The iPhone crashes. A lot.

Calls drop all the time. Safari, the Apple web browser, crashes continually. Woe on you if you navigate a partially-loaded page (fed up with the abysmally slow AT&T network). The mail app creaks when opening, often leaving you with a blank white unresponsive screen. The SMS program occasionally refuses to open.

Owning an iPhone—even the second-generation iPhone—is much like fighting through Internet Explorer 5 or Netscape 3.0 on Windows ’95. When it works, you get a clear sense that this is the new way of doing things. Through the grime of incompetent implementation can be seen glances of what could, and likely will, be.

But holy shit, man. For the first time in a decade, I have to periodically shutdown and reboot a computing device in order to keep it working. What?! This is the era of protected memory spaces, of preemptive multitasking, of garbage collecting programming languages. The rats nest of memory leaks, of shuddering freezes and race conditions underlying the gloss, is totally inexcusable. How come nobody talks about this?

Apple justifies their aggressive control of their products—refusing to allow third party hardware manufacturers, third-party web, mail or SMS apps on the iPhone—by claiming this control makes sure things “just work.” Apple, things aren’t just working.

I can’t say I regret my purchase. The iPhone—and particularly Safari—have changed how I interact with the Internet and organize myself. That browser is incredible. But I’d suggest people take a long and hard look at Google’s android platform-based phones. Not everyone enjoys reliving the Windows 95 era.

Good thing I didn’t try posting this from my iPhone—gotta go reboot the thing again.

Jonathan Golob is an actual doctor.

53 replies on “iPhone 95”

  4. I have zero problems with my 1st gen 16gb. Zero. I don’t even have the Safari crashing problem anymore. Don’t have the push problem, don’t have the drop-call problem, don’t know why your mail app is “creaks.”

    I love my iPhone. Maybe I got a lucky one? Good thing I dropped my last one in the lake.

  5. The slowness of AT&Ts 3G network might actually be attributable to the mass influx of 3G data connection users due to the iPhone… just some food for thought.

  7. I think you must have a defective iPhone. I use my iPhone a LOT (at least half my Slog comments are from my phone) and I’ve never had had any of these problems except for Safari crashing sometimes. I’ve never reboot it except once when I downloaded a sketchy app. I had to look up how and I don’t remember now.

    See other people’s problems (mostly missing features) here, none of yours are listed except the browser crashes: pleasefixtheiphone.com

  8. I’ve owned 2, and they’ve both worked remarkably well. I have 92 apps installed (including the built-in stuff), and I rarely restart the phone. It’s nearly always incredibly responsive.

    I’ve used Android, and would say THAT experience is much closer to Windows 95. The iPhone doesn’t always perform perfectly, but the UI and design of the device and the apps is the real promise, not a world free of software bugs.

    (Speaking of, remember when Android executed SMS messages as root? That was neat.)

  9. I’ve reflashed my firmware, pruned apps–everything.

    The damn thing still crashes with me.

    If I have any detail that I could add, that differentiates how I use the phone from others, it’s I’m often in places with poor RF and a lot of interference. (Labs and all.)

    The phone doesn’t seem to handle shoddy network connections well.

    I love the interface. I love the browser. But seriously. Safari crashed twice and the mail app once as I was drafting this post.

  10. My second gen iPhone does that thing Golob mentions, where it’ll crash if I’m scrolling a page that’s not downloaded fully. The NY Times reader app just crashes for the hell of it though, so far as I can tell.

  11. I’ve neeeever had the mail app crash. I don’t think I’ve been anywhere in Seattle where I haven’t had at least a decent edge connection, usually good 3G. I’ve heard people who had bad 3G connections traded in their iPhones and then they worked great. Maybe one of your wires or tubes is loose.

  12. Jrrl and others:

    Do you use IMAP email accounts on the iPhone? My gmail account plays nicely. IMAP seems to cause conniptions for me.

  14. I use IMAP for multiple accounts, works great. Mail is actually the app with which I have the least problems of any kind. I can’t remember having any.

  15. The big problems with the iPhone started with the 2.0 software. Now I have to reboot my iPhone every day and, when I’m not rebooting it, I’m turning on and off Airplane mode so I it can detect the signal correctly. This is very similar to the problems that Leopard (latest OS X) has in the Mac platform, the previous release (Tiger) was fast and stable, the latest I would not touch at all.
    Still, the iPhone is better than a lot of phones out there. At least for now.
    And don’t even get me started with iTunes. I hate iTunes.

  17. I’ve had my iPhone for over a year and have only had it crash a handful of times – maybe 4 or 5. And I use it pretty constantly. Like you said, it’s changed the way I interact with the world forever. Anyway, the point is, OBVIOUSLY your fingers secrete some kind of allergen that the iPhone can’t tolerate.

  18. I don’t remember ever having a problem with Mail. Safari does crash often, but the rest of the programs are pretty stable. I’d go into the Apple Store and get a new iPhone. I know it seems apologist, but it sounds like you have some bad hardware. Worst case scenario is you get a shiny, new phone!

  19. iPhones are for pre-2006 high flyer types with too much money and too little tech savvy.

    Linux powered Netbooks with WiMax. Now there’s tomorrow…

  20. There is something wrong with yours. My safari crashes from time to time, but nothing else. I’m a heavy user, and I’ve had my original 8GB for over a year.

    You say you’ve reflashed. But do you then just load your previous “backed up” profile right back on? Try resetting it to factory, and then set it up from scratch, don’t restore from a backup. Or maybe you have bad hardware?

