Complaining about iPhone but has not tried it

[Magnus]

This morning, Gulf News has a little blurb on their home page which says "The much awaited iPhone is a big disappointment, says blogger" which links to this page.

On that page they quote this blogger, who says:

It’s official, the iPhone is crap!
From our good buddies at Gizmodo, Here is a list of things the iPhone does not have:
• No songs as ringtones
• No games
• No flash support
• No instant messaging
• No picture messages (MMS)
• No video recording
• No voice recognition or voice dialing
• No wireless bluetooth stereo streaming (A2DP)
• No one-size-fits-all headset jack (May have to buy an adapter for certain headphones)

Stuff we already knew it didn't have:
• No 3G (EV-DO/HSDPA)
• No GPS
• No real keyboard
• No removable battery
• Expandable storage
• Direct iTunes Music Store Access (Over Wi-Fi or EDGE)

Hold on - No games, no expandable storage, no removable battery, no instant messaging, no MMS, no songs as ringtones? What the..! Even my two-year-old Nokia 3230 has all that! So, basically, the iPhone is just an over priced phone with a fancy user interface. And you know what, even that is overrated. Sure, a touch screen is all cool until you actually start to use it. With your fingers. Which would mean getting it all smudgy and dirty.

This guy is of course entitled to his opinion, and it's based on what Gizmodo found, but it would make more sense to wait until he's actually tried an iPhone, don't you think? And I think it's irresponsible of Gulf News to put such a headline on a piece, when it's just based on one person's view - one blogger (to their credit they write "says blogger"). It may be that hundreds, if not thousands, of bloggers will say the same in the coming weeks, but it's not out yet. I think it's nice that Gulf News publishes what bloggers write, but picking this particular piece, especially since the iPhone is out, seems a bit irresponsible to me. I have no problem with people arguing about the good and bad about iPhone, but wouldn't be it be better if they've tried it first?

And did you note that Gulf News wrote "The iPhone is expected to cost $500 (about Dh1,850) or $600 (about Dh2,208), depending on the amount of memory included." No, it's not "expected to cost" that much, it will cost that much. But as we've pointed out before, that's in the US, and not here in the Middle East.

[kaylov]

Clearly someone who has completely missed the whole point of the iPhone (or trying to attract traffic to his blog by upsetting the fanboys out there) - this is not about the number of features - this is about usability. If all you need is a phone - by all means - he should hang on to his Nokia - bet he is a Windows user too ;-)