Zit Seng's Superwall » iPhone

The iPhone 4S

Zit Seng — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 04:00:42 +0000

I was going to write something to diss the new iPhone 4S. But the legendary visionary behind the iPhone passed on, and I think we should take the moment, instead, to pay tribute to the man who has changed the face of computing, mobile communications, and media consumption in many ways. So this post got left in draft for a couple of days.

But hey, life has to move on, and so many people have written about Steve’s passing, that I think there’s little need for me to say more. So it’s back to writing about the iPhone 4S, and I’m resurrecting this post.

The iPhone 4S, surprisingly, is remarkably unexciting. I think that pretty sums up just about every review that has been posted, unless the writer has been totally brainwashed by Apple. I like Erin Burnett’s story on CNN “Seriously?! The iPhone 4S“. For some inane reason, people are buying the iPhone 4S without knowing what’s in it. They just want an iPhone.

Apple says they received 1 million pre-orders on launch day. AT&T alone saw 200K sign-ups in the first 12 hours they opened to take pre-orders. This is simply record breaking. You would have expected the iPhone 4S to be superbly amazing given the staggering pre-orders.

But, the iPhone 4S simply falls short. First of all, it looks exactly the same as the iPhone 4. I know, why change the design if it has proven to work. But it’s a new phone, it needs to look different. At least I thought so. Make it a different colour, at the very least, if you can’t make it look different in form factor. There are plenty more colours between black and white. Why would anyone want to buy last year’s iPhone? Apparently 1 million people don’t agree with me.

If looking new is not important, then how about new features? Oh well, I think about the only new thing, hardware-wise, is the 8 megapixel camera. I actually mind the camera in my phone a lot, so an upgrade to 8 megapixel resolution, together with promised better optics and improved sensor, does interest me quite a bit. No, I’m not planning to buy an iPhone 4S, but I wished other manufacturers would take camera quality more seriously in the phones they produce.

(Ok for the techies out there: I know there is also the new A5 CPU. But an ordinary user wouldn’t care about that, and personally, I thought the A4 was plenty good enough for the iPhone. Yes, yes, I know it never hurts to have something even faster.)

This leads me to think, either:

Innovation, at least in the iPhone department, is drying up.
Apple has overproduced iPhone 4 parts and is trying to dry up their inventory before the next launch.

Back to the topic of needing a new look. It’s not difficult to come up with a new look. If Apple has trouble innovating the next killer phone design, why not get those rumour-making folks who created all the iPhone 5 impressions to help out? Some of them do look reasonably decent.

Erin Burnett said the S in iPhone 4S stands for “Seriously?!”, and I’ll add on another: “Same”. It’s the iPhone 4Same. It wouldn’t sell if Apple had called it iPhone 4.01. (Oh wait, maybe it would still sell out just the same…)

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The Difference Between iPhone and Android

Zit Seng — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 05:17:38 +0000

I was recently asked a simple question, but it turned out to be awfully difficult to answer: “What is the difference between iPhone and Android?” It was asked, quite obviously, by a lay person. First of all, the question is wrong. The iPhone is a specific type of phone, whereas Android refers to the software that runs on a variety of phones. The correct comparison would be between iOS and Android. It’s precisely because a lay person asked the question that makes answering it rather complicated.

I could start off by trying to clarify the terminology, but I’m sure that person couldn’t care less about it. To lay people, the iPhone is one type of phone, and Android is that other type of phone. So, I thought for a few moments about how I would structure my explanation about the difference between the iPhone and Android powered smartphones, in a manner that a lay person would understand and appreciate. Then I realized, it is not so much the technology under the phones that matter, but the lifestyle and ecosystem that surrounds the phones. That’s what matters, probably, for ordinary people.

You see, not everyone are techies. They don’t buy phones because of the operating system that powers them, the availability of source code to the operating system that powers them, etc. They buy phones because the phones look nice, because someone (or just about everyone) has the same thing, because of that killer application that someone else has on that phone, etc.

Furthermore, the truth is that nowadays, people are buying Android phones not because of Android, but simply because some of the Android phones really do look pretty good. Some users are techie enough, for example, to care about hardware features like resolution of the camera, are also finding that Android phones are equal match or sometimes even better than iPhones. The Android in Android phones isn’t something that many users of Android phones actually care about.

