Bosco115
07-14-2008, 08:53 PM
This is my personal experience so far with the iPhone 3G (bought Friday) after owning the original iPhone since launch day last year. I'm making my frustrations visible in my own thread because I'm selfish and I like the attention. So let's get that fact out of the way.
First of all, signal strength. It has been outlined in many threads already, but my iPhone reports horrendous signal strength, even though I have yet to drop a call. This is most likely a problem with AT&T's limited 3G network. I don't know whether I want AT&T to increase coverage, or whether I want Apple to lie to me (like all other cell phones that drop calls with 4 bars somehow) and show better signal than what I'm actually getting. Still, very annoying.
Second, GPS. I was on the road yesterday and it works relatively well. But about 25% of the time, it's slow, it lags, and it hangs. Today, I have been unable to get it to locate me at all, whether indoors at home, standing in my driveway, indoors at work, or standing in the parking lot at work. I don't live in a remote area. I LIVE 20 MINUTES FROM PHILADELPHIA! FIND ME! Incredibly frustrating. It worked great yesterday and I found my way to the Delaware River Tubing Co., and found my way to a friend's house from there using Google Maps and GPS tracking. Total, those trips lasted about 1.5 hours, and that brings me to my next point.
Third, battery life is horrible. Absolutely atrocious. It has died on me every day since I bought it. I am used to being able to keep Wifi enabled, and I plan on keeping GPS active, along with 3G because it is ridiculous to have to search through Settings in order to activate and deactivate these MAJOR FEATURES every time I plan to use anything on my phone other than sending a text message. Playing Cro-Mag? Total battery murderer. Using 3G and GPS to take advantage of Google Maps? Battery killer.
Fourth, Mail application still sucks. I have my email fetch interval set at 15 minutes, and sometimes it goes hours without checking. And then I'll enter the mail application, suspecting the fetch of going limp on me, and I'll be hammered with 10 unread messages from my two accounts (one POP, one IMAP, both lazy).
If I have to turn down the brightness, turn off Wifi and 3G, disable GPS, and increase my email intervals, why did I even buy an iPhone 3G in the first place? Can I at least have a replaceable battery so that I can keep going after this thing dies?
With that said, the 2.0 software has been absolutely unbelievable. Apps like Cro-Mag, Shazam, Remote, Pandora, and AOL Radio have been nothing but a dream to use. And I appreciate the louder speaker, I really do.
So overall, it seems that I have a lot of the same recurring problems as other people on this forum, as well as a few others that haven't found their way to the front page. Am I alone?
First of all, signal strength. It has been outlined in many threads already, but my iPhone reports horrendous signal strength, even though I have yet to drop a call. This is most likely a problem with AT&T's limited 3G network. I don't know whether I want AT&T to increase coverage, or whether I want Apple to lie to me (like all other cell phones that drop calls with 4 bars somehow) and show better signal than what I'm actually getting. Still, very annoying.
Second, GPS. I was on the road yesterday and it works relatively well. But about 25% of the time, it's slow, it lags, and it hangs. Today, I have been unable to get it to locate me at all, whether indoors at home, standing in my driveway, indoors at work, or standing in the parking lot at work. I don't live in a remote area. I LIVE 20 MINUTES FROM PHILADELPHIA! FIND ME! Incredibly frustrating. It worked great yesterday and I found my way to the Delaware River Tubing Co., and found my way to a friend's house from there using Google Maps and GPS tracking. Total, those trips lasted about 1.5 hours, and that brings me to my next point.
Third, battery life is horrible. Absolutely atrocious. It has died on me every day since I bought it. I am used to being able to keep Wifi enabled, and I plan on keeping GPS active, along with 3G because it is ridiculous to have to search through Settings in order to activate and deactivate these MAJOR FEATURES every time I plan to use anything on my phone other than sending a text message. Playing Cro-Mag? Total battery murderer. Using 3G and GPS to take advantage of Google Maps? Battery killer.
Fourth, Mail application still sucks. I have my email fetch interval set at 15 minutes, and sometimes it goes hours without checking. And then I'll enter the mail application, suspecting the fetch of going limp on me, and I'll be hammered with 10 unread messages from my two accounts (one POP, one IMAP, both lazy).
If I have to turn down the brightness, turn off Wifi and 3G, disable GPS, and increase my email intervals, why did I even buy an iPhone 3G in the first place? Can I at least have a replaceable battery so that I can keep going after this thing dies?
With that said, the 2.0 software has been absolutely unbelievable. Apps like Cro-Mag, Shazam, Remote, Pandora, and AOL Radio have been nothing but a dream to use. And I appreciate the louder speaker, I really do.
So overall, it seems that I have a lot of the same recurring problems as other people on this forum, as well as a few others that haven't found their way to the front page. Am I alone?