iPhone 4 – Initial Impressions August 4, 2010
Posted by Vikas Tandon in mobile telephony.Tags: Apple, iPhone, iPhone 4, iPhone 4 review
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Just received my new iPhone 4 yesterday. Cutting to the chase, I had to workhard at not adding a whoop of joy in the title of this post.
First things: I live in Mumbai and pre-ordered a SIM-Free 32GB Black iPhone 4 from London (GBP599 less VAT of GBP60 ~ Rs37500). Just the day after I received it, it was launched in Singapore and Hong Kong at a much more attractive Rs 35,000 or so (SIM-free 32GB).
I can safely say that so far, this is among the best phones I have owned. It carry’s over most some of my known grouses with the iPhonec(written about here and here) – a huge irritant being inability to invite attendees for a meeting or accepting invites, simply because it should be so easy to do – but now that I have accepted them (and some of them have been resolved), this phone is great.
1. Immediately upon holding it, it felt a bit heavier than the 3G, but also much sleeker. It is much more comfortable to hold, since most of the “bulge” of the 3G/S has been cut out. Overall form factor – 4.5/5 (the Nexus 1 did feel better in the hand).
2. Absolutely NO antenna/reception issues – so far!! In spite of simulating death grip etc.
3. The biggest joy factor for me is the speed. This phone is FAST and how – this has been a pet peeve with most smartphones I have used. This feels faster than the Google Nexus 1 too, which I believe had a 1Ghz processor. Even browsing seems faster, which I guess is because my older phone (3G 16GB) was simply not parsing the data fast enough.
4. The display is everything its been made out to be – sharp, crystal clear, and as a result also unforgiving on lower res stuff. Its apleasure just looking at the phone. I usually like to keep brightness low to conserve battery, but it feels like a shame to do that on this phone.
5. Multitasking is great, though yet to fully explore it. Although I sorely miss the ability to customise a double-click on the Home button. I had set it as a short-cut to Search which was really convenient when looking for a contact to send an SMS to or call. Now double-click by default pulls up the open applications task bar so I have to go to home screen and then slide right!!
Also yet to explore Camera (still and video) which I am really looking forward to. Will try and post some pictures/videos.
Verdict: If you were considering the iPhone even ever so slightly, go out and take the plunge. As a friend put it “Its great, don’t believe the negative publicity.”
Update 05 Aug: Made my first Facetime call. Very brief one since the cellular line/network was bad but overall worked just fine and very easy.
1. Make sure Wi-fi is on and connected.
2. Call another iPhone 4 from your iPhone 4 as you normally would. The “calling” screen will show up with all the options – mute, speaker, add call etc. The only difference is, in place of “hold” is an option called “facetime”.
3. Once connected, the Facetime option becomes active (clickable). Click it and your camera turns on, and depending upon who’son the other end, so could you 
. Injoy!!
UPDATE: Day4 and the dreaded yellow spots have appeared on my screen (pretty sure they weren’t there when I got the phone). Its quite severe a yellow band running vertically towards the right of the screen, and another faint one in the center 
. Forums say its a bonding agent and the spots disappear. Fingers crossed else its warranty cashing time.
UPDATE 8th August
Did notice an instance of the antenna problem where 5 bars came down to 3 in death grip. No impact on performance but could be if there were fewer bars to start with. However the problem IS there. Yellow band seems to be getting worse, or maybe I’m just noticing it more!!
iPhone Mania: Let’s call a spade a spade, shall we? September 1, 2008
Posted by Vikas Tandon in Marketing, mobile telephony.Tags: Apple, iPhone, iPhone negative reviews, iPhone reviews
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As always, Apple has succeeded in blinding its consumers sufficiently with its coolness to ensure that all its VERY SIGNIFICANT shortcomings are happily glossed over. I mean, I can’t get over how supposed “expert reviews” tend to very conveniently ignore all these issues and give it a thumbs-up.
Lets face it, the iPhone fails – both, as a Phone, as well as a PDA – when compared to some of its less sexy but far more efficient competitors. Here are some of the features that Apple has happily ignored, when other phones have had them for years – and they’re useful features – not just good-to-have items on the advertising. (Disclaimer: I’m not sure how many of these have been licked in the 3G version, but I’d still fail the iPhone for missing them out in the first place).
- Can’t forward SMSs. Earlier, could not send SMS to multiple recipients (DUH!!!)
- Can’t set an MP3 file as a ringtone!
- Camera is only 2MP – for a gadget that’s sold as a connected multimedia console!!
- Camera cannot shoot videos – please only buy the videos on iTunes – don’t shoot any of your own!!
- When sending an SMS, you HAVE to select a recipient first, and only then compose the message, you cannot do vice-versa.
- Cannot connect to your PC via Bluetooth – what good is 3G if I cannot use my phone as a modem also?
- Apparently, the browser does not support Javascript well enough (Flash is a problem with all mobile browsers anyway).
- Bluetooth Stereo Headset Support – so much for the company that revolutionised the way we listen to music!
- Cannot record audio.
- No voice dialing.
- Another user writes about the sound & signal quality
“iPhone is barely passable as a phone, with an extremely weak speaker, comparatively poor signal clarity, and radio frequency interference so powerful that when I tried to attach an iPod voice recorder, iPhone would not support it but still suggested that I shut down the wireless features (activate Airplane mode) to reduce interference. I can’t overstate the interference issue. I’m wearing a pair of noise-reducing headphones, and whenever iPhone polls for e-mail or checks in with the cell tower, I pick up the buzzing and chirping familiar to BlackBerry users who set their devices down too close to the bedside radio. But iPhone’s interference can be heard through a tuned-in FM radio from a fair distance away. It is loud. Steve Jobs attributed iPhone’s delay to market to FCC testing. I can understand why.”
