User anger: iPhone 3G problems emerging

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Danny Gorog14 August 2008, 12:14 PM

The iPhone is not all it was cracked up to be, say some frustrated early adopters.

The launch of the iPhone 3G has been embarrassing for Apple in many respects: its rocky MobileMe push email service experienced outage after outage and has been widely regarded as a public relations disaster. Now, purchasers of the iPhone 3G are reporting a wide range of problems from 'glitchy 3G reception' to hairline cracks in the plastic casing of their phones.

While reports around iPhone 3G reception problems are largely anecdotal, some users are up in arms about problems with what they feel were false promises about the speed of the device.

Tom Piotrowski, Managing Director of Unixpac IT told the Sydney Morning Herald that the the speeds he's seeing on his iPhone 3G and the Optus 3G network are 'not what you expect especially when they make the claim that the 3G network is supposed to be that much faster.' Piotrowski indicates that the iPhone 3G should be able to download at the maximum quoted network speed.

One thing's for sure: In my personal testing of iPhone 3G on all three networks (Telstra, Optus and Vodafone) I can say with certainty that the 3G network coverage and real-life performance of both Optus and Vodafone in some areas is substantially inferior to Telstra's Next G network. The iPhone 3G on Optus often loses reception in the middle of Melbourne's CBD, where one would expect reception to be strong. When using a Telstra Next G SIM in the same spot, the iPhnoe gets full reception.

The network speeds seem to dramatically differ between Optus, Vodafone and Telstra too. Telstra's network (which is presumably far less congested due to the extremely high prices Telstra charges) allows web pages to be viewed and refreshed much faster than on the other two networks.

Another report from Richmond Windsor, a financial analyst (not to be mistaken for an engineer) of Nomura, a 'leading financial services group' is blaming the reception issues on the iPhone 3G's chipset, manufacturered by Infineon. His reasoning is rather questionably based on his 'experience from 5 years ago' when he heard 'similar complaints' from users of the first generation of 3G phones introduced into the European market. He says he suspects the Infineon 3G radio stack is immature.

A video uploaded to YouTube shows the comparison between a 'real' iPhone 3G and one used in Apple's TV commercial. Clearly, Apple shows the website operating much faster than it ever could in real life -- an advertising representation that may well cause them to run into trouble with advertising regulators in some countries.

Apple's intense secrecy isn't helping matters. Telco sources who spoke to APC on the condition of anonymity on the iPhone 3G launch day said it was frustrating that they'd only been given iPhone 3Gs the day before the launch, which did not allow them to do adequate network compatibility testing as they normally would with new handsets.

Apple is already seeding a new version of the iPhone operating system (2.1) to developers, and this may bring some reception quality relief if the radio stack is upgraded. But as always with Apple, the company isn't saying, let alone acknowledging any problems with the handset.

Complaints over weak reception don't seem to be slowing Apple's sales momentum. Some analysts are pegging iPhone sales at over 4.1 million in the September quarter alone.

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tfacter (User):

itunes movies finally released

14 August 2008, 1:35 PM (3 months ago)report abuse Send to a friend

McBanjo (Regular user):

Way to draw the attention away....

But wow, did you know that advertising is misleading? As in, what happens in ads doesn't happen in real life. Who would've thought?

14 August 2008, 1:52 PM (3 months ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Dan Warne (Administrator):

Heh heh, yes :) Of course. But nonetheless, consumers' purchasing decisions are influenced by the representations made in product advertising, so companies can't falsely make a product look better than it is.

That's why in food advertising when they photograph the can of soup, they can only replace the contents of the soup with exactly the same quantity of meat/vegies etc in the photos, so the soup doesn't look chunkier and more delicious than it is.

It's why Telstra couldn't get away with advertising Next G as "everywhere you need it", because it's not. (And I'm actually with the ACCC on this one... there are huge long stretches of the railway between Wollongong and Sydney where there's no Next G coverage, and not only do I need it there, but I reckon it's perfectly reasonable to expect it to be there.)

It's why car manufacturers can't show a car scaling a mountain in a way that the car could not possibly actually do. And why a car manufacturer that shows a 4WD churning through a raging river has to pay the repair cost of people's cars when they actually drive through the river and wreck their engine.

