September 5, 2007
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Slow browsing on the iPhone
This last weekend June and I went to the mall to see if she could get a free upgrade to her Verizon phone. It turns out she couldn’t because she’s not the primary account holder. One free phone upgrade per account, apparently.
While we were there, I stopped by the Apple store to browse the web and get some phone numbers of BBQ places for dinner. I stopped in front of an enormous 30″ LCD and a sleek 1/4″ thick keyboard, and fired up Safari. While I googled for Blue Ribbon BBQ and Redbones, I noticed a docked iPhone. I pulled it out and admired its shape and heft. And lack of buttons. Having never touched one before, I tried the first thing that caught my eye: the Maps function. The touchscreen button took me straight to Google maps, where it began to download. I put it down and continued my googling on the big screen. I found Blue Ribbon’s phone number, called, no answer. Then I found Redbones’ number, called, and got their store hours. During these two minutes, the iPhone was stuck at loading 1 tile (1/9th) of the map. The phone showed 3 bars of connectivity, so that wasn’t the problem. Why does Apple demo something that works so poorly?
Later I googled “slow browsing iPhone” and found similar complaints blaming AT&T’s EDGE wireless data network. Whatever — I don’t really follow 3G standards. I just think that if I ever paid $600 for the phone and who knows how much for wireless internet, I’d expect it to be faster than a 600-baud modem. Hope they improve it with the next generation. Edit: today’s NYT has an article on the iPhone: apparently they’re dropping the price to $400, but no news about the browsing speed.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/05/technology/05cnd-apple.html?_r=1&oref=slogin (registration required)
Full article text in the first comment.
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The New York Times
September 5, 2007
Apple Cuts iPhone Price and Revamps iPods
By DAMON DARLIN and JOHN MARKOFF
SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 5 — Apple announced a price cut for its iPhone today, along with a new iPod that looks like the iPhone and a version of its iTunes store that downloads music directly to the player rather than a computer.
Steven P. Jobs, the chief executive, called the moves a “total refresh” of the iPod line, and they signify a move to turning the music player into a hand-held computer.
The company dropped the price of its 8-gigabyte iPhone by $200, to $399. The company did not give a reason for the price cut, which analysts said has been selling very well.
Investors appeared to interpret the announcement negatively. Apple’s stock closed off more than 5 percent, at $136.76, and most of the loss came during and after Mr. Jobs’s presentation.
Mr. Jobs also displayed a new iPod model, the Touch, that looks like an iPhone, though it lacks calling capability. The 8-gigabyte model will sell for $299 and a 16-gigabyte model will sell for $399 later this month.
The new device has touch-screen controls and a built-in Wi-Fi antenna that allows it to connect directly to the Internet. It also has a browser, which makes it more of a hand-held computer than any other music player.
Users will be able to connect to a new iTunes Wi-Fi store from which they can download songs directly to their music players without having to connect to a computer.
Another feature of the iPod software will be the ability to alert a user entering a Starbucks coffee shop to the music being played there. If a person likes the song and wants to buy it on iTunes, tapping an icon on the screen will download the song.
Howard Schultz, Starbucks’ chief executive, said Starbucks stores in the United States are being equipped to manage this process. He said that stores in Seattle and New York City would have the capability by Oct. 2, and that other stores across the country would get the service over the next two years.
In other announcements, Apple announced a new iPod Nano, squatter than before, but with a bigger screen for viewing video. The 4-gigabyte model will sell for $149 and an 8-gigabyte model will sell for $199.
The company said the original iPod will be dubbed the Classic. An 80-gigabyte model will be sold for $249, and a 160-gigabyte model will sell for $349.
But it was the iPhone price cut that got the most attention, raising questions about the device’s continued success.
Apple executives insisted that the move had been planned long ago and that the pricing strategy was conceived in part to keep the iPhone’s pricing in line with its new iPod Touch. But the sharp price cut suggested that even Apple, which has long lived in a pricing bubble insulated from other personal computer makers, is not immune from the brutal pressures of the cellular phone business.
“My suspicion is that they got to 750,000 really quickly, and then it started to slow down,” said Van Baker, an industry analyst at Gartner Group.
Mr. Jobs had previously said that the company would sell its first million iPhones by the end of this month, and 10 million phones by the end of 2008. On stage today he reiterated the company’s goal of selling a million by the end of the month, but now at a much lower price.
“They have decided to become extremely aggressive,” Mr. Baker said.
Another breakthrough Apple product, the original Macintosh, initially sold briskly in 1984 and then stalled abruptly. The Macintosh market did not regain its luster until 1986 with the introduction of the Macintosh II.
can’t blame the phone for what’s the network’s fault…
I can blame them for choosing a slow network, with no option to Switch. =)
It’s surprising that you found an iphone with slow internet being demo’d at an apple store. All the demo phones should be accessing internet through 802.11, which is speedy. But yes, the lack of true 3G support is the greatest weakness of the iphone; one that everyone expects will be fixed soon with the next revision.
