First iReview

OK, I activated Steve Job's little plaything this morning and have been fiddling with it all day. Initial reactions:

Activation was pretty painless. I downloaded the update to iTunes and followed the instructions. Unlike many, I had no delay. My e-mail isn't working, though. I entered all of the POP information just as on my old Treo, but no joy. I'm going to get our IT guy to have a go at it on Monday (his payment - 15 minutes with my iPhone.....), as I am sure there is something I didn't set correctly. Besides, a weekend without e-mail can be pretty nice.

Pros:

The ergonomics of the thing are stunning! It is also..... beautiful. Just beautiful.

The setup of the main items is pretty intuitive and fairly easy. You know, Mac-like. It takes time, though - there are A LOT of things to set and tweak to make the iPhone yours.

The killer app so far, for me, is the Gogle Map / Google Earth combination. While amazing, still in it's infancy, IMHO. The next logical step is to link this up with GPS and navigation.

Phone quality is much better than my Treo. I can talk on the phone, clearly, while inside - not something the Treo handled at all well.

For you Acura owners - I got the iPhone to "Pair" through the 'Hands-Free Link', though I had to repeat the process twice. I had e-mailed Acura asking about iPhone compatibility last week but all they could tell me was they didn't know. My iPhone will still ring audibly when the Hands-Free rings. Another setting I got to correct, perhaps.

All of my Contacts in Outlook were imported without a problem. So were my Explorer Bookmarks, and my Outlook calendar.

Battery life seems pretty good. I played with the thing off and on all day and it only ran down around dinner. Six to seven hours (I wasn't really keeping track. Sorry.)

If you put one of the silicon protective "skins" on it like I did (I am a klutz of the first order), the iPhone will fit, snugly, in a Treo belt-case. That saved me 30 bucks, and the iPhone is a bit less conspicuous in a leather case with "Treo" on it.

Now for the cons:

This afternoon all my incoming calls were being sent directly to my voice-mail. No idea why, and I couldn't find a setting anywhere that made it do that. (What am I overlooking...?) Test calls seemed to go through OK tonight. Hmmm.

The EDGE network is SLOOOOOOOOOOOOW. I mean, my Treo's rump web-browser beat it hands down in load-times. Webpages seem to load most of the way and then Safari breaks for lunch or something. Frustrating. Both this problem, and the calls to voicemail, could be due to network overload - what with all of these new iPhone users doing exactly what I am doing.

This isn't really a "con" per se, but I haven't got the iPod part up yet. It is a bit more complicated than my little iPod Shuffle, so I need to wait 'till my daughter gets back from camp to give her 'ol Dad an iPod lesson or two.

The headphone jack takes a different plug than on my Shuffle's headphones, so the accessory cable in my car won't work on the iPhone. Grrr.

The glass front is a fingerprint smeared mess in about 30 seconds. I pretty well expected that. And if you answer the phone after working the yard in the heat of the day in the South, it'll be a sweaty mess, too. Keep a towel handy.

The camera takes pretty decent images, but does not seem to do video. Maybe there is (again) another setting I have to tweak?

Not enough third-party apps or ringtones yet. I am sure those will come with time and popularity.

That’s about it so far. More reactions later.