So, now, back to the original question, how are Android phones different from iPhones? I think, it is about the experience. With iPhones, the entire experience has been carefully engineered and controlled by Apple.

You can always easily tell that an iPhone is an iPhone, not just because of the physical aspects of the device, but also by the look and behaviour of its software. The experience extends to how the phone interacts with a Mac or PC (via iTunes, although Apple is removing that dependency), and that experience also extends to the App Store and how you acquire 3rd party applications to install onto the iPhone. I’m assuming no jailbreaking here (remember, I’m talking about lay people, they don’t jailbreak phones). Apple’s quality control, or basically, just overall control, over 3rd party applications determine what gets distributed through its App Store.

The Android world, as you might have heard, is fraught with fragmentation. There are so many manufacturers selling Android phones. No doubt all of them run Android, which you might have expected it to unify the experience of the phones, but each manufacturer wants to differentiate their product and hence, try to sell their own experience. An experienced Android user has the option of dumping the manufacturer’s software and replace it with a purer Android experience, but ordinary users won’t do that, and they will go along with whatever the manufacturer provides.

Just take for example, Samsung’s various “Hubs”. The Social Hub includes instant messaging (Gtalk, Yahoo Messenger, and Windows Live Messenger) and social networking (Facebook and Twitter) integration. Yeah, nevermind that the pure Android already has Gtalk, and there is a Facebook for Android app, but this is Samsung’s way of selling their exclusive experience.

But guess what? Sony Ericsson has Timescape. Motorola has MotoBlur. HTC’s Sense isn’t quite competing on the same front, but it is something of their own that they try to sell too. I don’t know how each one of them compares with each other. However, one thing is pretty clear: While Android as a whole may be selling as well as Apple is, each of the manufacturer’s brand of Android hasn’t achieve the same level of market dominance.

This can be a good thing too. It means customers have more choice. In fact, even if customers have already been sold on to a particular phone manufacturer’s brand of Android, they still have plenty of choices for the Android phone.

It is not such a good thing if you consider that ordinary users have complicated choices to make. Furthermore, it also means users can now compare and realize how one brand of Android could be better or worse in some ways or other ways. Users are presented with difficult choices, and no one likes dilemmas, so this might lead to complaints about the platform.

It’s different in the world of iPhones. Steve Jobs decrees (or at least he used to) how things are supposed to work. Users don’t have to think. There is nothing to choose. Just listen and follow. This is not necessarily a bad thing. Some people don’t need to have choices. Their choice is to not have to choose. They want something that just works. If it doesn’t work, they want help readily available. If they’re told that the thing they’re asking about isn’t supposed to work, they’ll be happy to accept that as a limitation and consequence of the choice they made. The iPhone is for them. (Remember, I’m talking about ordinary phone users, people who don’t jailbreak.)

Android phones, on the other hand, offers choice. But exercising their choice could mean more work for users. They could certainly end up being very happy with their phones too.

So, that’s how iPhones are different from Android phones.

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The Galaxy Tab Better Than iPhone 4?

Zit Seng — Sat, 27 Nov 2010 11:23:30 +0000

I’m often amused overhearing conversations between sales people and potential customers. Especially when it comes to selling IT or other tech products. So I eavesdropping at this SingTel dealer this afternoon. There was a Samsung Galaxy Tab demo unit on display (the reason I took notice and stopped by). A middle-aged lady customer was showing an interest in that Galaxy Tab, and the salesgirl was trying to answer her questions.

So is this like the iPad? Oh yes, the salesgirl said. Okay, I suppose that is a good-enough simple answer for the average consumer. No need to go into the details about how it is so different.

The salesgirl explained some key features of the Galaxy Tab. That you can surf the web, read email, play games, etc. Including make phone calls with a headset. Oh, lady customer asked if the headset was included? Yup.

Other questions: Is it Apple? No. It’s made by Samsung, not the same as Apple.

Oh, is it Windows 7? No, it’s Android. (The salesgirl sounded a bit hesitant, like she didn’t really know what she was talking about anyway.)

So the lady customer tried to summarize… “So it can do everything that the iPhone 4 can do”? Salesgirl said yes. She’s sold. She turned to the guy accompanying her (hubby probably…) and declared she wanted the Galaxy Tab.

