed almost universal praise.
On a satisfaction scale of ten, with ten being orgasm-inducing ecstasy, satisfaction averaged nine. Yowza. Users praised iPod functionality, Google Maps, Visual Voicemail and the Multi-Touch Interface, where spreading or closing two fingers on a picture zooms in and out. One user even proclaimed “the iPhone is more than just a phone! Everyone is jealous!” Again: yowza.
Chris Cooper, an Upstate communications worker, prefers the iPhone to his previous Razrs, saying “I’m amazed at how well the touch screen works.” Chris was one of many queued outside the AT&T store on “iDay.” When an associate came around gathering names, Chris asked if he could test the iPhone first. He was ushered inside, and after toying with the device for all of ten minutes, Chris slapped six Benjamins down and joined the booming fraternity of iPhoners.
But even in enthusiastic praise, iPhanatics murmur discontent. “Ifs” and “buts” pepper responses. Some complain of Safari (iPhone’s internet browser) crashing “constantly.” Others grumble incompatibility with Flash and JavaScript renders some interactive web content inaccessible. Cutting and pasting text is a holy hassle and chubby-fingered texters object to the small touch-screen keyboard. Even the iPhone’s most staunch supporters agree software updates and bug-fixes are needed.
Bemoaned most is the mandatory contract with AT&T. A complicated hardware hack pioneered by George Hotz (a 17-year-old Jersey boy) can free users from AT&T’s kung-fu grip and three hundred-page bills, but what about those without sweet computer hacking skills? A recent Popular Science article touts a beacon of hope: the “iClone.” Trolling the net’s black market or flying to China may soon yield an exact copy of the iPhone, sans AT&T and Apple software.
Once we slash the dense undergrowth of hype, it seems Jobs’ no-buttons ideology holds water after all. Sales are booming. The iPhone’s simplistic design blurs the border between technology and art. Even the technologically illiterate can navigate the device with ease. Is it worth $600? Chris Cooper and other iPhanatics shout a resounding “yes.” Maddox.xmission.com vulgarly decries it as an overhyped turd. Whatever the case, the iPhone may shift our definition of what a “mobile phone” is.
