IPhone 2.0: The glory wore off in wash

http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/1148-iphone-20-the-glory-wore-off-in-wash

by swombat • 18 years ago

37 35 18 years ago

37signals.com

davidw• 18 years ago

What would a 'getting real' phone look like?

pchristensen• 18 years ago

http://www.jitterbug.com/Phones.aspx

mechanical_fish2• 18 years ago

Thank you for this link. I have a relative who is partially blind and I've been planning to look for a phone just like this.

delano• 18 years ago

Whoa, what's the deal with the 911 emergency button on the OneTouch?

dmv• 18 years ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_FONE_F3

allenbrunson• 18 years ago

i agree that the ui in the 2.0 firmware has gotten slower. it occasionally screeches to an abrupt halt that lasts for up to ten seconds.

i'm still on the old original 2g iphone, so i have to assume it's the software, not the hardware.

danw• 18 years ago

I've been having the same troubles on my iPod touch running 1.1 firmware. I assumed all iPhones were like this but perhaps not.

axod• 18 years ago

No such issues here yet, I'd suggest taking the phone for a checkup.

mechanical_fish2• 18 years ago

I have the 2.0 software running on a used iPhone 2G and it just hasn't been this bad. The web browser crashes a fair bit, which isn't good, but it restarts right away. I get occasional runaway keyclicks when I type, which I can't explain. (Might be "user error"? Curse my big fingers!) The rest of the apps have been okay. A visit to tech support may be in order.

Of course, not having used the 1.0 software, I have no standard for comparison. Too bad that you apparently can't downgrade and wait for the bug-fix releases.

I've only got two or three third-party apps installed as of yet. So I note that DHH doesn't mention having tried an obvious step: Deinstall all third-party apps and stick with the Apple ones, which are more likely to have been thoroughly tested than random combinations of third-party apps that were released less than a month ago.

j2d23• 18 years ago

Wow... This sums up my experience too. Everyone is touting the iPhone as the next app device, and that might be true, but it's got a ways to go. The UI is so slow and unstable that it's breaking my "I can tolerate a computer crashing, but never a phone" personal rule.

thorax• 18 years ago

Using apps or normal function?

If I don't (ever) use any 3rd party apps, the phone seems about the same as before. After I play some games, I tend to power off and power back on to get it back into good shape.

Hopefully they'll get this sorted soon.

j2d23• 18 years ago

For me, it's just normal use... I had the last.fm app for a few days but removed it after I realized it was making iTunes freeze.

I agree with 37signals that it is the best phone I've had. It used to be better.

jedc• 18 years ago

Agreed. It's nothing a solid 2.0.1 release can't fix, but they need to push it out ASAP.

Between the buggy 2.0 software and the nightmare that was the signup process, Apple wasn't totally on its game this time around.

rufo2• 18 years ago

iPhone OS 1.x wasn't anything like this - even with me jailbreaking it and throwing all kinds of bizarre apps onto it.

I played with it enough that I did get the occasional reboot, but maybe once a week. In the 10 days I've had the iPhone 3G it's rebooted on me at least three times, I've had app store apps crash at least a dozen times, and had countless weird 5-10sec freezes.

Really hoping 2.0.1 fixes a bunch of these problems...

elai• 18 years ago

I'm betting it's all the application DRM & restriction enforcement that is causing the majority of these bugs.

cstejerean2• 18 years ago

Interesting. My original iPhone became very unstable after being jailbroken. So far I haven't had any problems with the iPhone 3G.

zandorg• 18 years ago

Symbian = Wheel 1.0

cjc2• 18 years ago

how fitting - safari crashed while reading this article on my 3g iPhone. In addition to all those complaints, GPS and other location based functionality have been down for 3 days in NYC. Anyone else seeing this?

rufo2• 18 years ago

Did you try rebooting? (turn on phone, hold down lock button until "slide to power off" appears, then press lock buton to turn on)

Location dies fairly often for me, and I have to reboot to get it back (fairly often being once every 24-48hrs).

pavelludiq• 18 years ago

rebooting? that reminds me of one of those apple commercials with that trendy kid and that dorky guy in a suit.

cjc2• 18 years ago

Thanks. Worked like a charm (as charming as rebooting my phone can be)

chedigitz• 18 years ago

I had to reboot my 1.0 once week to maintain browsing stability. Now that I have the 3G I still maintain the same rebooting technique. Only difference I've noticed, is the texting delays.

However, the apps, in my opinion, make up for all the bugs. ;)

hypermatt• 18 years ago

I'm in NYC and its been working fine, those are functions of the phone

agotterer2• 18 years ago

I'm in the same boat as you. The New York service is terrible. I disable 3G just so I can make phone calls. The majority of the time it get little to no reception for me, even in an open area. I would rather use the slightly slower edge network and enjoy battery life and reception. I remember why I switched to Verizon 4 or 5 years back now.

GPS drops out nearly as frequently as my service. God forbid you go to a populous area. I was at shea stadium last week for a concert. Didnt have reception the entire show. Could couldnt make calls, send texts or use the internet. I also found the phone trying so hard to keep up a connection that my battery went from 80% to completely dead in 4 hrs. I'm confident apple will get the dodgy software bugs fixed in the next few months. As for AT&T... I'm not expecting much from them anytime soon.

Prrometheus• 18 years ago

I'm quite happy with mine, maybe because I never had an iphone 1.0.

isaacewing• 18 years ago

I've been debating back and forth about the iPhone being worth the '1/2 the price, 2x the speed' and everything I read justifies the complaints in this article. Having installable apps is a good thing, not having the iPhone "3G" function work only 20% of the time or sporadically malfunction more than 75% of the time is not good... regardless of the great new features implemented in the latest version.

mixmax• 18 years ago

The lesson: Focus on the details - you usually can't do anything about the big picture anyway.

tx• 18 years ago

I’ve installed but not actually used ... Yelp, Movies.app, Facebook, PayPal, NYTimes...

What?! Those are apps? That's nice, I want off-browser applications for my favorite sites too, on a regular PC desktop: without annoying login screens, without endless "please waits", without ads (yes, I'll pay for it), with look and feel (especially fonts) consistent with the rest of the system.

I want my stuff to get off the browser, anyone here cares to submit a YC application?

mosburger• 18 years ago

Have you tried Prism? http://wiki.mozilla.org/Prism I haven't, so I can't tell you that it'll do what you need, but it sounds like the right idea.

agotterer2• 18 years ago

I have. It's more of less a minimalistic firefox browser that you can run in its own instance from the desktop. I will call it super bookmarking. But this doesn't solve the problem the poster is writing about. You still have to login to sites and deal with visual inconsistencies. What I think he wants is the equivalent of iPhone apps, where you pay or download for free, that have a consistent UI and are built to be simple, familiar and to the point.

The iPhone apps I have played with up to this point have done exactly that. No nagging for logins or registration. If you had to do it once, that was it and you never hear about it again. They get you right to what you are looking for and its familiar.

teamonkey• 18 years ago

I was getting responsiveness problems on my 8G iPhone 3G (apps taking a few seconds to launch, UI stutters etc.). It turns out it wasn't using the latest firmware. I bet DHH isn't either.

If you've got a 3G iPhone, go to Settings->General->About and see that you're using 5A347. If you've got 5A345, that's the old, stuttery firmware and you should back up your phone and do a restore (power off, hold the home key when you connect to your computer, iTunes will prompt to download the new firmware).

Usual disclaimers apply. :)

IPhone 2.0: The glory wore off in wash

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