Apple's iPhone: The Future is Here
by Anand Lal Shimpi on July 2, 2007 6:13 PM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Mobile
Image attachments are scaled and visible in-line, while PDFs, Word and Excel documents are visible by launching a viewer window.
Lots of attachments, too bad there's no Powerpoint viewer
The process is seamless, if you see an attachment you can open simply click on it and if it's not already downloaded, it'll download and open in a new window; just close the window when you're done and you'll return to your email.
This is what an attachment that hasn't been downloaded looks like
The PDF/Word/Excel readers on the iPhone are nice and fast, just like the rest of the UI.
Tell me that's not the best looking PDF on a mobile phone you've ever seen
I didn't have any incompatibilities with PDF and Excel files, but I did run into the following issue with the attachment viewer and a Word document that I fed it:
It turns out that any Pages document (Pages being Apple's own publishing program) exported as a Word document results in this on the iPhone. Normal Word docs open just fine.
A couple of times I'd received an image via email on the iPhone only to find that the file was corrupt. I'd see around 20% of the image inline in the email, but the rest would be a grey box. Re-downloading the email would always fix the problem, and it only seemed to happen over WiFi. A friend of mine had the same problem, also over WiFi, but with an image he sent. The image made its way to its recipient just fine, but in his sent folder it appeared corrupt. I can't seem to duplicate the problem on command, so for now I'll chalk it up to a recurring fluke.
I've also encountered another odd issue where the iPhone on WiFi will stop being able to communicate with anything outside of my local network. Leaving Mail and returning to it a couple of times fixed the issue and it only happened once, but a friend of mine with his own iPhone reported running into the same issue just last night.
Despite its appearances, the iPhone Mail application is really designed to be a passive application. While you can send emails and photos, there is no outbox, sent mail isn't queued. To make matters worse, you can only email one image at a time, so if you're trying to send multiple emails each with their own photo attached on the Edge network, prepared for a frustratingly sequential experience.
Note that there is no way to attach an image within the email application, you have to view the image you want to send in the photo viewer and select the mail to option from there.
There's also no way to save attachments that have been emailed to you, even if they are photos. You can only view the attachments within the Mail client, and if there's an image that someone forwarded you that you'd like to save, you'll have to wait and do so on your computer and sync it to your iPhone if you want it in your photo album.
I get that Apple wanted to keep the iPhone as simple as possible, while remaining quite powerful. Keeping the user totally isolated from the iPhone's file system makes sense in the quest for elegant simplicity, but not being able to save images you received via email on the go seems like a bit much.
Here you can already see a fundamental difference in approach between the Blackberry and iPhone. The Blackberry is designed to all but replace your computer for email, while the iPhone is far more of a companion device.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
85 Comments
View All Comments
jay401 - Tuesday, July 3, 2007 - link
Now that's practically an unpardonable sin, given that it's such a basic request and something absent from most phones because most providers think people are dumb enough to pay money to download a ringtone (like hell would I ever do that nonsense).
So why not just let people use their mp3s? I already do that on my cellphone but since I can't do it directly I do it in a round-about way by sending myself the mp3 clips as attachments to messages sent to my phone, which I can then download and assign as a ringtone.
Why not just make it straightforward and easy? You'd think this is one thing Apple could do right. :(
jay401 - Tuesday, July 3, 2007 - link
from page 11:If I could read any of the incredibly tiny text in that picture, maybe I would be able to. ;P
Anand Lal Shimpi - Tuesday, July 3, 2007 - link
Seriously, the PDF looked shockingly good. Once you stretch to zoom in so you can actually read the slides, it's amazing. Yes, I realized being excited about how good a PDF looks on a phone is silly, but I figure after waiting in line for five hours for said phone, I've got nothing more to lose :)Take care,
Anand
Griswold - Tuesday, July 3, 2007 - link
You can't make videos on the phone, you can't copy/paste, there's no IM client, you can't replace the battery on your own, you can't add applications to it, there's no Flash/Java support, it's heavy and the list goes on. But here's the catch: there isn't a phone out today (smart or not) that doesn't have at least as long of a list of issues.But for a price tag like this, I expect a shorter list. And unfortunately, many of the things on this list are important to me.
Still, after being so skeptic about the iphone, I'd still like to have one (yea, it does have this star trek datapad feeling!!) but due to the flaws and shortcomings, i'll just wait for the next incarnation that will most likely hit the street within a year.
I dont believe in early adopting gear from a company with zero experience on this particular field, and while apple did most of their homework, my motto (rightfully) stands.
The next iphone will most likely be much better suited for me.
mongo lloyd - Tuesday, July 3, 2007 - link
Comic Sans? Really?plinden - Tuesday, July 3, 2007 - link
No - http://www.searchfreefonts.com/fonts/m9.htm">Marker Felt Thinmongo lloyd - Wednesday, July 4, 2007 - link
Oh ok. Equally terrible font, I'd say. Is that a standard-use font for Apple? Yikes to that.Sunrise089 - Tuesday, July 3, 2007 - link
Lots of personality, info that wasn't just a run down of specs, and best of all telepathy.I was actually thinking while I read this "I wonder if I'd be able to watch TopGear clips on this, since often they get pulled from Youtube. I scroll down the page, and see Clarkson staring back at me. Amazing.
One more thing, about the homeless guy's choice between the Enzo and the Veyron - between ugly and boring, I don't know which I'd pick either. After all these years, McLaren F1 FTW!
Yongsta - Tuesday, July 3, 2007 - link
Nice Review, the iphone sounds great but $600 is out of my budget. Hopefully Apple in the future releases new types of iphone's at affordable prices. Maybe Samsung/Nokia/Motorola will try to make a copycat phone but they probably cant match Apple's UI.Locutus465 - Tuesday, July 3, 2007 - link
I do love the looks of the iPhone... However if everything I hear about it is true then it would not interest me. Complete lack of 3rd party software support? If this is true then yikes! I've got my Windows Mobile phone running with quite a bit of 3rd party software and for me that's a huge must... Like my Trillian like all in one chat client, Pocket Putty, CISCO VPN client and of course, pocket mahjoong (spelling?).Also, I've heard for a closed system they missed the boat on what would be some truely killer features (which could be solved via allowing 3rd party software). For instance it has (google?) maps, yet from what I hear no GPS integration? Why not? At least in windows mobile you have options (though yes, it's not built into that platform either).
It would however, be nice to see more cell companies consentrate on end user experience... It's appriciated that is for sure.