Published Date 2/10/12 3:05 PM
iPhones have excellent cameras and pretty good internal mics so work well as basic CJ tool. But when you go beyond using it at a basic level you start to have problems. I highlight one of them here. It is much more complex to get an external mic into an iphone than other makes of phones, for Android, Blackberry and Nokia you can use a simple $5 adapter then plug any mic in to achieve professorial sound for interviews.
This is not so for iPhones, firstly each is different, thus a solution for one generation will not likely work for a different generation of iPhone. You might be able to use a normal cable to work on your iPhone, by matching the impedance of the mic and phone, try every mic you have, there is a chance one might work. Here is a current cable which should work with all iphones and most mics http://www.kvconnection.com/product-p/km-iphone-2trs.htm as you can see it is considerably more expensive than the normal standard cables.
So to sum up, iPhones are problematic for citizen journalism as they are very restricted in some obvious, and less obvious ways that have a tendencies to trip you up as you develop your skills. With this in mind If you are buying a new phone for CJ I would not recommend a Apple product. If you already have one and you won’t to grow beyond basic CJ work then its time to get geeky and/or shell out some money.