everyone will have their tastes and preferences, but from my day and a half of using the iPhone for kicks, I kept having to pick up my Mogul to get through my day. The Mogul is usefull to me, and the iPhone is a piece of trash for my lifestyle. I guess someone that doesn't need a phone for easily scheduling to-do's, appointments, attaching pdf and word docs to emails on the go, quickly writing an email (w/ the stylus or with out) and many other things that I do day in day out, then yeah the iPhone may have a more useful position in life than a paperweight for me. I just don't see the point to the iPhone other than it being a toy.

**granted, it's not made for someone like me who needs something useful for business purposes. If the iPhone get to the point where I could easily modify excel spredsheet and import the data into word and then email it out easily, then perhaps I'll take another look. but till then, I'm done w/ this thread.

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iPhone 3G (sorry Sprint, I have been to the mountain top!) <-- Sprint Mogul PPC 6800 (not enough memory) <-- PPC 6700 (loaner from sprint) <-- PPC 6600 (no EVDO) <-- G1000 (no SMS) Cardo Scala-500 BT
I'm rockin Verizon Fios baby! 20Mbs is dumb fast! http://www.speedtest.net/result/295783856.png

Ahhh, for business purposes... that's different. I forgot that the Mogul is a full-blown laptop for the nearsighted. <\sarcasm>

Seriously, for power users, I can certainly see why they want a Windows Mobile device. Even if they have to put up with its quirks and resets. It provides all of the functions and power that they need. I have used many PPCs and Palm devices in my 10 years as an IT Research and Engineering director. The iPhone is simply the most stable device that meets my basic needs (phone, messaging, email.) Is it perfect? Nope. But neither is it a "piece of trash" or "a toy."

To each their own.... and I wasn't expecting to convert anyone, just trying to keep an open mind.

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John

PDAPhoneHome Forum Moderator

Just to clarify I am NOT an iPhone hater. I believe it is an absolutely beautiful piece of hardware with a killer interface. I fully believe it is a revolutionary device that will positively shake up and change the industry just like the ipod did. Super kudos to Apple for once again raising the bar for LAZY companies like Microsoft.

What I have tried to accomplish is point out the reason why I personally, in business and pleasure, cannot find enough functionality in the iPhone. At least no more functionality than an ipod with wifi. That is to say that the iPhone while not for me, is definitely good for most people out there. Especially if they dont want to deal with the MAJOR inadequacies in windows mobile thanks to a very lazy company that does not listen to its client base.

Give the iPhone a better earpiece/speaker, put it on CDMA to address call quality issues, give it 3g for gods sake thats just the blunder of the century, give it a legitimate text entry method like the Newton had, allow 3rd party developers to develop SIGNED applications and of course let Apple take its piece of the pie. If these were true I will be the first to admit I would purchase the iPhone over the Mogul. But they are not true, and as much as the l33t hakors out there will hack into the iPhone it will never have the functionality of a WM device in its current iteration. Fix up the major blunders in the iPhone though and I might be tempted to give up the WM features.

I went in to an Apple store today, so that those people saying "Give it a try before you bash it" can be assuaged. I really don't see what the hype is about. Is the screen great? Absolutely. Best mobile device screen I've seen, period. But that's about where it ends for me.

The "slickness" factor is all about UI effects. Honestly, if windows didn't zoom in or out, or swipe or swish or sway or mosey, or whatever it is they do, you'd have about the same UI magic as WM5/6.

The keypad is nothing short of awful. It is by far the poorest method of entry I've ever seen, other than T9 and the WM OSK, but even that's better since you can tap things out with a stylus. The iPhone's OSK needs supposedly a week of "training." This, in my opinion, is a misstatement. The only one being trained to a reasonable degree is you! Yes, maybe the phone will add a word or two to its dictionary, and maybe position something here and there better, but wait a minute, aren't expensive devices supposed to adapt to us, and not the other way around? Top that off with a slow response time, complete lack of any haptic feedback, and I say no thanks.

Safari. This browser has to be fake. I know, I know, it supposedly uses the KHTML engine. Great. I don't believe that. Seeing pixelization and the way it has missing maps while you scroll reminds me exactly of Deepfish, or Opera Mini. By the way, Opera Mini is a MUCH better browser. Browsing this forum over WiFi (let alone EDGE) on the iPhone was nearly impossible. It even crashed the browser once. On Opera Mini 4 beta, it loaded within seconds. I could scroll around and not worry once about having entire sections of the page missing, and have to wait about 5-10 seconds for those sections to load. What tops it off for me is that you can't even highlight sections of the address bar!! WTF?! Either I missed something, or else, repeatedly attempting to do the intuitive thing (isn't this phone all about being intuitive with your fingers?) by trying to highlight the address bar with your finger fails. So that means, any time you want to change your address, you have to start over. Made a typo? Too bad. Start allllll the way over on your 84-character-long URL and path. Have fun! (In hindsight, yes, I know, I can use the keyboard's backspace key, but that's not as intuitive as highlighting used to be.)

Cover flow is very pretty, but also extremely annoying. I'd hate to browse my albums this way. I think I'd wear out my finger or the screen, one or the other, by the time I found my album. Sure, I can flip it the other way, but oh, where did the search entry go? Oops. Back to more swiping... sigh.

Screen response is much worse than I had hoped for. It often takes several swipes or taps or whatevers to get it to respond. That being said, it is in many cases better than the pressure-sensitive screens (vs. capacitive) that many other devices feature.

Tilt sensor. This "feature" annoyed the crap out of me while I was using the device. While holding the iPhone in what I would assume to be a normal position in landscape format while in Safari, the phone would randomly flip back to portrait, without provocation. Once, it even flipped upside down. Awesome. Does His Jobsness want everyone to learn to read upside down? It took several flips and turns to restore it to its original orientation.

