Comments on: That iPhone guy must be a deceiving bastard.

By: iPhone 2.02 resolves stability issues — Alec Saunders SquawkBox

iPhone 2.02 resolves stability issues — Alec Saunders SquawkBox — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 11:44:12 +0000

[...] Stability seems dramatically improved. I haven’t seem email, Safari, or Facebook crash yet this morning. [...]

By: Alec

Alec — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 21:08:39 +0000

Yes, Cliff, I could have been more precise. My apologies. What I meant was that I have chosen to go back to accessing my Exchange inbox via IMAP rather than the new Exchange bits that are included with iPhone OS 2.01. Touch wood – that appears to have solved my problems with email. But I still see Safari crashing on me a half dozen or more times a day, and that’s something I’ve never seen from any mobile device.

By: Cliff McCollum

Cliff McCollum — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 20:59:31 +0000

I’m confused. You uninstalled the Exchange Client? There is no Exchange Client, just the built-in Email application, which cannot be uninstalled.

That said, I’ll agree that the iPhone 3G isn’t the most stable device I’ve ever used – but it is far better than the Treo and Win-Mobile devices I’ve had in the past.

As for the comment about MacOS X above, I can’t say that I share his experiences. My MacOS X experiences are certainly better than any Windows experiences, and at least on-par with any Linux machines I use.

As for Linux users not having an axe to grind? It’s possible, but I’ve yet to met an actual Linux user who wasn’t at least as biased about his OS as the best Mac fan-boy.

By: David Megginson

David Megginson — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 13:26:27 +0000

Alec, I think that Apple’s reputation for reliability is a hold-over from the task-switching days mid 1990s, before they had to worry about adapting to modern technologies like TCP/IP and multitasking — they had trouble getting those right, even though they build on top of BSD Unix.

I’m the unofficial tech support person for my extended family, and the MacOS X users have far more day-to-day tech problems than the ones who use XP or Vista (WiFi problems, frequent screen freezes and browser crashes, etc.). At a big conference I chaired last December in Boston, we had to have 5-10 tech support calls for help getting Mac notebooks working with LCD projectors, but none for Windows or Linux.

I’m a Linux user myself, so I have no axe to grind on the Mac or Windows side.