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Gruber's iPhone First Impressions
daringfireball.net — Overall day one impression: the iPhone is 95 percent amazing, 5 percent maddening. I ’m just blown away by how nice it is – very thoughtful UI design and outstanding engineering. It is very fun.
sxtxixtxcxh- 890 diggs
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- Djerrid, on 10/11/2007, -1/+35"The auto-suggest correction system works pretty damn well, considering it hasn’t yet had a chance to learn much about what and how I type. Most impressive touch: it knows the word “*****”."
- mglmouser, on 10/11/2007, -17/+1Why's that special? Most dictionaries have the definition. Here's what Mac OS X's dict says about that:
***** |fək| vulgar slang
verb [ trans. ]
1 have sexual intercourse with (someone).
• [ intrans. ] (of two people) have sexual intercourse.
2 ruin or damage (something).
noun
an act of sexual intercourse.
• [with adj. ] a sexual partner.
exclamation
used alone or as a noun ( the *****) or a verb in various phrases to express anger, annoyance, contempt, impatience, or surprise, or simply for emphasis.
PHRASES
go ***** yourself an exclamation expressing anger or contempt for, or rejection of, someone.
not give a ***** ( about) used to emphasize indifference or contempt.
PHRASAL VERBS
***** around spend time doing unimportant or trivial things. • have sexual intercourse with a variety of partners. • ( ***** around with) meddle with.
***** off [usu. in imperative ] (of a person) go away.
***** someone over treat someone in an unfair or humiliating way.
***** someone up damage or confuse someone emotionally.
***** something up (or ***** up) do something badly or ineptly.
DERIVATIVES
***** adjective
ORIGIN early 16th cent.: of Germanic origin (compare Swedish dialect focka and Dutch dialect fokkelen); possibly from an Indo-European root meaning [strike,] shared by Latin pugnus ‘fist.’
USAGE Despite the wideness and proliferation of its use in many sections of society, the word ***** remains (and has been for centuries) one of the most taboo words in English. Until relatively recently, it rarely appeared in print; even today, there are a number of euphemistic ways of referring to it in speech and writing, e.g., the F-word, f***, or f—k.
***** |ˈfəki ng |
adjective [ attrib. ] & adverb [as submodifier ] vulgar slang
used for emphasis or to express anger, annoyance, contempt, or surprise.- totorototoro, on 10/11/2007, -1/+8Dude, buy a sense of humor :p
- mglmouser, on 10/11/2007, -17/+1Why's that special? Most dictionaries have the definition. Here's what Mac OS X's dict says about that:
- Bobaliki, on 10/11/2007, -3/+12very in-depth first impressions, answers alot questions i had about the iPhone
- Aggaman, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1Yeah it was a good review. Most I have seen focus on the UI. That's the real deal, besides whatever other deficiencies the phone has. I really think that this is a turning point for mobile devices. Just as the Mac introduced the GUI to the mass market, the iPhone will do the same for multitouch.
I predict that in 5 or 6 years you will not be able to buy a mobile phone or portable device without some sort of multi touch interface. Whether or not Apple will still be in the business of selling such devices then is up for debate, but they've done users everywhere a service by producing a workable multitouch consumer device.
Nokia and other handset makers really need to go back to the drawing board, and soon.
- Aggaman, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1Yeah it was a good review. Most I have seen focus on the UI. That's the real deal, besides whatever other deficiencies the phone has. I really think that this is a turning point for mobile devices. Just as the Mac introduced the GUI to the mass market, the iPhone will do the same for multitouch.
- maklershed, on 10/11/2007, -2/+7Hans .. Simon .. Gruber. Peter Gruber's brother.
- rwallen, on 10/11/2007, -4/+5I'm having issues with the ipod functionality in itunes with mine. It won't let me drag and drop music onto the iphone, instead I have to sync playlists to it. It isn't that this is difficult it's just extra steps to get my music on the phone. When the music is on the phone I can't play any of it through itunes, it's all greyed out. It is doing this on both mine and my wife's phones, I think this is pretty silly and hopefully I'm just doing something wrong.
- TomPlansMedia, on 10/11/2007, -1/+7this is the same way an ipod works... you dont really need to be able to play the files directly from the mounted iphone because they're already in your library...
- rwallen, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1When I take it to work though I usually plug it in and listen through itunes so it stays charged.
