“Walter S. Mossberg, The Wall Street Journal’s personal-technology columnist, picked up his review copy of the Apple iPhone this morning, and he gave his initial impressions of the much-anticipated gadget to college leaders during a speech at The Chronicle’s Presidents Forum,” Jeffrey R. Young reports for The Chronicle of Higher Education.
“‘I don’t know whether I’ll give it a good review or not,’ he said, noting that he will use the phone for the next couple of weeks before writing his review. ‘I can already see some things I don’t like about it. I see some other things that I do like a lot about it,'” Young reports.
Mossberg said a crucial question was how the iPhone’s touch-screen keyboard works.
Young reports, “‘They are claiming that through clever software they have figured out a way for this to be actually far more accurate and efficient than you think it will be, and I’m testing that proposition,’ he said. ‘And I can tell you that in the first hour it works a little better than I thought, but I’m still not sure it works as well as a regular keyboard — and the first hour is not a very fair test, so I’m going to keep going at it.'”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “MacVicta” for the heads up.]
Walt is usually pretty straight with his reviews. He doesn’t mind calling a spade for a spade. I’ll trust his review more than some of the others that have only had it for a day or two
Hopefully he likes it.
my biggest fear from the iPhone Features is that touch-screen. many companies have tried touch-screen interfaces and miserably failed.
and if “Uncle Walt”, the biggest mac fanboy around, doesnt like the touch screen, things could get ugly for Apple and the iPhone…
“‘I don’t know whether I’ll give it a good review or not, … “
Translation: “See? I’m credible and fair.
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Give it a rest, Mossberg. Say NOTHING until you’re ready to give a review.
Hmmmm… I’ve been extremely skeptical of the touchscreen keyboard as well. Just trying to type in addresses on my GPS system in the car is a complete nightmare!! If Walt gives iPhone a negative review, it could tremendously cool sales of the iPhone and it might not be as big of a hit as we all thought it would be.
@MacBill
Your auto’s GPS isn’t running on top of OS X. We will all have to wait and see. I have no experience using the little QWERTY keypads on smartphones, so I am wondering how the iPhone touchscreen keys will seem to me or others with no preconceived notion how should behave. I know that texting on a regular phone keypad is HORRIBLE, so it has to be a lot better than that.
> If Walt gives iPhone a negative review, it could tremendously cool sales of the iPhone and it might not be as big of a hit as we all thought it would be.
Come on… One person’s review (good or bad) is not going to make iPhone a success or failure. If ol’ Walt had that much power, Apple Mac market share would be in double-digits by now, and the iPod would have already sold 200 million units.
Todays stock already reflects his comments. Thanks, Walt. Keep it in the bag until you’ve finished your complete test.
Judging how I type in messages for the RAZR using the numeric keypads, I see the iPhone’s touch screen QWERTY keyboard as a better alternative. Now if they can only include MMS…
Typing probably works as well as in the last Newton model; accurate if you don’t push it. For real work you will still need a separate Bluetooth keyboard.
> I’ve been extremely skeptical of the touchscreen keyboard as well.
Whether it’s better or worse than a physical mini-keyboard is not as relevant as some people seem to think. Most of the people buying iPhones will not be replacing a fancy “smartphone”; the iPhone will be their first “fancy” phone. Their current phone will be the cheap phone that was free or came for under $100 with their existing plans. Such customers will find a relatively large on-screen touch keyboard to be a huge improvement over using the number keys to tap out text messages. Whether it is better or worse than a “chicklet” keyboard is not so important, because most of the new iPhones users will not have experienced it.
Simple…if you are used to using a manual button keyboard, your brain is programmed to feel the button depress.
You are used to it, therefore the new touchscreen on the iPhone is gonna take some getting used to. That is why I groan hearing Walt say that so early, not having some time with it. This is also the same for long-time Windows users…the Mac is tremendously better, but it doesn’t feel that way at first because of the programmed tendencies we have based on time spent. UGH!, I thought Mr. Mossberg was smart enough in his statements, as his reviews change our consumer view of companies, which either hurts or helps them.
Interesting that Mossberg felt compelled to write about the iPhone when he’d only had it in his hands for an hour. Talk about first impressions.
Of course, I don’t know if that’s good or bad, but I’m sure Mossberg will give it a pretty fair shake.
Has anyone ever used a keyboard on a Palm Treo? I have. It sucks. iPhone cannot be worse than that. That aside, all of the other features should not be ignored. Full internet! Visual Voice Mail! It’s a mobile Mac in your pocket.
People will vilify or beatify his review, no matter what he says or “whether he gives it a good review or not”, so it’s all relative to how your own personal experience is, assuming, of course, that you’re willing to shell out the $$$ for it.
I haven’t tried it yet. How can I be sceptical?
If Walt does not like it, I will not get one. Walt is an honest reviewer.