It's why ISPs ultimately all had to stop advertising their broadband plans that had 'acceptable usage policies' as being 'unlimited'. Because they're not. They're actually limited.

For some reason, the technology industry has got away with totally false speed claims up till now. Intel seems to be about the only player that is deliberately conservative in its claims, because I suppose it knows it has the most to lose -- it's a juicy target for a regulator to attack.

Apple -is- foolish to have sped up the iPhone so much on the ad, especially considering one of the key marketing points of the phone is actually speed, and the ad itself is talking about speed.

Based on my own testing, there.is.no.way. an iPhone could be that fast in real life -- even on a WiFi network.

14 August 2008, 3:25 PM (3 months ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Tin (Advanced Forumologist):

Partly the problems may come down to first time mobile internet users thinking it should be as fast as their home connections.

14 August 2008, 3:28 PM (3 months ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Raindog (Advanced Forumologist):

Quoting Tin:
Partly the problems may come down to first time mobile internet users thinking it should be as fast as their home connections.

But isn't that the problem? and it not just first time users, the advertising hype has suggested mobile Internet as a universal replacement for established broadband technologies. Those who had been convinced this was true and found this not to be the case along with an expensive two year contract have every right to be aggrieved.

16 August 2008, 11:25 PM (3 months ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Mark.P (New user):

I don't think its an expectation thing. I would argue that my old N96 Nokia got constant reception in ALL 3G areas. The iPhone 3G is inconsistent with its 3G reception in strong 3G areas and does drop a LOT of calls. I would argue that Apple should replaced the phone with new ones without the Infineon faulty chipset or refund in full people who which to change. It is defiantly a product issue and not network. Proof is in the pudding. Apple is experiencing the same complaints in Europe, South East Asia and North America as well. I believe its safe to say that this is not a localized network issue but more likely to be badly tested product having being released into the market place. Keep in mind that dropping 3G reception and then renegotiating a connection back to 3G reception constantly also increases battery usage substantially. I for this reason an giving Apple until release version 2.1 of the Apple firmware to make the fixes or asking for my money back.

14 August 2008, 4:16 PM (3 months ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Bill Taylor (New user):

Ahhhh what can one say ... SUCKED IN TO THE MANY SILLY PEOPLE WHO BELIEVED THE HYPE!! Like so much that APPLE does the launch of the iPhone was a (too) carefully managed stage event - completely lacking in substance. Like APPLE's overpriced and under-performing computers and that woeful excuse for an Mp3 player - the iPod - add abit of gloss here, overstate the capabilities of the device there, market, market and market some more - and ... here's a new APPLE product!!

14 August 2008, 4:36 PM (3 months ago)report abuse Send to a friend

tfacter (User):

yes because they lock the speed down on wifi. mainly because the phone wont handle the pressure

14 August 2008, 4:52 PM (3 months ago)report abuse Send to a friend

denrose9 (New user):

As with all advertising and political adverts, promise heaven deliver hell, sounds normal to me. I will stick with my old reliable phone for a while until the next two or three generations when they iron out the bugs.

14 August 2008, 5:02 PM (3 months ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Your Average Joe (Cornerstone member):

Quoting denrose9:
promise heaven deliver hell,

Or to quote Dick Johnson - "They promised me the world and then handed me an atlas"

14 August 2008, 8:12 PM (3 months ago)report abuse Send to a friend

jake (Cornerstone member):

some people are having problems with 3rd party apps on the iphone 3g's os 2.0, it says that wen they open them the iphone crashes the app

15 August 2008, 1:11 PM (3 months ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Potoroo (User):

I have never understood Apple's teflon halo.

15 August 2008, 4:05 PM (3 months ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Nato (New user):

You would think apple would put a note down the bottom of the add stating 'user experience may vary from picture shown' to cover them, noobs. but still, the purchaser had the ability to use the product before to see how slow it was, but people just love to show off there brand new gadgets, now its just 'have a look at this, oh wait, its doing it, just a sec, whats it doing, hey come back'.

15 August 2008, 5:13 PM (3 months ago)report abuse Send to a friend