The honeymoon isn’t over. A little more than a month after the Apple iPhone went on sale, nearly 90 percent of iPhone owners who answered a PC World survey said that they love their almost-new toy. But they also had a few complaints–most notably regarding the iPhone’s voice and data networks–and lots of suggestions.
About 13 percent of our respondents said that they’d run into at least one significant problem with their device in the past month. The most common culprit: the battery. “It is a fantastic device,” raves one iPhone owner. “Way beyond my old Treo 700W, which almost seems like an antique rotary phone by comparison.
The iPhone received its highest marks for music and video playback: About 90 percent of respondents were very or extremely satisfied with the iPhone’s ability to entertain. “As an iPod, it’s really good. The simplified navigation is awesome,” one reader said. The iPhone suffered its biggest negatives for the voice and data network it’s married to–the AT&T system. A whopping 40 percent of our survey respondents expressed some level of dissatisfaction with the speed of AT&T’s EDGE data network.
We asked iPhone owners what features Apple should add to the next generation of the device. Several of their suggestions echo observations that we and our colleagues at Macworld have made. Some note wryly that, so far, the iPhone can’t replace every handheld device in the house. “It can’t open my garage door, or change the TV channel, yet,” one reader joked.
The iPhone’s inability to perform basic editing tasks such as copying, cutting, and pasting irked some users. Others pointed to the phone’s incapacity to handle voice dialing and its refusal to load third-party software. One iPhone owner wished for “true third-party applications (vs. Web-based applications) provided that they will not compromise stability or security.”
Many users said that they take heart in knowing that some of the first-generation’s iPhone’s shortcomings may be addressed via software updates. “Ninety-nine percent of the things that I would like to see are software: A well-balanced set of features that do everything that a PDA or regular phone would do–only better. That is what will define and, at the same time, make or break the iPhone,” said one owner.
Source: PC World