I agree it would be desirable to have a hybrid personal computer / phone that would give me as much freedom of software as my desktop, but the iPhone isn't that, nor did it claim to be.

I also can't install whatever software I want on the cable box I got from Comcast. Nobody's ranting about that though.

You also did not pay to buy that box from Comcast either. You're leasing it from them, with full expectation from Comcast that you will give it back if/when you terminate service, and from you that Comcast will replace it at no charge if/when it breaks or stops working.

With the iPhone (or any cell phone for that matter), you have bought the phone, and it becomes your own personal property. You do not have to return the phone if you cancel service, and the provider is under no obligation to replace the unit if it breaks (unless you paid extra from the start for a warranty).

That is why nobody rants about their unit from Comcast.

Also, if you cancel your contract before it's up, you DO have to return the iPhone.

If you paid extra for an unlocked iPhone, then yes you have a point. But then you also have the freedom to go to another network without those restrictions.

Fortunately I can disable the router portion and use my own linksys model. Which works until Verizon changes a setting upstream and I have to reset the configuration to default and start from scratch.

Bleh.

... then you will not buy an iPhone in the first place.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Frank_(developer)

(I didn't recognize the name, either, but I remembered his startup -- Panic -- from an earlier story about how they almost got bought by Apple: http://www.panic.com/extras/audionstory/)

And here I am, still taking 5 megapixel pictures and quality VGA video with my 2-year-old N95-8gb, something the iPhone still can't do. Sure, it's a bit thicker, but I get 3G, crystal-clear reception with AT&T, and get my Google Voice.

All one has to do is browse GSMArena or PhoneScoop to realize how far behind the iPhone is to the majority of phone manufacturers. Apple does UI extremely well, but they've largely proven that they're really just the next Motorola RAZR... A cutsey little fashion phone that breaks often, performs poorly, and hardly gives the end-user what they're really looking for.

Just looking at phones like the Samsung i8910 (which does 720p HD video) helps one realize how far behind Apple is on the phone-tech curve:

http://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_i8910_omnia_hd-review-380.ph...

Another case in point: I found the section about the web browser buried on page six underneath a larger section devoted to audio quality, which includes frequency response graphs and a table of audio measurements. And when it comes to the web browser, it says it "would have used somewhat more user-friendly interface" and "could certainly use a bit of fine tuning." It describes how to bypass the "unresponsive" and "slow" zoom feature by tapping a text section to zoom it but notes that it "is sometimes a hit and miss thing as the web browser fails to fit the text on screen." If you ask me, you don't want to use this review to illustrate that Apple is "behind" on cell phone technology.

The kind of readers this "guy" has are the 2+ million unique people that visit per month (see compete.com chart) who are actually interested in every nook and cranny, pro and con, detailed form and function, and in-depth overview they need to make an logic-based, informed, $700 decision. First-version phones can be notorious for having major problems, and those issues need to be discovered before blowing a grand buying one.

All the iPhone taught you to do is ignore the negatives of balanced phone reviews, because the majority of your comment is

1) attacking the layout of the review and

2) restating a few pre-release issues of which the iPhone had plenty itself

What do you expect from a review? That it'll hide all the problems and only tell you the positive features of the phone? I certainly wouldn't trust a review website that does that.

As I said before, I bought a Nokia N95 back in 2007 that had 8gb, GPS, 3G support, Google&Nokia Maps, music player, FM radio, 5 megapixel camera, and VGA video support. I also get Google Voice, and while there aren't as many Symbian apps in total, let's just say I don't feel like I need iFart Mobile. Oh yeah, did I forget to mention I can easily take my phone to any GSM carrier I want? I think I also forgot to mention I can do basic tasks you'd expect a phone to do, like MMS and choosing the sound for your alarm clock.

If there's any phone that's behind on tech, it's the iPhone. Not only do you get subpar performance, you're also locked into a little cage where Apple decides what you get to do, and to me that's not a phone for a hacker.