And I’m not even getting into issues like the virtual keyboard etc, which people might argue is a matter of getting used to. The iPhone is far from a complete package and does not deliver even features now considered standard for a high-end, smartphone.
This is pretty typical of Apple – to ride on the sex appeal at the cost of practicality and value. They did it with the iPod – preventing replaceable batteries, not allowing WMA files to play, not providing FM/sound recording etc. I’ve already written a fair bit about the Mac in an earlier post.
The Red Cloud Research blog puts it well – “Apple products are never designed for practical business use; Apple’s target market is the fans and status freaks that I mentioned before. Apple is always about products that look funky but cost more and provide less functionality that similar products by other companies.”
Here’s another interesting look at Apple’s approach, where David Zeiler writes about how people keep buying Apple products despite obvious shortcomings.
I am as much a fan of Apple’s design as the next guy, and am even willing to compromise a bit on function over form, but not when it borders on downright and brazen cheating.
Vodafone Network Woes February 8, 2008
Posted by Vikas Tandon in India, Life, mobile telephony.Tags: 3g India, Hutch, Orange, Vodafone India, Vodafone Mumbai
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Is there no respite whatsover from the call drops and other network issues mobile subscribers in Mumbai have to endure everyday? We may boast the fastest growing mobile subscriber base in the world, but I can bet we probably have the worst network in the world too.
I have been a Vodafone subscriber since around 1997 (from Max Touch days) and in the last 3-4 years, I don’t think I have made a single call over 2 minutes without the call dropping at least once. This is if you get through in the first place. Often, when making a call, you either get a network busy message, or it takes bloody long to connect.
I have observed that the following are particularly bad blind spots in Mumbai and my calls in this area ALWAYS drop:
- Marine Drive (particularly near the flyover)
- Peddar Road (near Villa Theresa school)
- Tulsi Pipe Road (on both new flyovers)
And this is across different mobile phones (so it isn’t my phone). I had made a complaint to Hutch in 2005 but nothing happened.
Mr. Sarin, forget ringtones, alerts, 1Re calls, or even 3G. Can we PLEASE make a simple voice call like we are used to with good old MTNL since 1970s – without calls dropping?
Switching to a Mac January 20, 2008
Posted by Vikas Tandon in Gadgets & Tech, Life, mobile telephony.Tags: Apple MacBook, Windows
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My first ever new year resolution was to start taking Guitar/Singing lessons and commence Yoga. Almost at the end of Jan and I haven’t really made much progress on either. However, fair amount of effort has been put into a completely unplanned (and indulgent) exercise – figuring out how I can switch to a Mac and what kind of potential issues I could face. As some of those who know me would vouch, dealing with these kind of tech and gadget challenges is quite a high for me.
Anyway, to start with, Why switch to a Mac? you might ask. Well, simple answer, sex appeal. God (and wife) knows I need some.
So have spent some time on Google and its results, chewing the brains of mac dealers in Mumbai, experimenting with a borrowed ibook etc. And I have to say, its really not as easy as Apple makes it sound.
My impression so far is while you can pretty much do everything on a Mac that you can on Windows, you can only do so at the basic level. If you are an advanced user, and use some of the less common features and services of Windows and its software, its difficult to let go. Compatability is not that much of an issue, you just have to work harder and may have to opt for workarounds. Some of my key obstacles:
1. I work in an office which runs a Windows network with Active Directory and the Mac needs to join the domain, access its services, etc. While joining a Windows is no longer an issue, will I be able to access services like firewalls, proxies, play administrator, and manage things like security permissions etc from my client?
2. I use Outlook 2003. While Entourage provides all the basic functionality of Outlook, at first glance it does not seem to be as full featured as Outlook – the address card does not seem to hold as many fields, not sure how easy it is to create a distribution list, manage multiple email accounts and sending mails with chosen account etc.
3. One of the biggest issues is likely to be 3rd party applications – like sync for my Sony Ericsson with Outlook. Again, iSync etc will allow basic syncing of contacts, calendars and mails, how accurate and reliable will the syncing be – will it sync all fields, alarms, categories, notes etc? What about using my phone as a modem via Bluetooth?
4. And then of course there are the little utilities that are available for windows like password managers that sync with my phone – not sure how easily I will get that for a Mac.
All in all, I guess my problem is that I’m just too comfortable with Windows. Its like a marriage – you know there are problems, and the other women really looks appealing, but you’re just too cosy in the current familiarity.
And the final obstacle – for all the praise that Mac gets for being far easier to use than windows, I still haven’t found that one single feature about the Mac yet that makes a really strong argument to support that claim. But I’m still waiting and haven’t given up yet…
Matrix International Mobile Cards SUCK! July 26, 2007
Posted by Vikas Tandon in India, Life, Marketing, mobile telephony, telecom.add a comment
Word of advice, DO NOT opt for these Matrix (www.matrix.in) international sim cards when travelling. On two occasions, we have been gyped in the billing. They charge you for calls you never made and services you never availed yourself of. And since you have to authorise auto-debit on your CC, by the time you find out its too late. Both me (in 2006) and my wife (2007) have had similar problems. And they are completely unresponsive. There is no one responsible who can take a decision and sort matters out. The ground staff simply doesn’t care.