- willdaddy, on 10/11/2007, -1/+2sounds like it hasn't finished syncing yet
- crazybrit, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1*****, looks like it only syncs automatically then. Syncing manually works better in a lot of situations.
- EXIDY, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2Edit Preference to select Manual Sync ... if that's what you want, but, in general, leave the work up to iTunes!!! IMHO
- superkendall, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1I prefer manually dragging myself, but you can simulate that effect with an iPhone specific playlist that you keep synched.
- TomPlansMedia, on 10/11/2007, -1/+7this is the same way an ipod works... you dont really need to be able to play the files directly from the mounted iphone because they're already in your library...
- cliffzdude, on 10/11/2007, -12/+5Gruber said "Overall day one impression: the iPhone is 95 percent amazing".
Which (tongue in cheek) must mean the iPhone sucks, as Gruber is a professional Apple Fan Boy. From Wikipedia's Gruber entry: "...His blog often seeks to refute criticism of Steve Jobs, Apple and its products."
Seriously though, we non fanboys won't get a serious review for weeks until some non-fanboys get some iPhones. Mind you it looks like a winner, but to date all the reviews I've seen are either from nit-wit journalists who have no business reviewing an iPhone or ultra, dyed in the wool fanboys who will love the iPhone if it smelled like rotten salami.- totorototoro, on 10/11/2007, -4/+1based on your Digg history, Bill Gates could ***** give the iPhone a positive review, and you'd accuse him of just being nice to Steve :p
- meatmcguffin, on 10/11/2007, -3/+3"His blog often seeks to refute criticism of Steve Jobs, Apple and its products."
Only when the criticism is wrong. He was one of those who stood up against those two idiots who were saying that an Apple wireless card could be hacked in the same way as a third party card with no proof whatsoever. Plus, his jackass of the week is usually accurate when it comes to idiots reporting negatively on Apple news without knowing what they're talking about.
If you browse the site, there's quite a lot of criticism of Apple too; dotMac for one and the Fix The ***** Finder campaign. Put it this way, if he's a fanboy then all Digg users could learn a lesson from him.
- Zargon, on 10/11/2007, -3/+8Agree with all he said. It just works!
- NiGHTSChao, on 10/11/2007, -11/+6Enough with the ***** iphone articles
- Drevor, on 10/11/2007, -2/+24anyone bothered to take a look at the crash dump?
Exception Codes: 0x8badf00d ... well, if you don't nourish your phone properly no wonder it crashes... - mobilehavoc, on 10/11/2007, -2/+8Anybody who has been on Digg for a while knows I'm anything BUT an Apple fanboy but after now using my iPhone for 5-6 hours straight I have to honestly say I'm impressed. Although honestly I think it's more like 80% amazing and 20% maddening. Hopefully some of that 20% maddening they'll address in software updates but I'm not holding my breath.
- totorototoro, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1mobilehavoc,
seriously, I'd love to read the 80/20 review from you some time..write one up, dude! - jkoke, on 10/11/2007, -0/+5I'm about 90% amazed and 10% frustrated. But most smart phones are 40% amazing and 60% frustration, so I'm in heaven.
- Aggaman, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3It must be absolutely divine then. I saw you on various sites the other day saying how much it would suck.
Next, Flag564 will be posting a positive review. - CrazyZ, on 10/11/2007, -4/+1Dude, you paid $600+2 year agreement for a phone that has less features than a phone half the price. You're a fanboy.....
- totorototoro, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1mobilehavoc,
- hiro, on 10/11/2007, -4/+2Even if I hadn't already realised that the 1st gen iPhone just doesn't have enough functionality to replace my existing smartphone, the shortcomings he mentions would have been enough to put me off
- EXIDY, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1Perhaps you're not the target market ... at no point has Apple positioned the iPhone as a so called "smartphone" replacement -- especially not a corporate client (Jobs insinuates more to come ...). Turns out there seems to be quite a large target population - with or without corporate interest.
- CeeAyy, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1I have to agree with hiro on this one. I really wanted the iPhone until I actually used it. I have a Palm Treo and I use the To Do list and Task functions often. Putting everything in notes on the iPhone is not a good solution for me. I really wanted this phone but now I am just more interested in the next iPod.
As for being APPLE's target market, I am in that group. They just missed the mark with me. I don't have a Treo because I use it for work. I don't NEED a smartphone. I use my phone for everyday life. I was really hoping that the iPhone would be better because I really don't like the interface of the Treo. It's clunky, especialy compared to iPhone. Also, the Treo crashes ALOT.