However, dkarl is arguing his point from "the way any typical user would" As a "typical user", if he's easily annoyed by how an in-depth phone review is structured, I could hardly imagine the litany of complaints he would come up with when the typical user was subjected to the mess of software and hacks required just to enable a few basic features that one can get from a $20 candybar.

I think the majority of our disagreement comes from the difference in the type of users we are. I'm a power user and have owned 7 phones prior to my N95 in the past 5 years. Dkarl seems to just want a basic fashion-phone and does not really care about having a bleeding-edge mobile device.

Your mom can and will use every feature on the iPhone.

It's still the best phone for you. Sure, you're looking around, you'd be a fool not to.

But, as you've said, you're waiting for something better.

Apple has created a great phone and they're definitely going to try and stay on top.

By all means switch to the better phone when it comes out -- that's the best way to keep Apple and everyone else on their toes.

Also, T-mobile said that they won't be carrying the Hero because they are releasing the "myTouch" that Arrington was talking about in that article.

Let's hope someone gets on the ball in the US and gives the iPhone a run for it's money with Android. I think it will eventually happen, but we're probably going to have to wait another year.

My girlfriend has the Palm Pre and I don't think it's that great at all. It's extremely frustrating to use and the navigation is not that intuitive. My buddy also got the Palm and dropped it a 2 weeks later for the iPhone.

When this hits mainstream, who knows what kind of public backlash will ensue.

http://www.repubblica.it/2009/01/sezioni/tecnologia/google-w...

And what about SMS? For me to use GV full time, I need the ability to send SMS's from my GV number. MMS as well. I hope this functionality will be built into the app, if one ever makes it to the device.

That HTC Hero that's in the pipeline looks awesome. (Price??) I saw an advert & review for it yesterday for the first time. (It runs Flash! uses SD card.)

I would probably do the exact same thing in his position. There's no way I would quit the iPhone, and I bet he won't either. He's just using his powerful voice to put more heat on AT&T and Apple to reverse this decision.

And I'm glad he is. I hope it works.

A few possibilities come to mind:

- Apple doesn't have the ability to allow different apps into stores for different regions. - iPhone carriers in other countries also threw their toys out of the pram about GV. - AT&T (and the US market) is so big that it defines the rules for the whole world.

I hate them because they bait and switch, and are deceptive about the value they provide.

So we end up with comments that start with:

"I hate Tech Crunch as much as anyone else but," "Arrington pushes startups he invested in" "Everything's about twitter" "I don't read Tech Crunch because of their focus on x but," "Tech Crunch doesn't break real news" "Tech Crunch needs a real editor" "Tech Crunch only does favors for friends" "Tech Crunch only wrote this as linkbait"

And now, with no relevance whatsoever to a meaningful discussion about the article, we get a knee jerk, play to the haters, "I quit Tech Crunch!".

In this community, I feel there needs to be a base line of respect for entrepreneurs and the people that help them. And make no mistake, Michael Arrington is both. If you have a legitimate gripe, write something constructive. There is little or no value, however, to reinforcing this idea that everything Tech Crunch does is wrong or bad.

What I do know is that TechCrunch publishes utter trash. It's a tabloid that caters to the geek crowd. The articles are poorly written and even more poorly researched. Some of them are based on sources as flimsy as a single sentence fragment of a tweet if not a complete fabrication or speculation.

What is purported to be news is heavily editorialized. What is purported to be analysis is the kind of tin foil hat stuff one could expect to see in the typical Slashdot comment. Simply put, the TechCrunch writers are lousy journalists- if you can even use the word "journalist" at all.

In my opinion, some of the people at TechCrunch have questionable ethics. Revealing a company's internal documents in piecemeal over the course of a week to give readers some little voyeuristic thrill while raking in the advertising dollars is wrong. It would be one thing if they were blowing the whistle on something illegal or immoral that was going on there, but those documents revealed nothing of real value. It was simply a peek behind the curtains.

