The iPhone's call quality is
a perfect example of "version 1.0 syndrome." Apple's been making iPods
and Unix-based PCs for years. The iPhone is both, and it functions very
well as both. But Apple has never made a voice phone before, so of
course there's a learning curve. Other smartphone makers have been
through this. BlackBerrys once sounded awful; now they're among the
best voice phones out there, since the company became obsessed with RF
and voice quality. Building a truly great cell phone for voice, it
turns out, takes a bit of alchemy, involving arcane knowledge of things
like radio-wave propagation through various materials and the
psychology of audio. After 25 years of cell-phone production, there's
still wide variation in factors such as signal strength and sound
quality.
I expect, or at least hope, that Apple paid attention and will be
improving the call quality on iPhone 2.0. Transitioning to 3G will
help—in my experience, calls generally sound better on AT&T's
3G network than on the 2G network. But I'm not encouraged by the total
lack of discussion on the matter, whether it be in meetings I've had
with Apple, in Apple's public statements, or on Apple-centric blogs.
When the topic is brought up, it's usually drowned out in a chorus of
defensive zealotry and demands for 3G and GPS. This speaks to the
difficult-to-measure nature of phone-call quality: It's not something
you can tick off on a feature list or a new colorful icon for the home
screen, and it's subjective enough that fanatics can easily cloud the
issue or blame AT&T.
But the fact remains: For the iPhone to realize its potential, it must strive to be more than an i. It's already a ground-breaking, world-beating, transformative i.
It must also be a phone, and not just as an afterthought. I'm hoping
that when Steve Jobs introduces the next iPhone, he spends a little
time talking about how he's improved the second part of its name.