When the iPhone improves I will buy it then; it will improve.
I love Apple computers and have been buying them since 1996. I just bought a new MacBook Pro two weeks ago and I was really looking forward to the iPhone, but it's not quite a homerun to me; more like a ground rule double. It's a great iPod and a good phone but it is lacking a few features that I use regularly. Oh, and when will it get games...
- ApocOne, on 10/11/2007, -8/+3Wait, you can't close apps and this is a FEATURE?
Hah, typical fanboy mentality. You put this "feature" in Windows Mobile 6 and its the biggest bug ever, "OMG YOU CANT EVEN CLOSE APPS". On the Iphone its awesome? No wonder they didn't allow 3rd party apps, it would of made performance as craptastic as Windows Mobile 5-6 (after loading it with your favorite games/software.)
Windows Mobile 5-6 with no 3rd party apps doesn't close and just "switches" as well. And it does it super fast considering there are like 5 main applications that the Iphone/Windows Mobile comes bundled with (Windows Mobile comes bundled with more, actually :D).
Too bad Windows Mobile 6 looks so ugly and handles so poorly. Photon is going to give the iPhone a run for it's money though.- pintomp3, on 10/11/2007, -1/+2i don't like this "feature" either, but it's the way pretty much all pdas work. the way the iphone does it sounds exactly like palm.
- meatmcguffin, on 10/11/2007, -1/+2Desktop OS X has the ability to 'pause' applications by basically revoking the privilege for them to use clock cycles. You end up with an open app which can be frozen and unfrozen literally instantaneously and only takes up minimal RAM in the meantime.
I can't think of any reasons why the iPhone doesn't pause apps that don't need to continuously run in the same way.- sxtxixtxcxh, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1what makes you think the phone has ram?
- meatmcguffin, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1Because flash is too slow to use as a temporary store.
- sxtxixtxcxh, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1what makes you think the phone has ram?
- meatmcguffin, on 10/11/2007, -1/+2Stupid double post. Soz.
- dizam, on 10/11/2007, -8/+1I wonder how all the apple fan boys will use their new iphone with Steve's flaccid p****s on their mouths...
Cmon ppl, is it just a phone! - tomzZz, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3Notice the frameworks in the crash log:
e.g. /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreSurface.framework/CoreSurface- awhiteflame, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3Now that's very intriguing...
One of Leopard's top secrets? CoreSurface for Mac OS X! For these new .. ta-da! Multitouch Macs! - meatmcguffin, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2I can't wait for someone to find that in a future build of Leopard. That'll be an awesome day :)
- awhiteflame, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3Now that's very intriguing...
- rubberbrush, on 10/11/2007, -1/+10I'm not a big fan of Macs, but I love this freakin phone.
- jazzviolin, on 10/11/2007, -8/+1Gruber's cool, but there are a few things that annoy me about his site:
1 - He does donation drives like PBS, always hitting a brother up
2 - He pushes his Daring Fireball t-shirts on me (with the LOOK HERE --->> T-SHIRT TAB) all over the site (posting about how people wear his shirts)
3 - He limits his RSS feeds to like once a fiscal year so you have to a) pay money or b) visit his site and get hit with T-Shirts, The Deck Ads, and "Feed a child in Africa for .59 cents a day" Membership Drives.
Other than that his site is pretty cool, buy stop crying poor bro, we all know you make enough dough. - wheresaldo, on 10/11/2007, -3/+31.5 hours in the phone, no activation yet... their support does not have a clue... called 1866-907-3484, then 1877-419-4500, then 1800 331-0500... no luck... I want my money back... I'm with AT&T already... cannot move my SIM chip from my old phone to the new phone like any other GSM phone... iPhone suck!
- Loyaleagle, on 10/11/2007, -1/+2I would assume they will just get you another one....and the SIM thing is a known issue...
- galore, on 10/11/2007, -3/+7ok, I hate the hype, but having used my iPhone for a few hours now, I've got to say the UI _really_ is in a league of its own. Apple must employ the best SW engineers.
True, it isn't the most functional phone on the market but it absolutely destroys WinMo and Symbian and all the Nucleus and Linux based phones out there with what the phone actually does. A Razr compared to an iPhone is like a stone-age carriage compared to a modern car...- CrazyZ, on 10/11/2007, -2/+1So, send me an mms....
- superkendall, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1You've got Mail!