TechCrunch is not in the business of information and certainly is not the "paper of record" for startups and entrepreneurs. They are in the business of selling controversy where it doesn't necessarily exist. It is for this exact reason that they often have a headline designed to stoke the nerd rage fire on top of an article that is little more than some asshole's opinion or wild guess about how something is going to play out. When TechCrunch actually does publish something newsworthy there are usually several other sources with better coverage and better writing.

I will continue to flag TechCrunch submissions.

In the case of Twitter's internal documents, the reason you saw nothing of "real value" is precisely because Tech Crunch drew a line between releasing information that could be damaging to individuals and the company and things they could report that were relatively benign. They received much more information than they ended up publishing. Tech Crunch could have made more in ad dollars had they just published everything. They painstakingly satisfied an obligation to share information with the public and protect companies and individuals who they saw as having done nothing wrong. Whatever side they ended up on, they certainly tried to be transparent about it.

As for the opinion part of reviewing startups and their software, I don't see any other way to go about it. Most small startup companies that are covered in Tech Crunch are based on a few facts (company name, founders, employees, location, backers) and then a review of their product or service. This is inherently an opinion. There just aren't that many "facts" about startups at the beginning. There are beliefs and perceptions. You can disagree with the opinion or analysis, but I don't see how you could avoid having one.

That's not how people normally treat news sources or opinion sources. New York Times worked hard to establish the quality of its reporting. Tech Crunch worked hard to show its reader s that quality takes n-th place in its reporting to sensationalism, sleazy behavior, unsubstantiated rumors, heavily biased reporting, etc. etc. Both publications should enjoy the fruit of their labors.

It's an unfunny joke to call Techcrunch "a paper of record" for anything. I'm not saying it's the National Enquirer of the startup world, but it's much closer to that than to being the New York Times of the startup world.

Since Techchrunch now has zero credibility with me, and I think its articles should be treated as untrusted and biased by default, it's a waste of time for me to dig through a heap of garbage to find an occassionally honest and informative piece. Thus the strategy of flagging all Techcrunch submissions is a sound one; the only reason I don't is that I'm too lazy to remember to.

"A fine, ringing denunciation. But let's consider performance. Do you learn more about startups from TechCrunch or the New York Times? I learn much more from TechCrunch. By the time the NYT gets around to writing about a startup, the news is usually pretty old. And they often get the story wrong, despite their supposedly greater professionalism, because they don't understand the domain as well as TC's writers do.

If you think there's a better source of information about startups than TechCrunch, what is it?"

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=500780

In most cases, the answer is no. But for a source that has proven time and again to produce content that makes you feel stupider after reading/viewing it, then I think a flag based on source is justifiable. I'm not saying whether Tech Crunch fits this category, but I'm sure we can all think of some sources that do.

I'm not here to debate the ethics of releasing the documents; my question is, if there was nothing of interest (i.e. newsworthy) in the documents what was their obligation to post it?

I mean if I dig through your trash and post your credit card bills that list what you buy at the grocery store even though it may be of general interest to see what someone purchases at the store, there is no obligation to post it since it isn't news.

(As for your NY Times analogy, it doesn't hold up. It's more like saying "I think the Sulzbergers are dreadful people who are destroying something that should be good, so I refuse to read their paper".)

It's so frustrating that more people don't demand better tech journalism than that provided by TC. Tech was one of the first areas where online news swept away traditional media, but the service we get now is much, much worse.

Having given it a few years now, I rather think I'd take a copy of Byte every 30 days than 30 up-to-the-minute days of coverage from TechCrunch. We deserve better.

Yes, like proclaiming your love for Apple, then making a large, dramatic gesture of protesting something they do, writing a blog post about it, and raking in the page views as your dramatic gesture goes viral?

It's all a circus show.

I'm not saying the complaints against Apple are baseless, but how much of this article do you think is Arrington taking a principled stand, and how much is it Arrington seeing an opportunity for TechCrunch and taking it?

