Another Apple iPhone feature -- it crashes!

[SUBMAN1]

Hahahahaha!

-S

When Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone in January, I wrote,

The other problem is that computers are inherently buggy. Macs crash, and it's frustrating when they do. It's even more frustrating, however, when your music player crashes, and if your phone or your TV crashes, you'll probably want to tear your hair out. The iPhone is so complex -- it's got an accelerometer in it to detect when you flip it sideways, it's got a proximity sensor to tell when it's near your face, it's got to understand myriad finger gestures -- that crashing, or at least slowing down, the way an overworked computer sometimes does, might be a real possibility.

A bunch of MacHeads jumped on me for that, claiming that Macs never crash and that Apple's phone would be similarly solid. This was absurd; the Mac OS is very forgiving, and you've got to do a lot of crazy things to it to bring it down, but it certainly can crash. (For examples, see here and here.) And iPods -- if you've never crashed your iPod, you've never used your iPod; who of us isn't familiar with the Menu + Select button method of reseting an unresponsive Pod?


Well, the iPhone crashes too. My first brush with iPhone death occurred Friday night, shortly after activation. I called the phone from another number to see if its activation had taken -- and when the iPhone began to ring, I hung up on the calling phone. But the iPhone didn't stop ringing. For 10, 15, 20 seconds it continued, ignoring my tapping on the on-screen and physical buttons. Remembering the way to force a PC to turn off, I held down the iPhone's Sleep button -- and after about about 10 seconds, it gave me the shut-down screen.


On Saturday afternoon, I managed an even wilder crash while I was trying to get the phone to connect with a Wi-Fi router that has always been a bit picky. After connecting and disconnecting from the network a few times, I loaded up a Wikipedia page. Halfway through the loading, the phone froze. And now even holding down the Sleep button did nothing.


The third screen of Apple's iPhone Troubleshooting Assistant came to my rescue. It turns out that you restart a frozen iPhone in much the same way you revive a chilled iPod -- "press and hold the Sleep/Wake button and the Home button at the same time until you see the Apple logo."


The MacHeads are going to tell me that all smart phones crash. Well, sure they do. My Windows phone goes down about once a month, and sometimes the only way to get it back up is to pop out the battery for a bit. Not a pretty thing. And Apple, of course, has never promised a crash-free phone -- that it set up a page to help people combat "frozen iPhone and common issues" suggests as much. Indeed, the iPhone even reports its crashes to Apple -- when you sync back up after a crash (even if just a single app, and not the whole phone, has gone down), iTunes asks if you're OK with sending a log to Apple. (Daring Fireball has posted a crash log; scroll to the bottom here.)


Are two crashes in a weekend a bad sign? I should say that neither freeze bothered me too much; each occurred during non-critical tasks -- I wasn't talking on the phone or listening to music -- so I found them more curious than frustrating. Plus the iPhone starts up again in about 20 seconds, much quicker than a Mac or PC. Still, I can't fathom why a missed call caused my phone to fall apart. Is occasional crashing just the cost of being amazing? I hope not. But in case, just remember: Sleep + Home.

http://machinist.salon.com/blog/2007...phone_crashes/

[PeriscopeDepth]

Not a fan of Apple, are you Subman? I can't stand their computers, but I like the iPod.

PD

[fatty]

Originally Posted by PeriscopeDepth

Not a fan of Apple, are you Subman?

Hahahahahaha! What was your first hint?

Anyway, my Motorola L6 crashes daily *shrug* This would be an improvement.

Someone told me it has a calculator included. And only $500-$600, I was most impressed.

[SUBMAN1]

Originally Posted by PeriscopeDepth

Not a fan of Apple, are you Subman? I can't stand their computers, but I like the iPod.

PD

I can't even stand ipod, so no. They make nice looking objects with slick interfaces, but seriously lack any functionality.

An example - how many music formats play on your iPod? 1 last I checked. My iRiver Clix plays pretty much anything and any format. I have even some near lossless (special ogg Vorbis version called GT3b2) off files that range from 100 kbps to 750 kbps and the iRiver doesn't care. What I really want is an 8 GB Clix 2 though. I'd opt for a hard drive based player, but as we all know, hard drives crash and there goes your player. They also don't take too well to any sort of impact. I'll stick with non volitale memory I guess.

This is what the Clix 2 looks like - currently only available in 4 GB. It supports MPEG-4 AVI's in 30 FPS for movies (plus WMV), and also plays flash on top of that. If you care to program, it supports Flash light as a language, so if you feel like making a game or two for it, go for it! (8 GB is on the way as i type this). It also has built in FM radio, a voice recorder for taking notes, full flash lite game support, and album art as well as song tracking capability to figure out your favorites, etc. You can even get a line level out from this thing for hooking into you stereo if need be without distortion. Did i mention this thing actually has an AMOLED screen (way way superior to normal LCD)? Stick that on your iPod! :p The point I'm making by the way is that there is always a superior product to anything that Apple puts out, so I am still trying to figure out how their marketing guys do it, but Apple has probably the best marketing guys on the planet!


Clix 2:











http://www.amazon.com/Iriver-Clix2-C...3518687&sr=8-1

[Tchocky]

God, I love this.

"I kind of like the iPod"

"Enormous thought-out post about why it is not even safe to feed to your kids"

.....only ever happens with brand leaders :p

[SUBMAN1]

I think this review says it all:

I've had my Clix 2 almost a week now and I'm even more impressed with it than I hoped I'd be. The AMOLED screen on this thing is simply gorgeous--much better than the typical LCD screen on most players. It's bright, sharp and the colors are stunningly vibrant. It really blows the screen on my 5th gen "iPod with Video" right out of the water.

The feature set is terrific. It'll play MP3, WMA and OGG audio and AVI and WMV video and display JPGs. Video looks really amazing. It sports an FM tuner, which works well, and it's cool that you can record off the radio or its built-in mic. It comes with a few flash games installed. You can even customize the menu backgrounds....

You can read on at the Amazon site.

-S

[Reaves]

Nearly bought an IRiver when my Ipod stopped working. Luckily I delayed a day because my IPOD came back to life.

I agree with the fact it crashes all the time. Some days i'll get in my car and the thing won't turn on but the next day it's all roses.

Pfft typical for computers though.

[NefariousKoel]

I dance in celebration of yet more Apple dumb@ssery.

I can't say I'm too surprised, either.

[Skybird]

Why don'T you just get one of these:

[d@rk51d3]

Damn right.

[stabiz]

iPods (and anything else that starts with "i") is just overprized jewelry.

[HunterICX]

Originally Posted by stabiz

iPods (and anything else that starts with "i") is just overprized jewelry.

Yep...

I have a MP3 player..it can do the same thing as a ipod..but its a lot cheaper

[Konovalov]

The last Apple product that I ever had was an Apple IIc computer when I was a kid.

[AVGWarhawk]

Originally Posted by stabiz

iPods (and anything else that starts with "i") is just overprized jewelry.

I wonder if I can get a gold chain and have it hanging from my neck:hmm: ? I can tell you right now I do not want one. I have a cell phone that I hate. Why would I want another gadget that people can get a hold of me 9 more different ways? Somehow I see myself backing over this thing with my car The we would really see a crash!