iHave iPhone

Well I know I said I was going to wait until Christmas for an iPhone. But with the $200 price drop last week it made it too tempting. In fact it was my wife who suggested it as we were walking through the mall one day!

I’ve had it for a few days so far and overall I’m very impressed.

Opening up the box felt more like opening an expensive watch. Apple has always made opening their package an actual experience. The build quality of the iPhone seems very solid. It’s heavier than you’d think but in a way that says quality not bulky.

Plugging it into my MacBook Pro walked me through the activation and sync process. Activation went smoothly and quickly. Transferring content over took longer than I thought it would. But I’m used to my 5g 80gb video iPod. I was up and using it fairly quickly.

The user interface and the animation make this phone seem like something out of the future. It’s simple yet powerful. It does take a few days to figure out some shortcuts and where everything is.

Here’s some of my thoughts from the first few days. I’ll try to group them in some kind of order:
Text Messaging
-I like how it show the messages so it looks like an iChat conversation
-I can delete conversations as a whole but I wish I could delete individual messages
-I wish I could send a text message to multiple contacts
-In the conversation message you can click to call or e-mail the person

iCal
-Looks like iCal
-Syncs perfectly with iSync.
-I haven’t noticed where it puts events created on my iPhone
-The interface for adjusting the time and date of events is just sweet. It’s also used for the clock and in Safari when you have to make a choice from a button for a form. Think of a slot machine and you adjust each wheel to select your info. It seems silly but you have to see it.

Photos/ Camera
-The camera on the iPhone makes some great looking pics. At least when viewed on the phone, I haven’t looked at them on my mac.
-Viewing pictures on this is a great way to show off pics.
-It’s so easy and intuitive my 2 year old daughter was doing it.

YouTube
-It’s more novel and an easy time waster but looks surprisingly good
-Watching the NFL this weekend you can’t help but see Payton Manning commercials. I had to keep looking up the United Way commercial from SNL “I throw, you catch, it’s not that hard.”

stocks
-I wish it was a sports score widget. That would be awsome

Maps
-People knock it for not having GPS, but all you need is a street address or intersection. I usually have a decent idea of where I’m at.
-The ability to search for business by type or name is great
-Turn by Turn directions are very nice.
-It would be nice if you could have an option for it to speak the directions.

Weather
-Just like the desktop widget, it gives you the weather

Clock
-I love the interface for setting the timers and alarms
-Stopwatch is nice to have

Calculator
-It is what it is it does what it does

Notes
-I like being able to keep notes on the iPhone
-It would be nice to have it sync with something on the mac. Ideally something that had a widget
-I’m not the biggest fan of Felt Marker font

Phone
-I like my contacts have multiple numbers under 1 name. Something that irked my about my Razr
-At first I put my contacts into groups to help find people quicker. But I found on the right side of the screen is a vertical alphabet. Scroll down that list and you can move through your contact list in 1 controlled scroll from the top of the phone to the bottom
-The headphone with built in mic is pretty cool.

Mail
-I set up my main account as an IMAP account. This means my desktop and iPhone email stays in sync. If I delete a message off one it’s changed on the other
-You can “swipe” across a message to bring up a delete button
-No spam filtering. My work account I found out has had the SPAM filter turned off. No wonder I get 40-60 spam messages a day.
-Yahoo push e-mail seems sporadic. Sometimes it pops through within a minute. Other times it takes a very long time
-Sometimes I get an error saying the message has not downloaded from the server. I don’t know what’s up with that

iPod
-It’s as cool as it looks on the commercials.
-Won’t replace my iPod because it’s not as big nor are the controls as intuitive. What I mean is not as easy to adjust without looking at the iPod. Using the included headphones helps.

Moving from a Razr flip phone I can text so much faster. I’ve gotten pretty good at the two thumb typing technique. It predicts what you mean surprisingly well when you don’t hit the right “button”. There are several times when it guesses the wrong word. So it pays to keep an eye on what you’re typing or review before you send it.

I think this is long enough. I was going to add some tips I’ve found out about the iPhone but I’ll save it for another day.

-dave

September 18, 2007. Tech Stuff. Leave a comment.