I've been torn lately as well about staying in the AT&T ecosystem (mostly over the dropped call rate in New York City). It's embarrassing to be talking to a client only to have your phone call drop (three times in a 15 minute conversation on one occasion).

he accuses at&t/apple of moral failure for acting in their best business interests as if techcrunch doesn't operate according to the same principles (not that there's anything wrong with that).

woah, talk about alliteration, I wasn't even trying!

I wish that there was a way for HN to meta-moderate. That is, give specific moderators a heavier influence over things (and new users almost none at all). I think his would help curtail the reddit culture migrating onto HN.

There's not much else to say. The AT&T/Apple/Google issue has already been the subject of several submissions here, and I don't think this post adds anything to it.

This is a three word comment with absolutely no substance at all, poking fun at the headline. It adds absolutely nothing to the discussion about the iphone, and isn't really appropriate for HN. About a week and a half ago, this comment would almost immediately be moved to the bottom of the page, and made nearly invisible.

I know everybody is milking the GV fiasco, but this borders on stupidity.

This whole "The iPhone drops calls" thing it like blaming Ferarri because your car keeps skidding on the dirt track roads in your country. If you want a telephone system that works, don't live in the US.

This is not an easy decision.

I was there in January 2007 when it was announced and I bought the first Automobile as soon as it was available. I happily bought the Automobile 3G a year later. I’ve proudly yelled “I Am A Member Of The Cult Of Automobile.” I’ve been an unabashed cheerleader for this mode of transportation to all who’ll listen. And I’ve scoffed at drivers who said they’d abandon the platform.

But I’m not going to upgrade to the Automobile 3GS. Instead, I’m abandoning the Automobile and DOT. I will grudgingly pay the $175 DOT unregitration fee and then I will move on to another mode of transportation.

What finally put me over the edge? It wasn’t the routinely congested highways, something you can only truly understand once you have owned an Automobile (and which drove my friend Om Malik to bail). I’ve lived with that for two years. It’s not the lack of parking spaces at home. I’ve lived with that for two years, too. It certainly isn’t the lack of a feed bag, that has never bothered me. No, what finally put me over the edge is the speeding debacle.

Most of you won’t know what I’m talking about, so I’ll explain.

Speeding is a way to get where you're going faster than everyone else. Here’s an overview of the service if you aren’t familiar with it.

I’ve always wanted to use speeding but there’s a big switching cost - crashing your automobile and dying. Too many roads are not built well enough to operate an automobile at sustained high speeds and are too dangerous to use for speeding.

But now Firestone is planning on rolling out a new line of tires that are supposed to handle well at high-speed, so I can drive as fast as I want no matter what condition the road is in.

Or so I thought. Chevrolet and the DOT are now making speeding illegal. Why? Because they absolutely don’t want people doing exactly what I’m doing - driving as fast as they want and using their roads as a racetrack.

So I have to choose between the Automobile and speeding. It’s not an easy decision. Except, it sort of is. Firestone isn’t forcing the decision on me, Chevrolet and the DOT are. So I choose to work with the company that isn’t forcing me to do things their way. And in this case, that’s Firestone.

So what mode of transportation will I use next? Well, that decision is easy, too. I’d move to the goat because I believe it is the best vehicle out there other than the Automobile 3GS. But Firestone hasn’t created a tire for the goat yet, just motorcycle and bicycles. So for now I’m going to use the new bicycle speeding tires. As soon as something better comes out, or Firestone makes an tire for the goat, I’ll switch. And keep on speeding. No long commute to work for me.

And Chevrolet, if you ever decide to put the hammer down on DOT and do the right thing for your loyal customers, I’ll consider switching back. In the meantime, I’ll just use one of many go-karts parked in the garage to test out new roads.

I'm not saying that what AT&T and Apple are doing is right; I don't think anyone knows enough to say for sure, but I think allot of people complaining about it should take a wider look.

Of all the things Apple claims the iPhone to be, I don't think this is one of them; so I'd say that the problem has more to do with his purchasing choices than anything Apple and AT&T are up to...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4Q9MJdT5Ds