Iphone — Poorly tested products

The original iPhone was a Christmas gift to me. It looks great, and sounds like it would be very helpful and make one very productive.

Nonsense!

I got my iPhone well after the original release. It malfunctioned monthly for the first four months I had it. Time and time again, I learned, Apple had shipped the product without adequately testing the software required the make it work properly. Release after release of software was supposed to fix the bugs. It didn't happen.

After four consecutive months of problems, and more than a dozen hours in Apple Stores and installing updated software, a supervisor on the telephone told me that he would send me a temporary unit by overnight air and have my unit examined and either repaired or replaced. His overnight shipment arrived SIX days later because Apple Computer cannot even write a shipping label correctly. They omitted the signficiant information I provide (and lied on the phone saying it was on the label). By the time the temporary unit arrived, a new version of software seemed to fix the problem.

Knowing that my original iPhone was such a lemon, the same person bought me the new iPhone 3G hoping that it would come with properly tested software. It did not. What I have subsequentlly been told by an Apple employee is: (1) the 3G network coverage supplied by AT&T is sparse in many large cities (I live in Chicago, and that is my experience), (2) in 3G mode if you leave an area of 3G coverage a call in progress is dropped, (3) in 3G mode the battery runs down twice as fast so that you can't make it through the day without recharging if you use it much, and (4) there are known software problems which Apple prefers not to advertise. In short, Apple and their partner-in-misrepresentation AT&T, have set up a very glitzy advertising campaign to sell a product with known shortfalls that they never mention.

I [censor]ed enough to get a refund on my 3G. However, I am still stuck with the original iPhone which is equally useless unless you get a thrill out of diagnosing failures and fixing them.

I have better things to do.

It will be a cold day in hell before I ever buy anything else of Apple Computer.