Free phones, that’s a laugh.
At an average phone bill of $40 a month, that’s almost $500 a year for that free phone.
MacDaily News:
STOP INFECTING YOUR SITE WITH CRFAP ADWARE BLAH BLAH …VERY LOW ACT PULL YOUR FINGER OUT … OR GET! OUT! OF APPLE!
MacSmiley – Mossberg didn’t write the article. Jeffrey Young wrote the article after Mossberg made a few comments about his new test iPhone while giving a speech to college leaders
I’ll tell you guys how well I like my iPhone when I get mine (hopefully on June 29). I’m already signed up with AT&T and on the wait list for one.
I just hope they bring out a range of iPhones to suite different needs. If there was a more conventional (evolutionary rather than revolutionary) version using real buttons instead of a touch screen then I think everyone could be satisfied. Apple could take on a much bigger chunk of the phone market and not just a little niche.
He’s old. Of course he can’t type on the onscreen keyboard. He probably doesn’t know what SMS. Oops… I think half of the US doesn’t either. Oh, well.
You don’t like the onscreen keyboard, get a small external BlueTooth keyboard. Still better than a keypad or one of those thumb keyboards.
Thank god some one is going to use the phone before writing a review I am so upset with reviews of the iphone by people that have never used it and have only seen pictures of it.
What I want to know about the Keyboard is this: can you switch it to DVORAK? QWERTY is a fvcking lame joke, a lowest common denominator holdback from MECHANICAL TYPING. It’s time to move forward for Odin’s sake.
Dvorak keyboards get everything wrong.
Just ask John, he uses one.
Big Al
Dvorak keyboards get everything wrong.
Just ask John, he uses one.
Heh. Funny.
And in surprise news just in, the latest completely touchscreen only keyboard works just as badly as all others that preceded it.
Actually, this one popped into my head this weekend. I need to ask someone about while I’m here at WWDC.
So I get on the flight to come here. What’s the first thing they say? “Please turn off all cell phones and pagers and network devices.” Okay, fair enough.
How do you turn off the cell phone and WiFi from your iPhone, yet still keep the video iPod functioning?
Yes, I’m sure there is a way to do this. But someone I mentioned this to brought up the interesting point: “They may not have thought of it. After all, Steve has his own airplane…”
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Peter, it’s called Airplane Mode. Plenty of cell phones have it.
Allows your phone to remain on and functional with the radio cut off.
Apple will have needed to include it in order for the non-cellular parts of the iPhone (such as the iPod section) to remain in use during flights.
“get a small external BlueTooth keyboard. Still better than a keypad or one of those thumb keyboards.”
Better still, put an entire laptop in your pocket. Just get special pants made. The point of the iPhone is to reduce the number of gadgets you carry around, not increase them.
If the design is so bad that you can’t type on it effectively, you’ll just find that it’s not owned and used by people who want to do any significant typing. They’ll buy and carry a separate iPod and another type of phone rather than an iPhone and a bluetooth keyboard.
Seems to me this entire discussion board is missing the point of the touch screen keyboard, and why it will inevitably be a HUGE success….
…wait for it…
…it’s minimalist! It doesn’t increase the size of the phone…heck it doesn’t even exist unless you’re using it! That’s pretty much as minimalist as you can get.
So, the success of the iPhone has got little to do with whether it’s keyboard is better or worse functionally than a physical keyboard.
Move along folks, move along…
It’s a 1st generation phone people! And just like any product, there’s things people will like about it, and there’s things they won’t like about it quite naturally. I don’t give a crap what he thinks in just an hour of use, we’ll see how well the public receives it when it’s released. I’m more interested in its web performance, or more importantly AT&Ts; network capability to deliver a good experience.
I’m using a Blackberry 8800 since 2 months and I really doubt that a touch-screen could possibly up my current message speed. The only huge flaw of the blackberry is the lack of 3G. Also, the fact that I had to buy Missing Sync – just to be able to sync Entourage with the BB feels somewhat backwards; it’s simlply not supported by iSync, duh. Even though this is the best smartphone I’ve used so far – it’s safe to say that the Scandinavians and the Asians simply have better GUIs, better featuresets and, of course, they’re aimed at countries about 5years ahead of the american tele tech. Okay, make that at least 5 years.
“heck it doesn’t even exist unless you’re using it!”
Heck it barely even works when you are using it. it’s almost like having a phone with no keyboard. minimalist indeed.
I thought technophobic dinosaurs were almost extinct…
MDN Word: “Almost”
“I thought technophobic dinosaurs were almost extinct…”
There’s a difference between being a technophobe and preferring a product with a thumb keyboard which is actually practical to use.
This will not be the device that heavy duty emailers choose.
Basically it’s going to appeal to those who want a basic phone and an low capacity iPod in one oversized, overpriced package.