iPhone 4G - Reality vs Telegraph

.

Now that the iPhone 4G is announced, as a way of reviewing it I thought I would look at the rather bad Torygraph Pre-Review piece and compare their views with the reality - as sort of post pre-review analysis of mainstream media journalism as wel as an iPhone review. There has also been a rather good analysis of the iPhone vs the other major competitors on TiPPB which is summarised in their chart above.

So, on to comparing reality vs the Torygraph analysis - here is the Torygrah (italics) vs reality

1) It’s expensive: Buy the top-of-the-range Blackberry or Android handset and you will still pay a lot less than the extortionate prices Apple charge

Well, its a bit more than the others but not stupidly overpriced - in fact by Apple standards its (shock) very reasonable

2) It’s anti-technology: When the iPhone launched it was cutting edge – now as other manufacturers announce, for instance, that you can use their phones as shareable wifi hot spots, Apple says no.

Well, its 4G, with a new OS, an on board gyroscope - and better incremental specs in most of its facets than the others so they will have to bring out new models

3) No Flash: The iPhone, the phone that promised to put the web into everybody’s pockets, can’t even show you most of it, because it can’t handle Flash graphics.

No flash.

4) No multitasking: Tried instant messaging on an iPhone? Oh yes, you have to open the app to see if you’ve got a message.

New iOS 4 allows multitasking.

5) Its battery life is terrible

They are claiming c 40% better life, which would put it on roughly a par

6) Developing apps for it is costing you money: The special version of the BBC iPlayer, of Natwest Phone Banking, of Eon’s meter reader – developing all of these came out of money that could have been channelled away from a self-important minority and towards more generally useful ideas.

At least the Apple store has a lot of Aps. Besides, most are developed speculatively so cost the user nothing in opportunity costs.

7) It comes with offensively bad headphones

They all do. But its the offensively bad music they play that really causes the problems. Next....

8 ) It’s not very well designed

Oh come on, Apple set the standard for design in this space and remains on form with this.

9) It charges for satnav: In an age when Nokia and Google Android provide completely free mapping and satnav facilities

It does indeed - but les autres are subsidising this in an attempt to lure people away from Apple.

10) Those iPod docks are holding back better technologies

Much like Betamax, Wankel engines and countless other marvellous technologies that were held back by the sheer popularity of existing stuff that basically did what its users wanted.

So - what would you give the Torygraph in accuracy? I think 2 out of 10 (Flash, Satnav) as those are factual. Nos 7, 8 and 10 are opinions and the kindest thing one can say about them is that they are irrelaevantly counter-intuitive. The rest are just wrong.

As to the iPhone 4G - well, in summary it is a small step ahead of the others rather than the gamechange that the original iPhone represented, but it probably does enough to keep the bulk of current iPhone users from migrating to mther devices, and will also competitively recruit some new users.