Comments on: First Time Using An iPhone

By: Nithin47

Nithin47 — Thu, 18 Jun 2015 17:31:25 +0000

I’m still laughing as I type this (whatever this is).

By: Piren'e Colass

Piren'e Colass — Fri, 26 Jul 2013 08:36:28 +0000

Basically. Android is easier. Enjoy your Iphone though, they are popular for a reason.

By: CdrJameson

CdrJameson — Mon, 01 Jul 2013 11:30:02 +0000

Just wait until they release a no-rollback ‘update’ that breaks your wifi.

By: phuzz

phuzz — Mon, 01 Jul 2013 09:24:45 +0000

(Android is more attractive if you already use mainly google services of course)

By: phuzz

phuzz — Mon, 01 Jul 2013 09:17:02 +0000

This is why I like CyanogenMod, the Android ROM. It’s not really any easier to use, but you can change basically everything, so it’s more like a PC in the end.
Of course that means you can horribly break it, but that’s part of the fun right?
Right?

By: Dagda

Dagda — Sun, 30 Jun 2013 17:44:37 +0000

Apple unapolagetically front-loads all that crap. Upside is that it’s thus a first-time thing only.

By: Dan

Dan — Sun, 30 Jun 2013 16:13:15 +0000

Careful Tom. That phone is the first step to the Dark Side :p

By: Anirudh S

Anirudh S — Sun, 30 Jun 2013 05:16:25 +0000

My Android experience was a dream. Tap stuff, get stuff. In the play store, you look up an app, you tap “INSTALL” and you’re done. To buy an app, the first time it asked me for my credit card details and NEVER AGAIN. I still need to type my google password everytime I buy something but I WANTED that so no one else would make purchases. Everything else is a tap and swipe away.

To those saying Windows is better, it’s not. Counter-intuitive to a C, you need to jump through 20 hoops simply to switch on your wifi or other simple things. Apps are arranged in long lines instead of neat icons etc etc.

By: Marc Forrester

Marc Forrester — Sun, 30 Jun 2013 00:11:35 +0000

Heh. Wait ’til you need to restore the thing from a backup. It’s entirely as bad as the initial setup, with the added bonus that any tiny misstep will tie up your phone for about a week, and occasionally brick it.

By: Roman K

Roman K — Sat, 29 Jun 2013 19:06:55 +0000

Yeah, iTunes, App Store and everything around those things are the worst pieces of software Apple ever produced. It’s funny how they able to make it even worser with any new release.

However, a lot of other stuff they do in a right way, but a lot of other minor issues are wrong too. But they’re less wrong than those at Win and Android for me.

By: Leonick

Leonick — Sat, 29 Jun 2013 13:54:15 +0000

I’ll give you the security questions thing, that’s a mess, always is since you can never type your own…

You didn’t see the search filed in safari because it hides when the address bar is selected and vice versa.

The reason it asked for billing information and had “forgot” some of it is actually a security measure, if you have a card added for billing you’ll have to type in the three digit security number on any new device you log in to.

By: Gnoupi

Gnoupi — Sat, 29 Jun 2013 05:15:31 +0000

To be fair, once you have the apple id fully set (security questions, billing), it’s much less of a pain.

It will still ask each time for your permission to use location (you might not want to share that with any website), and ask for your password every time you want to install something. Even if it’s free. I assume this bit is to make sure it’s you installing it. And not, say, your kid to who you borrowed the device to play with.

By: Eagle0600

Eagle0600 — Sat, 29 Jun 2013 04:02:32 +0000

Yeesh, my experience with Android was much better.

By: fm

fm — Sat, 29 Jun 2013 01:41:53 +0000

should’ve got a windows phone

By: Jason L

Jason L — Sat, 29 Jun 2013 01:19:22 +0000

Oh yeah, the other half. A few years ago I was limping along as makeshift IT at the small company where I work. I’d been on a Linux window manager/desktop environment spree, everything from Gnome down to Enlightenment down to wmii, and OSX at the time was still a fairly new and exciting thing. I was looking forward to trying it out. Most of it was fine, the app packaging was notably elegant, but that supposedly transcendent UI…my most vivid memory is trying to remove a thing from the dock. The absolute only way is to drag it to the desktop, which in only that case is interpreted as ‘nowhere’. You cannot, I assure you, drag it to Trash which vanishes, Command-, Option- or Long-click it, or use the Delete key. Hope you didn’t want to put it on your desktop, because if you do it just vanished! The Backspace key not working in the terminal by default was another highlight. Apple’s stuff is competent, but the supposed uncanny slickness remains Kool-Aid.

By: Jason L

Jason L — Sat, 29 Jun 2013 01:07:16 +0000

I had an iPod Touch 1 for a while, which was a great PDA and got me into that wonderful first wave of iOS gaming. I still have it, but it’s in pieces now after the dock port went bad, I bought the wrong dock port, started modding it for a miniUSB A and to run continuously off a barrel charger, and got occupied by other crap. I just recently admitted I’m not going to finish it any time soon and it can’t run remotely recent apps, caved and got a Galaxy Tab 2 7″, largely because I’m excited about the Minuum 1-dimensional software/peripheral keyboard. Think I’ma dual-boot it into Arch, having found out a few days ago that that’s a thing one can do.

By: Clay

Clay — Fri, 28 Jun 2013 22:49:25 +0000

Thank you for trying this and posting your experience. I’ve always been curious, and this satisfies my curiosity.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Fri, 28 Jun 2013 22:24:33 +0000

It sounds like a bad compromise between legal requirements and the principles of user-interface design.

The lawyers tell Apple that they have to get an explicit opt-in for any potentially intrusive service that might give someone grounds to sue if they didn’t realise what they were agreeing to, and it’s only valid if the user confirms his or her identity. The UI team insist that they can’t harass the users with scary legal messages and constant demands of “your papers, comrade!”.

The result is a “passive-aggressive” system that forces you to jump through legal hoops while pretending that it isn’t really doing that.

By: John

John — Fri, 28 Jun 2013 21:48:29 +0000

Windows Phone is a much better starter smartphone than an iPhone. People will say otherwise, but I think your article makes it clear that iPhones aren’t as simple as everyone thinks.

By: Martin

Martin — Fri, 28 Jun 2013 21:38:05 +0000

As a long time iPhone user and app developer, I’d just like to point out that many of the obstacles and dialogs you encountered have been added incrementally for each version of the OS because of all the privacy paranoia that has been spread in the media over the last few years. Some warranted, some not so much. There is going to be even MORE of this stuff in iOS 7, for the very same reasons.

By: Pariahpism

Pariahpism — Fri, 28 Jun 2013 21:36:19 +0000

I went through the same thing with the Ipad1. Here’s a link to my blog detailing my experience:

http://www.dailyvillain.com/blog/index.php?id=181

I wasn’t grouchy; I was absolutely furious. It took all I had to not smash it, but rather give it away to my friend. I couldn’t stand the sight of it.

By: Fin C

Fin C — Fri, 28 Jun 2013 21:31:08 +0000

By the way, thank you for addressing that final paragraph solely to me. I appreciate it. :)

By: Fin C

Fin C — Fri, 28 Jun 2013 21:26:33 +0000

Yeeesh, that certainly sounds complicated and frustrating. Perhaps all people go through this experience but no-one dares speak out against the technology, because that might look like a tacit admission that that person is at fault because the technology has a reputation for being effortless in its use.