ISSUES OF IPHONE

A Research Paper on the Capabilities, Usability Issues of iPhone

A Research Paper on the Capabilities, Usability Issues of iPhone

Introduction

With the release of iPhone 2.0 software, and especially the App Store, the iPhone has taken a significant step toward being a Mac "in your pocket," rather than merely a smart phone. While the emphasis here is on the benefits of being a Mac, there are a few downsides to consider. In particular, there are application crashes (Apple Insider, 2007). While these unwelcome events happened occasionally even with iPhone 1.x, their likelihood has increased significantly with the explosion of third-party software now available. This paper discusses the capabilities, usability issues of iPhone in a concise and comprehensive way.

Capabilities of the iPhone

iPhone has lots of capabilities and it impacts human lives in a number of ways.

The iPhone allows audio conferencing, call holding, call merging, caller ID, and integration with other cellular network features and iPhone functions. For example, if a song is playing while a call is received, it gradually fades out, and fades back when the call has ended. The proximity sensor shuts off the screen and touch-sensitive circuitry when the iPhone is brought close to the face, both to save battery and prevent unintentional touches. This iPhone does not support video calling or videoconferencing because the camera and screen are on opposite sides of the device. The first two models only support voice dialing through third party applications. Voice control, available only on the iPhone 3GS, allows users to say a contact's name or number and the iPhone will dial.

The iPhone includes a visual voicemail (in some countries) feature allowing users to view a list of current voicemail messages on-screen without having to call into their voicemail. Unlike most other systems, messages can be listened to and deleted in a non-chronological order by choosing any message from an on-screen list.

A music ringtone feature was introduced in the United States on September 5, 2007. Users can create custom ringtones from songs purchased from the iTunes Store for a small additional fee. The ringtones can be 3 to 30 seconds long from any part of a song, can fade in and out, pause from half a second to five seconds when looped, or loop continuously. All customizing can be done in iTunes, or alternatively with Apple's GarageBand software 4.1.1 or later (available only on Mac OS X) or third-party tools.

The layout of the music library is similar to that of an iPod or current Symbian S60 phones. The iPhone can sort its media library by songs, artists, albums, videos, playlists, genres, composers, podcasts, audiobooks, and compilations. Options are always presented alphabetically, except in playlists, which retain their order from iTunes. The iPhone uses a large font that allows users plenty of room to touch their selection. Users can rotate their device horizontally to landscape mode to access Cover Flow. Like on iTunes, this feature shows the different album covers in a scroll-through photo library. Scrolling is achieved by swiping a finger across ...