  21. You should really consider getting new hardware. None of my friends with iPhones have reported those kinds of problems. And my iPhone has worked near-flawlessly, with three exceptions:

    a) Safari crashes. often.

    b) Since upgrading to 2.x, apps take a long time to load up.

    c) Once, when I was out dancing and trying to get someone’s number, every time I pressed the Phone app, a different random application would come up instead. Then whatever app came up wouldn’t work properly. As soon as I left the building, things worked again.

  25. I have an iPod Touch and don’t have these problems. But, I’m not trying to use it through the cell phone network. The Touch is a very cool device.

  27. Mobile Safari is definitely buggy as hell, but I haven’t experienced all the problems Jonathan has. I do occasionally need to reboot the phone due to random hangs (maybe once a month, which is a lot in this era). 2.x is definitely slower, but not appreciably less stable for me.

    I’m on first generation 8 gig running the 2.1 firmware, jailbroken and whatnot of course (Use AT&T? Fuck no). I use IMAP, but only with one account.

    Sadly, as much as I hate the iPhone, I’ve yet to use a mobile I like better. I’ve been playing with mobile gadgetry for years (Newton, Palm Pilot, Zaurus, Symbian and so on) and I’ve never kept one as part of my daily routine past the honeymoon phase until the iPhone. Also, the hardware’s been exemplary (which is good, since I can’t get it serviced by Apple!).

    I’d prefer the iPhone be eclipsed by something decently open (openmoko ideally, or android less ideally), but I haven’t had as negative experiences as Jonathan has.

    @15: Amen. iTunes fucking sucks. It’s like a bad Microsoft parody of bloatware.

  28. The great thing about Apple products is that when they work, they work well and you don’t really have to worry about the back end. But oh boy, when they don’t work, you really have to hit the books to figure it out.

  29. God bless you JG. I look forward to your posts.

    Please bring back boxes around each comment. Text swimming in a full white screen is a bit too much white for me.

  30. 22, I’ve never had a dropped call and call quality is fine. Coverage is really good in the Seattle area at least. I’m in the middle of nowhere in the suburbs right now and I have full bars 3G.

    PS The Seattle Bus app may be the best thing ever made. I don’t know how I rode the bus without it.

  31. I think you’re right about being in an area of interference and that the iphone doesn’t like shoddy network connections.

    With that said, the iPhone is the best communications hardware I’ve ever used and I’ve had experience with the Blackberry (functional) and Windows Mobile (god, never ever ever again) phones.

    My safari crashes, but I don’t have to reboot the phone much at all (once every couple weeks maybe?) about the same time as I did my blackberry and a fraction of the time with the WM device (twice a day, sometimes more).

    I’m sure if you went to the apple store and talked to a “genius” or whatever bullshit name they have, they’d give you a new one.

  33. Don’t be an idiot and complain (fat lot of good that will do you!).

    Go to the Apple Store and return it. IT HAS A WARRANTY and Apple’s people are really nice and helpful.

    Mine never crashes, I use Mail all the time, Safari every day. I very rarely have a problem.

  35. Safari crashed 10 times when I was reading this post and trying to comment. I am on a laptop now…

    I think I need to take my iPhone phone in for service.

  38. I’m with you, Jonathan. My iPhone frequently drops calls and crashes at least once a week, often more. I have hardly anything stored on it. But when it works, it’s such an incredible device; I don’t ever want to go back to my pre-smart phone life.

  39. I had a Sprint 6700 for two years and now have a Spring 6800 (Mogul.) Fucking rocks, Sprint EVDO is faster than a cable modem (though my 400MHz CPU is the gate) and Outlook (use at work) sync is flawless. And it cost half as much as an iPhone.

    But enjoy your stylishness.

  41. If I get another Safari crash, I’m going to throw mine out a window.
    Also, that NYTimes app crashes so often that it’s useless. I just load the webpage in Safari.

  42. My first-generation phone never crashes anymore. Safari used to, but not for a few months after an update. Hmmmm. WTF do you people who crash all the time do to it? Maybe Steve Jobs should take your phone away.

  43. An easy way to make Safari crash:

    (1) Start playing a song.
    (2) Switch to Safari.
    (3) Load a Javascript- and media- heavy page, like CNN.com. Start browsing.

    Give it five minutes. Make sure you keep browsing when the audio starts skipping. These steps have ‘worked’ every time for me, and it’s done this ever since the day I bought the iPhone a year ago.

  49. Okay, seriously? John Bailo is twice the troll you’ll ever be – he at least has the good sense not to recycle insults that were played out by the end of fourth grade.

  50. I have a first generation 4 gig iPhone. I was a huge evangelist for the iPhone and convinced a couple friends to get them.

    When the 3g phones came out, I installed the new v2 software on my old phone. My phone is now as wonky as all get out. Safari sometimes completely crashes my phone, and often gets extremely slow. Typing into the google maps application is so slow as to make it almost unusable. When I switch conversations in the text messaging app, they take forever to load. Sometimes the phone completely hangs, even when I’m shutting it down. Once it was shutting down for an entire airplane flight – I pulled it out of my seat pocket when we landed to discover the circular shutdown wheel was STILL whirring.

    My battery life is amazing, and my phone miraculously works despite the lower half of the screen being shattered, but the software issues are horrendous (and yes, they were problems before I broke my screen).

Comments are closed.