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iPhone Complaints
The Apple iPhone has been hailed as one of the most revolutionary consumer electronics devices to hit the market in years, and certainly the most advanced cell phone to grace the shelves of retailers. Is the iPhone the best cell phone available today? We've looked at the facts since the launch of the Apple iPhone, and have put together some concerns and complaints that the consumer needs to be aware of before purchasing this hallowed cellular phone.
No Custom Ringtones - Apple has crippled the iPhone's ability to use more than the included 25 ringtones, and will not accept MP3 ringtones onto the phone's memory for use by the consumer. Although this is not a dealbreaker, it's a feature that's been included on most every phone for the past year, and certainly phones in this price range. This issue will likely be addressed in future firmware updates, but currently the customer is saddled with only the included assortment of rings.
No wireless synching or removable memory - Curiously, the ability to sync your iPhone wirelessly with your Mac has been left out of the first generation iPhone. The technology exists within the phone, but this hurdle has not yet been tackled by Apple, and may pose an issue for consumers used to quickly working between their smartphones and laptops sans wires. Furthermore, there is no external card slot on the iPhone, and thus it cannot ever increase memory capacity. This may not be an issue, as the iPhone already boasts 4-8GB of internal memory, but is another curious omission by Apple.
Weak iPhone Camera - One of the fastest-evolving features on smartphones these days, and indeed all cell phones, is the quality of the included camera. The iPhone does have a digital camera, but it only boasts a paltry 2 megapixels resolution, without any fancy flash and zoom features. With smartphones often clocking in at the 5 megapixel mark these days, it's surprising that Apple decided to cap it at 2. Beyond this, there is no function that allows the consumer to take video with their iPhone camera. Hopefully this will also be addressed in an upcoming firmware update, but it is a very strange omission from the first generation unit.
No Third-Party Applications, or Flash - Presumably wanting to keep things close to home, Apple has outlawed any third-party applications from working on the iPhone. This essentially cripples an entire secondary market of potential applications that might make use of the rich features the iPhone boasts. While the Web is still accessible through the iPhone, and thus web applications can be used indirectly, this is a far cry from the heavily-integrated third-party applications becoming available on many other smartphones in today's market. Beyond this, even within the iPhone's Safari web browser, Flash is not supported. Nor Java. Go figure.
The iPhone is indeed a fantastic device, and beautiful to boot. With all the hype surrounding it, it can be easy to overlook the often-significant problems with the first edition. Hopefully this page will act as a sounding beacon for consumers looking for the other side of the story, and what to look for before purchasing the iPhone.
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