I wonder why she didn’t just get an iPhone 4 if that’s what she wanted.

I had a brief opportunity to play with the Galaxy Tab. It’s light. Much lighter than the iPad. It’s also very easy to hold in one hand. Your fingers can easily stretch across the width (portrait orientation of course) of the tablet. I think in these aspects, the Galaxy Tab wins the iPad.

The Galaxy Tab’s screen was big enough to be comfortable to surf the web with. But, well, it could do better if it had been bigger. I don’t know if this is because I’ve gotten used to the iPad’s size. I suppose, one has to actually use the device for a reasonable period of time to say if 7″ will work.

But, the UI was not smooth. In fact, it was stuttering. I wonder why. It’s actually worse than my own Nexus One. Maybe someone had messed up the software or configuration in that demo unit.

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Are iPhones More Defective?

Zit Seng — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 05:38:34 +0000

I was at M1 Shop yesterday, and noted at the service/repair counter, all the four customers being attended to at that time were all having problems with their iPhones. That included me (the wife’s iPhone was also having a hardware problem). I wasn’t quite monitoring the counter all the while, but I did notice other iPhones being attended to before our turn.

So I’m just wondering, did M1 sell an overwhelming number of iPhones than any other brand of phones all put together (and hence explaining the sheer number of iPhone problems encountered), or, is the iPhone more prone to problems than any other brand of phones?

A quick Google search does reveal that, at least elsewhere in the world, Blackberries fare a whole lot worse than iPhones. An interesting study by SquareTrade did find that the iPhone 4 to be most reliable (i.e. free from manufacturing defects), but at the same time, also the most prone to accidental damage.

I wonder if all the iPhones being seen at the M1 counter were accidentally damaged. Ours wasn’t. But I eavesdropped on the case next to us, and heard that iPhone had apparently suffered water damage… as told by the Water Contact Indicator hidden inside the headphone connector and dock connector.

It seems water damage must be so common that M1 had pasted several copies of a notice (photo above) about water damage, and lack of warranty thereof, all over their counter. I think, Apple is probably the only manufacturer that puts water contact indicators in their products. Seems like a very quick way to decline warranty cover.

But about the water damaged iPhone case above: After a long story about how water damage is not covered by warranty, and how much it will cost to repair/replace, in the end M1 still swapped the phone for free. Googling around, it seems that Apple often still does offer free replacement of iPhones with tripped Water Contact Indicators.

Nice. Except that it was a 2 hour wait to be served.

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Android Outnumbers iPhone

Zit Seng — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 07:11:51 +0000

I was running a network workshop yesterday. During the break, I spotted someone with a HTC Desire phone. So, I thought to conduct an impromptu poll of Android and iPhone users. There were, surprisingly, 3 HTC Desire users, as well as 2 HTC Magics, and 1 Nexus One (me). Even more surprisingly, there was just 1 lone iPhone user. So it seems, Android outnumbered iPhone by a 6:1 ratio. How interesting.

Notice, also, that all the Android phones where made by HTC (Google’s Nexus One is made by HTC, in case you did’t know).

There were just, maybe, about 16 people at that point in the poll. The sample size, of course, is just so small to make any meaningful extrapolation on broader Android vs iPhone adoption. But it was, nevertheless, an interesting find. Perhaps it’s got to do with the kind of people who would come to a networking workshop. But, this is a computer networking workshop… it’s not an Android workshop, so it’s not as if it is no-wonder that there should be more Android users in there.

It’s refreshing to see these Android numbers. I’ve been quite surprised at the overwhelming adoption rates of iPhones in Singapore. I imagine it’s even more than in the U.S. It’s almost like, in Singapore, if its not an iPhone, then it’s not a phone. Everywhere I go, most people seem to be holding on to an iPhone.

This comes at a time when Apple and Google just had some exchanges over the activation rates for their respective platforms. Steve Jobs had announce during their 1 September media event that they were activating 230K iOS devices every day. Notice that iOS devices also includes iPod Touches. Jobs had suggested then that Google’s previous announcement of 200K Android activations per day probably included “upgrades” (i.e. reactivations after software upgrades), but this was quickly shot down by Google that the numbers did not include upgrades.