I picked up a friend’s iPhone at someone’s house and immediately went for Google maps, too.. I found it to be very “snappy” – loading new tiles in 1-2 seconds as I scrolled around the map. I can’t explain what happened to you in that store, and swanger makes a great point about WiFi. I’m pretty sure the phone I was messing with was not on a WiFi connection.
Wow, that’s a totally different experience than mine. How do you know it wasn’t browsing on an unsecured Wi-Fi? But maybe google maps happened to be slow during my one trial… It’s hard to say anything conclusive without repeated tests in verified conditions.
Is June off contract? Retentions can offer decent deals.
Isn’t it Apple’s fault for not including HSDPA (3G) support in the iPhone in addition to EDGE? The 6-month-old RAZR V3XX has it, for instance.
Google maps is fast on Sprint
(Actually, I use Yahoo or Live maps since they can use the GPS in my phone.) Still, I’ve occasionally seen problems with google maps even on a computer.
ed: yes i was pretty disappointed that apple chose to do the dirty lock-in thing (i really thought they were morally better than that), but i continue to blame the industry. here’s hoping that google wins the 700 mhz auction (or somehow manages to force the rest of its rules on the winner).
actually, my real hope/wish is that apple leverages the product to twist the consumers’ behavior in a way that forces change in the wireless industry.. cause change won’t happen unless a large amount of consumers start behaving differently. or unless the new prez puts a new face in the FCC. but apple could do just a few simple things to help things along.
1. drop in a voip client. get people hooked on wifi and free phone calls. cause some demand for data-only cell plans (why pay for voice you provide yourself?). get people used to the idea of using a cell phone w/o a cell phone company (ipod touch could’ve helped here–if it only had a mic.. they really need to change that).
2. drop in iChat/AV: a voice&video over aim/jabber client. ideally, move the camera on the iphone from the back to the front to be more useful for video conferencing. eventually wean people off the century-old “phone number” idea as people begin calling each other’s jabber id’s instead of phone numbers because they’re always online. skype dies or adapts (because people would eventually not use numbers anymore nor need to tie into the pots network), but it was useful for the interim years.
3. cell carriers die (because no one uses voice anymore unless its over IP). wireless data providers live (which hopefully includes former cell carriers who learn to adapt). competition becomes who has the fastest/cheapest data plan. coupling between phone and carrier becomes optional at worst (because there’s always wifi), nonexistent at best.
4. wireless data providers start giving fast enough and cheap enough service to challenge land-based data providers for the last mile to people’s homes. (this is already slowly beginning with sprint’s $30 evdo, i know some who choose this over comcast/verizon internet). rbocs and cable monopolies die or adapt. [apple could help here by putting some simple wireless router software on its iphones. i mean, if you've got all the hardware for it (an at&t or whoever -provided internet connection and a wifi antenna), you might's well have the option to share your internet with whichever nearby laptops you want to.]
5. consumers win on all fronts.
i can only dream. but recent events (rulings on the 700mhz auction, the publicity the wash post has been giving to the sorry state of us telecom, the potential of apple’s iphone and ipod touch) fuel those dreams. and if apple really muscles it with that goal in mind, i think they could make some things happen.
IMHO, the most transformative voice over IP service currently being offered in the USA is T-mobile’s Hot Spot @ Home. Using a special VoIP phone, you can make unlimited calls from any wifi hotspot. When you roam away from the wifi hotspot, the phone transfers back to the regular cell network and you start using regular minutes. Adding the wifi VoIP capability costs $10 per month extra. If I were Steve Jobs and I had to pick an exclusive provider, I probably would have teamed with T-mobile, if only to be the groundbreaker on this technology.
Steve Job should have implemented a full MAC OS on the iphone to demolish the UMPC marketplace and dominate the mobile computing space. That would have made all the OQO, Samsung Q1, and Vaio UX users green with envy. Long live the Newton!
And what’s up with the non user-replaceable battery? These are disposable devices that are probably made in China.
Oh and btw… the new every 2 with Verizon provides $100 towards an upgrade for the primary holder, but allows secondary lines to upgrade to a new phone at a new customer price (so you can get free base modeled phones).
Hmm, June was told she’d have to pay normal price with the upgrade. Maybe her plan (she’s a secondary) doesn’t have New every 2?
And yes, eventually we’ll have full-featured OS’s on phones. The Palm UI is based on Mac OS — did you know that?
at full speed, EDGE should be passable (dunno about AT&T’s/Cingular’s network in particular, though), but yeah, Apple has to take some of the blame for not putting in 3G hardware. meanwhile, the wi-fi’s great and snappy, from the two or three friends’ iPhones I’ve molested.
Yep, I had the chance to see Google Maps in action at my friend’s house with Wi-Fi, and the speed seemed fine. Of course, when I’m at home with Wi-Fi, I have my laptop. And then it’s only a tradeoff of walking 20 feet to my laptop vs. trying to enter text on an iPhone touchscreen.