In my previous post, I ran down a list of the reasons why I’m thinking of donating a kidney for the promise of being able to get an iPhone. I’ve gone through the list of pros and cons for months — and the pros come out on top. But there are a significant number of questionmarks that stand out in my mind and keep me from wholeheartedly giving this phone my absolute endorsement. Let’s take a second to explore some of the things that could tarnish this launch a bit. Simply put, these are a few reasons why you might want to reconsider handing your $499/$599 over to the snarky kid in the black shirt with the white logo.
1. Cost – The iPhone comes in two flavors – the $499 model with 4GB and the $599 model with 8GB of storage. And there are other phones (like the Nokia N95) that are at that same price point. But even at the $500 level, this is a sizeable investment. Considering the fact that a full featured smartphone like the Moto Q or Samsung Blackjack can be secured for less than $150 right now, I’m not sure that the experience will be $350-better. (I think it will be, but anyway…..) You have to really consider whether you’re going to make use of the Internet-based features or if you really need the iPod functionality. You can pick up an iPod with Video for $249. Or perhaps the more popular iPod Nano for $149/$199 depending on which configuration you’re looking to get. So the sum of those two items (a phone and an iPod) would still leave you money left over.
And let’s not forget the fact that if you do pick up this phone you almost have to get a data plan. (Or perhaps you can just use the phone on Wi-Fi if you have access?) Cost is definitely a huge factor to consider here.
2. Theft Target – I’m hearing that only 4 million of these will be available at launch and who knows how many throughout the rest of the year. I can just see the news story about people getting robbed when they pull out this attractive toy on the train ride home. And you thought the white earbuds said, “rob me, please”? Wait until people start flipping their fingers across the screen. You may want to consider how safe the environment is before whipping one of these babies out in public. And if it’s that much of a theft target, is it really worth the risk?
3. Synching? iTunes to Manage ALL Content? – I am a big fan of iTunes (although it has gotten a bit bloated over time). Yet and still, I’m not quite sure that this is the right application to manage the kind of data that I want to share with the phone. During the Keynote, Steve said that iTunes will manage the sync. Sure, iTunes is cool to manage the music. But I’m not sure how the rest of the content is going to work. Will it just go to each application to pull down the respective data? (Photos from iPhoto, Music from iPod, Contacts from Address Book)? Probably not, since Windows users will need to synch as well. Personally, I’d like to see a simple synching application released separate from iTunes that can be used to determine what data synchs to the phone. Perhaps this can be covered in a tab or a view on the iTunes menu. I don’t know for sure. But I have my concerns. Continue reading ‘…And Why NOT to iPhone’