Which can reach more people than MMS. Wht do you use MMS for apart from sending photos, whcih you can do just as well with email?
MMS is for loosers with phones that cannot properly handle email.
- superkendall, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1You've got Mail!
- dakboy, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2SW engineers tend to suck at UI design. Apple's SW engineers implemented something designed by their excellent UI & HCI interface designers.
- CrazyZ, on 10/11/2007, -2/+1So, send me an mms....
- rediff, on 10/11/2007, -2/+4Except for 1) Mail: "..not being able to select chunk of text .." or "No Clipboard:" 2) Typing ".. frustrated by the keyboard layout..." 3)Wi-Fi: "..Restore feature in iTunes (the thing was only out of the box for 30 minutes) and that fixed it" 4)no file-pickers 5)CRASHES "The iPhone Mail app has crashed for me twice so far" .. everything looks good there!!
- superkendall, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2Way to cherrpick points - you managed with that to bypass things like beiang able to email pages instead of cut&psating them, him liking the keyboard overall, andonly one of the phones needing a restore to work with WiFi (mike works flawlessly as do most others).
- superkendall, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2Way to cherrpick points - you managed with that to bypass things like beiang able to email pages instead of cut&psating them, him liking the keyboard overall, andonly one of the phones needing a restore to work with WiFi (mike works flawlessly as do most others).
- TBolt, on 10/11/2007, -3/+6Interesting review. I figured as much--for business, school and power users who actually need a smartphone instead of an iPod, the iPhone just doesn't compete with the Treo, Blackberry or other devices.
- superkendall, on 10/11/2007, -1/+4The iPhone is for people that Work to Live. The phones you mentioned are for people that Live to Work.
- infobhan, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1You are quite wrong. I'm coming from several generations of Treos (most recent being the Treo 700p). The iPhone is far superior. The large screen makes a huge difference for web browsing. For email, there's not much difference except that it looks a lot nicer on the iPhone.
- brundlefly76, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1If you think the iPhone is suitable for mobile business users you do not travel on business more then once a month, and not far.
No spare battery option, 3G tethered modem support, or one handed operation is not even in the realm of possible.
The Sprint 8830 coming out next month is near perfect.
- brundlefly76, on 10/11/2007, -5/+8He hasn't even had it for 24 hours and it has crashed twice already?
- superkendall, on 10/11/2007, -2/+1No, he said Mail crashed - that's an application, not the phone. Remember this is a real OS running here not a big pile of spagehetti code. And one of the times it crashed, he didn't even notice as it just swutched back to the Desktop.
- DanH, on 10/11/2007, -1/+4it needs an IM client!!!!!!!
- insomniac8400, on 10/11/2007, -3/+3Ok, it has a slick ui, and nothing else special? Why is it 600 bucks?
- dizam, on 10/11/2007, -0/+0The price of something is completely unrelated to the cost or the value... if fan boys are willing to pay $ 600 for the iphone, why will Apple charge less? besides, sometimes the high price tag makes it even more attractive...
- deadbaby, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1Why does it cost $600? It has a huge screen and 8GB of storage.
- superkendall, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1It's worth more than $600. I paid $250 for my RAZR just to have it torture me for years, why would I not be willing to pay twice the price to use something that is actually enjoyable to use?
- nephilonic, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2Gah, I use To-Do's a lot, I really wish the calendar app included these from iCal. I could use the notes app, however it doesn't allow me to sync up to notes on my mac... so I'm up ***** creek without a paddle with this issue.
Theres a few other things that bug me with the iPhone. I'm not going to get one until these sorta things (no file browser, no copy/pasting, no 3g, etc) get fixed/updated.- infobhan, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1I think notes will Sync with Mail's notes in Leopard. My guess is they were planning to release Leopard at the same time, but it got delayed and they were left without a notes app on the computer.
- MikeMacMan, on 10/11/2007, -3/+1I can't believe the iPhone is $20/month for unlimited texting. You're already paying for data connectivity. $20 for texting is too much for me, I thought $10/month was pretty steep.
- UCFmethod, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1Here is something most people on Digg wont understand. If you have fingernails, aka my gf, you will have a real hard time using the keyboard.
- JesseJ, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1A good read! I see the iPhone was rushed out and that deadlines were missed and there hasn't been enough time for testing
They propably will fix in a future update and you need to install itunes to get the update and then you have itunes installed and can start buying stuff from itunes and then your in an infinite apple loop.
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