Internet Culture
Why I don't want an iPhone
Updated: 28th December 2007
I've gone too long reading about how great the iPhone is, and how much I really should have one, after all, I'm a male in my 20's - a young professional if you will, so surely, I should be seen with such a fashion item.
Yet it's that exact image that puts me off going to an Apple store and buying such a product. The reviews have been great. I hear the interface is the stuff of legends, and the thing just looks so damn clean. So why I am not compelled to join this group of coffee loving blazer wearing fuzzy faced clones who clap and cheer each other when leaving the iPhone shop?
Simple: All the reviews spend too long telling me how great I'll be with an iPhone and not how great the iPhone actually is. When it was launched, you really had to look long and hard to find a half decent review (Thank you theregister.co.uk!) explaining the technical abilities and limitations of the device, and especially someone who's not afraid to point out its flaws. To begin with, all I would hear about is how the music and Internet are at the tip of my fingers, "everyone will want one", etc. It was enough to put me off.
Well, actually that and the fact O2 is the only carrier in the UK. Sure I could switch to O2 and go back to complex billing and confusing terminology for simple packages, but I'm happy with my current provider and had no intention of fighting Apple for the next few years in trying to keep the thing unlocked and free to do the things I wanted.
Granted, after seeing on in action - I liked the Internet view. Apple acknowledged that mobile Internet plain sucks and most websites do not cater a separate CSS sheet for mobile devices (including this one!), so was pleased to see a well displayed page on the screen. But that alone wouldn't be enough.
In the end, it was the sheer limitations being forced onto me before I even set foot in a shop to be chatted up by a salesperson. O2, iTunes, restricted content - all of which I didn't have a choice if I wanted to do things properly. Sure the iPhone looks good, and I'd probably learn to love it if only they had taken a phone and given it the iPhone look - but instead all I see is an Apple device that sometimes forgets it's a phone, and the method's of how to use it, what you can use it for, and how you'll use it in the future had already been decided long before the designers had even given it a name.
Speaking of good reviews, if you're like me and waiting for the iPhone hype to die down before even looking at one, I highly recommend the review by Cade Metz at The Register. Of course it won't be long before the second revision is available and we can do this all over again ;)