So there is much speculation that Android could already have overtaken iPhone numbers. Google’s announcement of 200K per day activations was on 4 August. By the time of Job’s announcement on 1 September, this number would have risen. After all, several flagship Android phones were launched in the U.S. since… Samsung Galaxy S, Motorola Droid 2. (See: ComputerWorld blog post)

So it seems that Android does have a fighting chance to overtake iPhone’s lead. It should be interesting to see what happens when that happens.

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iPhone 4 Recall ‘Inevitable’

Zit Seng — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 00:52:03 +0000

So say crisis communication experts, Professor Matthew Seeger and Chris Lehane, quoted by mainstream Consumer Reports. The widespread complaints about the iPhone 4 antenna problems were confirmed in a lab experiment by Consumer Report, leading to their recommendation against the iPhone 4.

The lab experiment, which involved connecting several iPhone 4 to simulated cell towers in a radio frequency isolation chamber, showed that signal levels fell as much as 20dB when the lower left corner of the phone was covered.

We’ve read and heard so many reports about various tests and experiments to “confirm” the antenna problem. But this is by far the most scientific test (at least it looks like) to date. Furthermore, for a mainstream media to boldly not recommend the iPhone 4, that’s something pretty startling. (I mean, after all, Consumer Report risks incurring the divine wrath of Apple Inc…)

Consumer Report found that taping the antenna gap in the lower left corner with “thick, non-conductive material” helped alleviate the problem. A duct tape would work, although it would certainly make the iPhone 4 pretty ugly. Or, you could put the phone in a protective casing, which Apple recommends. Or just hold the phone differently, as Steve Jobs recommends.

Practically every product that Apple has launched has faced some sort of “big problem” that fuels bigger problems like class action suits. This seems like one of the biggest challenge yet. It seems like a pretty fatal mistake if the signal problems are truly due to a design issue. I can’t wait to see how Apple responds to this, and of course, whether there would be an iPhone 4 recall.

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Of iPhone 4, Signal Problems and Multitasking

Zit Seng — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 06:59:48 +0000

I just made a discovery, or perhaps shall I say, saw a relationship between the iPhone 4 signal loss problems, the way the phone is held, and multitasking. You’ve probably read about how the iPhone 4 encounters some problems with its cellular signal strength when held in a certain way. Steve Jobs answer was to simply not hold it that way. It seems that the iPhone 4 works better if held in the right hand. Well, I started to think about how I held my hand phone. Hmm. I use my left hand.

So the iPhone users around me will say, since I’m right-handed, why am I not using my right hand? Interesting question. I suppose, holding a phone doesn’t take a lot of strength, nor dexterity. It seems like a secondary activity that can be delegated to the non-master hand, so that my master hand is free to do other things. Like taking notes while answering a call. Type on a keyboard. Open a door. Eat. Hmm, and operate a certain type of heavy mobile machinery while traveling on the road. These other activities are best done with my right hand.

If the iPhone 4 had to be held with the right hand, it seems somewhat inconvenient to carry out other tasks simultaneously.

Then, I saw the connection. The iPhone doesn’t multitask. Neither, probably, do their users. I can just imagine, if an iPhone user were on the phone (held the right way, of course) walking down toward a door, they would hang up the call, return the iPhone to the owner’s pocket (or wherever), then open the door (the right way too) and walk through it. After that, the call can be resumed. Too difficult? Well, basically you should just sit still when making a call. Try not to do any other thing at the same time.

Sounds really silly?

That’s why iOS 4 now has to support multitasking.

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iPhone 4G for $5000

Zit Seng — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 09:37:59 +0000

iPad fever is passing, it’s now back to iPhone 4G. Guess what? The next generation iPhone 4G was “discovered”, then bought by Gizmodo’s parent company , Gawker Media, for $5000. It’s an expensive iPhone, but perhaps not that much considering the “news” value of this unannounced product.

The new iPhone 4G looks to have a camera flash, a bigger lens for the back camera (and hence perhaps a higher resolution camera), a front-facing camera, and a higher resolution screen.

The biggest visual difference with the new iPhone has to be the general form of the device, which has been tweaked somewhat. It has sharper edges now, somewhat similar to the look of the iPad. The back is no longer curved, but is now flat and seems to be glass or ceramic. I think it looks pretty nice, except that there are too many details on the side that makes the device look rather ‘inelegant’, quite unlike the clean look I’ve come to expect from Apple. Maybe this is just the prototype, and it will get cleaned up in the final product.