Google Maps? Nothing exciting here. Renders just as fast as my Mogul does over Ev-DO. Infact, the Mogul renders it a bit faster. Over Ev. vs. iPhone with WiFi. Ouch.

I could see myself getting bored with the iPhone after about 8 hours or less. The feature set is extremely small, and I felt constrained after using it for just a few moments. Apple's way or the Highway. Add that to EVERY iPhone LOOKS THE SAME. Awesome. Way to think different, Apple. Yes, yes, I know all of you on these forums have found some way or another to customize your phone after running a myriad of hacks and sketchy back-door-ish techniques. I'll be happy to goto my "Today" screen and browse for a picture. Thanks.

I haven't even begun to assess functionality form a business perspective, but I don't need to. The iPhone isn't a business device. That alone makes it not fit my bill, but I simply wanted to see, is this device as cool as my stocks currently think it is?

To those of you who have iPhones, I'm happy that you're enjoying your device. Please don't read my sarcasm and disappointment as anything against you, your choices, and your taste in phones. I'm just a little bit upset at myself, because I was secretly hoping, despite my not liking Apple that much, that this phone would be a lot more than I saw in this store today. But I left the store disappointed. This phone doesn't live up to the hype, it's far from it.

Someone filed class-action suit against Apple today over the battery issue. The maximum 300 charges only allows year or two use of the battery. Then you have send iPhone back for battery replacement. It would take 4-5 days and $80. How does that grab you? It is a real design flaw and there is no easy fix. To me, iPhone's real problem is practicality and usefullness beyond basic phone features. Web surfing over wifi is fun and efficient. But in real life, where you do have convenient wifi at home and hi-speed ethernet at work, iPhone just can not compete with your desktop PC with large LCD monitors or even laptops. While you are on the road, you definitely 3G like EVDO which iPhone doesn't support. Of course, you treat it a toy and gadget, that is different. You would certainly have fun with that. iPhone performs well as a basic phone. But then why you would spend $500-$600 for iPhone while you can get one for free at most carriers.

Computer is a junk without software support. This applies to PDAphones too. If you are accustomed to be served by the Palm's and WM's tens of thousands of softwares, iPhone is not for you. Apple says that iPhone is designed for consumers and the brower based applications are adequate. This said it all. The line has been drawn.

Can we have a phone that would serve us well with ample applications as well as the slick navigation like iPhone has? I think so. The HTC Touch and Vogue will the first generaton of those phones. TouchFLO made a good start. I would like to see that HTC keep enhance it and provide it to all their smartphones. May the future HTC 6900 has it all - TouchFLO, keyboard, 128mb RAM, a long-lasting battery, and a clean BT stack. That will be a real smartphone to own.

I don't think it's really fair to come to the conclusion that Windows Mobile itself is quirky and subject to lots of resets vs OSX mobile when you're comparing it to a hardware platform with double the memory (not to mention the Processor speed, optimized apps, limited operating environment, etc). I only had to reboot the iPhone once in my 2 week period, but Safari/iPod functions do crash alot more then they should in such a sandboxed environment. I will say that a quiet crash is much more acceptable then a hang.

I would love to get my hands on a Kaiser or Athena/Amero and then come to some conclusion based on a more level field hardware-wise.

Look how many USERs posted their review on Mogul then look how many posted reviews on iPhone.

What EVER you think, obviously Apple is doing something right.

HTC Mogul PPC-6680 (Sprint) Reviews. Smart phones Reviews by CNET.

They have seperate sections for 4gb and 8gb

Apple iPhone - 4GB (AT&T) Reviews. Smart phones Reviews by CNET.

Apple iPhone - 8GB (AT&T) Reviews. Smart phones Reviews by CNET.

After reading this thread, I have come to the conclusion that I have learned nothing new from what I already knew before about the differences between the Mogul and the iPhone. There are fanboys on both sides, and it's hard to get an unbiased comparison.

As for my biased opinion (just like everyone else's here), I think SpineDoc has the most significant statement in this entire thread... those who prefer substance over style will gravitate towards the Mogul. I know what it used to be like to have a 4" 640x480 Pocket PC screen. As you get used to it, the newness wears off, and you're left just wanting to add more programs and accessories. There's only so much that the iPhone can accommodate in that area.

Oh Apple is most definitely doing something right, marketing. Marketing and a simple to use device. In dealing with my computers and my fiancee and family I have found that 99% of users just dont want to deal with the setup, errors and troubleshooting we all take for granted. To do a simple thing takes like 35 steps and an hour of research. While companies like Microsoft have failed to understand this they continue to lose market share in both their mobile division and their desktop OS division.

Apple has understood this for years and that is their genius. The fact that the clearly inferior iPhone would outsell a mini computer WM device is baffling on first glance from a techie's viewpoint, just to lose so much functionality, be tied to only a few programs Apple allows on the device, and to be tied to ATT and very slow interent speeds.

But on closer scrutiny of the non techies one can clearly see a huge level of frustration out there. The computer will only become truly ubiquitous when it becomes an appliance, like a toaster. Something you press a button to use and it just works. The iPhone is an appliance, thats where its success lies. WM devices are not appliances, they need to be carressed and cajoled constantly to exact their power.

That's why Apple is genius, although they have been doing it for so long you wonder how Microsoft continues to drop the ball. So for now the fact of the matter is that techies will go thru the frustration of a WM device to get that extra functionality, it's just a different mindset from someone who just wants a phone that works and nothing else. Quite understandable from both points of view.