Unlocking iPhone's illusions
Apple's engineers have created some magnificent features in the iPhone, but it has functional shortcomings. Those who can afford to to buy one should wait for an upgraded version
Just weeks after the launch of the iPhone ‘exclusively' on O2's mobile network, a plethora of shops around the country are unlocking the device for use on any other mobile network. Attendents in 3-Mobile, Meteor and Vodafone stores told Village that customers were using the iPhone on their networks without problems. O2 has said that unlocked iPhones cannot be used on their network, but Village saw one O2 customer use an unlocked phone that was purchased on eBay.
Electronics shops on South Anne Street, Camden Street and Parnell Street in Dublin are offering to unlock the phone for a small fee. One Irish website will unlock the phone for €65 and it offers a same-day collection and delivery service in the Dublin area (www.irishiphone.com). Technically-savvy iPhone users can buy step-by-step instructions to unlocking the phone from the same website, but these instructions are freely available on other websites. Some iPhones are ‘bricked' after being unlocked, meaning the phone's applications cannot be used, but computer hacks have come up with a way to unbrick the phone should this happen.
The violation of Apple's latest product was perhaps inevitable, but it is partly a product of O2's greed. The contract rates that O2 charged for iPhone use were labelled a ‘Paddy Tax' once it emerged that customers on O2's UK network get far more talk-time minutes and messages than those in the Republic. A €100 monthly contract buys 3,000 minutes and 500 texts in the UK compared with 700 minutes and 250 texts in the Republic. O2 has also capped the iPhone's download capacity at 1GB per month; there is no limit in the UK. Irish users who download in excess of the 1GB data allowance will be charged at 2 cent per MB excluding roaming charges.
Skin deep functionality
The iPhone itself is elegant, intuitive and uncomplicated; another in a line of Apple products that lends itself to user-friendly interaction. The touch-sensitive screen and the self-adjusting horizontal-to-vertical display have already become the newest industry standard and Samsung plans to release a touch-screen phone later this year.
This shift to touch-screen devices designed specifically for web browsing will no doubt please mobile network operators who see revenue streams in the future coming from data transfer (such as email and internet downloads) rather than voice calls. The time spent on the internet by iPhone users in the UK is quadruple what O2 analysts initially predicted. In the US, 84.8 percent of iPhone users reported accessing news and information from the web compared with 13.1 percent of the overall mobile phone market.
But what the iPhone offers in ease of use, it lacks in hardcore functionality. It has no GPS system or FM radio (as is Apple's stubborn wont); the paltry 2 megapixel camera is available on most standard phones; emailing is reportedly clumsy and it doesn't have a flash application that is required to view some online videos. Only recently did Apple launch a software developer kit to allow the programming fraternity develop applications that can be downloaded onto the iPhone. Thousands of applications have already been developed for Windows mobile devices (Nokia, Motorola and Samsung phones) – what is likely to happen in the short term is a migration of applications already available on Windows mobile devices to the iPhone.
Most importantly, the present iPhone is incompatible with 3G mobile broadband – the fastest available mobile internet speed at 1.6 to 3.2 megabits per second. Indeed, the snazzy demonstrations and slick marketing of the iPhone are decidedly misleading in this regard. They impress upon the public a seamless internet connection, complete with instantaneous YouTube videos, Facebook profiles and news websites. But these features are cached within the iPhone for demonstration purposes. They are loaded to the phone much faster than through the internet.
When users are not in a WiFi area, they are stuck with the iPhone's paltry 2.75G internet connnection, which operates at 236k, a fraction of 3G speeds. Web browsing on the iPhone is in reality a much slower experience than advertised, especially in Ireland (see panel on mobile broadband).
The iPhone represents the first in the next generation of mobile phone, but at €399/499 it is overpriced when compared to other phones on the market that offer better functionality. The Nokia N95 is much better value at €169. It comes with Skype, GPS, a 5 megapixel camera and 2GB external memory.
Apple is expected to release a 3G iPhone in June 2008 – anyone tempted to buy one should certainly wait until then. The community of programmers will have come up with some nifty applications by then too.