The new iPhone uses micro-SIM. It’s a bit of a problem, since we don’t use such SIMs in Singapore, at least not yet. I suppose when the 4G does sell in Singapore, the telcos here have to start switching to micro-SIMs.

In the past, we would be somewhat dubious about the reliability of such pre-announcement leaks. But in this instance, Apple has apparently demanded the return of this device. So we can be quite certain that this is at least some sort of prototype for the next generation iPhone.

I’m still not much of an iPhone fan though.

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Can I Suan the iPhone Again?

Zit Seng — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 07:01:20 +0000

Steve Jobs just shared with the world what is coming with the latest iPhone OS version 4.0. In a media presentation lasting about 1 hour, a couple of the simply amazing features were demonstrated by Steve Jobs, Phil Schiller and Scott Forstall. Really amazing features like, ahem, being able to set a wallpaper for your home screen. Yes, for the first time ever, iPhone users will soon be able to customize the background of their home screen. I’m sure they will spend countless hours deciding which denim texture to adorn their iPhone screen with. Steve Jobs took no less than 90 seconds to show how wallpapers are selected in his demonstration.

It just simply amazes me how such yester-year’s features can be passed off as “new” and still inspire so much excitement. Wallpaper. Can you imagine that, wallpaper being a new feature? Not now, but soon?

What else is new? Folders. Folders so you can organize your apps. So instead of organizing your 180 apps into a bunch of screens, you could now have 2000 apps in screens and folders. Wah.

Then, finally, the iPhone will multitask. Yeah, finally. But wait a minute. It’s not quite what you’d think multitasking is. What happens is that the iPhone OS will expose a set of services to perform background operations. It’s still not as if the apps can do any arbitrary thing they like in the background. It sounds like an evolution of the Apple Push Notification that was released last year. In fact, it really seems like that, because now there is local notifications… which doesn’t need a central Apple server to push notifications to the phone.

The one thing that looked interesting to me is iAds. It’s not what ‘d consider revolutionary. But it is an improvement in how mobile advertising can work within mobile applications. There’s no Flash involved but just plain HTML5, a point Steve Jobs stressed a couple of times, and it is quite impressive what HTML5 is capable of delivering. You should zoom in to this part of Steve Jobs’s presentation.

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M1 vs StarHub iPhone Competition

Zit Seng — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 12:37:19 +0000

M1 and StarHub have officially announced the launch of the iPhone 3G and iPhone 3G S. Sales will commence on Wednesday 9 December 2009. The prices of the phones as well as the specially priced phone subscription plans have also been announced. Prices are remarkably different from those of SingTel. There is also some differentiation between M1 and StarHub.

The iPhone 3G S 32GB will cost between $0 and $658 at M1, and between $0 and $668. The contract subscription plans range from $198 to $36 for M1, and $205 to $38 for StarHub. It looks like M1 edges out slightly. At the lowest price plan, M1 offers 10GB data, while StarHub offers only 1GB data.

Notably, the lowest price plan from M1 is itself quite attractive. There is no where you could get anything like it from other telcos, or even M1 themselves without also getting an iPhone to go along. It’s almost like the iPhone purchase would be subsidizing the subscription plan.

It looks like M1 is a winner with the latest iPhone offers.

I wonder if SingTel would be making adjustments to their prices. Anyone who would want to get an iPhone with SingTel would already have done so, so there might not be much incentive for SingTel to reduce their prices, except perhaps, to curb the success of M1′s and StarHub’s iPhone sales.

For consumers, it will be nice if all telcos make adjustments to their usual subscription. All of them make special voice+data bundles for iPhone. There is no reason to exclude other smartphone users from getting onto the same voice+data bundles.

Update (8 Dec 2009): It seems that SingTel has announced that they will also be revising their iFlexi plans.

Update (8 Dec 2009): It seems StarHub wants to do better. They’ve upgraded the 1GB bundled data in their lower priced plans to 12GB of bundled data, beating M1′s 10GB data bundle. Good competition. Let’s hope it spills over to non-iPhone plans too. I’m not going to keep updating this blog post about the latest developments…

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