Pic courtesy of AP/Paul Sakuma
Good Morning Dragons. My name is Steve and I'd like to talk to you today about iPhone. iPhone is the mobile telephone that represents a revolution in the world of personal communication. On iPhone you can talk, text, surf, and do other cool stuff - as long as iPhone is plugged in to your computer or into a power supply for at least, well, three hours a day. If not, then fuggeddabahtit. Any questions?
OK, OK - I'm as big a fan of the Apple Corporation as any and apart from the requisite black polo shirt, jeans and sneakers, my house is a shrine to the genius of Mr Jobs and Mr Ive with sundry iMacs, eMacs, iPods, etc coming outta mah OS X-compatible ears. But as the 1st birthday of the iPhone approaches, I've got to say that the murmurs I've heard in the iCommunity about the opening year with the finger-friendly device aren't fantastically good. My own model now struggles to go for more than a day without a recharge and that's with the implementation of energy-saving measures that would make a Green Party activist green with envy. Thus, my screen brightness is set very low and I shield the light detector when I switch on. I routinely disable the Wi-Fi function, rarely use stuff like Bluetooth and even set the e-mail autocheck to manual. All, sadly, to no avail. Before you can say Anne Robinson, the battery icon is running down and we are close to melt-down. That's even the case after a very light morning of usage (e.g. a quick check on my Lehman Bros share-price and an emergency call to my broker). But it's First Generation, you might say, and this problem has been specifically addressed by Apple on the 3G model, hasn't it? Er no it hasn't. Despite all the puff about a new design and an extra hump to accommodate a super-duper new power source, Friends-In-The-Know tell me that their newer versions suffer from similar battery issues. And that's not to mention other concerns with things like coverage. So it's back to the battery-powered future with our friends in Cupertino. Like most of the Apple offer, when it's good, it's really good. But when the iPhone struggles for life like a well-designed victim of the Energy Gap and needs constant recharging - well, for that reason and for that reason alone my fellow Dragons, I'm out.
Liam Harvey Oswald
