Apple's iPhone: The Future is Here
by Anand Lal Shimpi on July 2, 2007 6:13 PM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Mobile
YouTube
Apple's iPhone doesn't have a Flash plugin, which means no watching videos on YouTube among other things. Given the popularity of YouTube, Apple worked with Google to include a custom YouTube application for the iPhone that plays H.264 encoded YouTube content.
The entire YouTube library isn't available for viewing on the iPhone, but all new content added will be available in an Apple TV/iPhone compatible H.264 format while older content is slowly being converted.
The YouTube interface on the iPhone is just as clean and elegant as the rest of the applications; you can search for YouTube videos, view the most popular or featured videos. Unfortunately there's no way to browse channels or if you've found a particular video, to view everything by that member.
The quality of the videos depends on whether you are on WiFi or Edge. On WiFi, you get a higher quality H.264 stream while on Edge the quality is noticeably worse (honestly it looks the same or a little worse than .flv YouTube you get on the web).
YouTube over Edge, ugh
YouTube over WiFi, mmm
As you'd expect, streaming over WiFi is fast but performance over the Edge network is actually reasonable if you've got full signal strength.
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michael2k - Sunday, July 8, 2007 - link
Except of course for the keyboard.If he unveiled the thing, it would have to be as a small laptop.
edwinder - Wednesday, July 4, 2007 - link
Anand, I never got through your iPhone review...because everything I read is basically Blackberry this, Blackberry that. Just so that you know, not all your readers like/own/used Blackberries, and have found other replacements that suit us more besides a Blackberry (i.e E61). Yes, I know you love your BB's, but hope you can rename your article to reflect the review that you wrote. Nothing wrong with it... but reading your article gave me no basis of which to refer to, hence stopped reading it after a few pages.aGoGo - Wednesday, July 4, 2007 - link
Exactly,I used BB 8700, 8100, 8300 and 8800.. all of them suck, i have to admit that the RIM makes the best "stupid-proof" devices, that can enable you connect to your work email through BES, other than that, every single feature sucks.
I'm using the Imate Jasjar (HTC Universal) and it can do every single thing the iPhone can do, without the cute looking UI, people wanna use things, not look at them, how many of you are still using Aero glass and DreamScene? Every single person disabled them after one week.
r33tr33t - Wednesday, July 4, 2007 - link
You can catch bits of Anand's gigantic house as well as his face reflected back in the metallic part of some of the iPhone photos.plinden - Tuesday, July 3, 2007 - link
Actually, http://www.apple.com/iphone/specs.html">here, Apple does claim "up to 6 hours" internet time, so what you're seeing is in line with Apple's claims.
Yes, I do like my Apple products (3 Macs and two iPods) but I've always taken the battery life claims with a large pinch of salt.
Anand Lal Shimpi - Tuesday, July 3, 2007 - link
I know exactly what you're saying; battery life on the MacBook Pro is no where near Apple's 6-hour claims; I'd be lucky to get 2.5 hours of real work on mine.Thanks for the correction, I too was shocked to see it actually lasted 6 hours on WiFi. I'm doing some more tests now looking closer at its battery life, so you may see a follow-up article in the near future.
Take care,
Anand
strikeback03 - Tuesday, July 3, 2007 - link
Looks nice, but too big for me. If they can build one around something more like a 2.25" screen that would be sweet.Also on the next to last page there is a picture missing of the screen you get to unlock the phone.
Anand Lal Shimpi - Tuesday, July 3, 2007 - link
Agreed. An iPhone mini could be very interesting but I'm not sure how the keyboard would work out. And I've added the missing image, thanks for the heads up :)Take care,
Anand
Drumsticks - Wednesday, January 7, 2015 - link
I had to go through this review for a paper I was writing for school, and I came across this comment. In 2015... how times have changed :)aGoGo - Tuesday, July 3, 2007 - link
Blackberry Curve and Blackjack?there are better phones to use, how about the HTC Universal? Nokia N95? SE P990i? HTC Athena?
I really don't know how much this damn thing is gonna cost if it's unlocked? $1000?