(Note: I am exhausted and this review was dashed off pretty much stream-of-consciousness – so I reserve the right to “revise and extend” my remarks when I re-read it in the morning..)
We just got back from a two-day trip to pick up my son from camp. Most of the time was on the road - 500 miles there, and 500 miles back – so it seemed a good time to see how useful this new Apple gizmo is in the real world.
First, as a phone, it worked great. The reception was light years better than my old Treo, and it even held calls in the mountains where I typically loose reception. And the ability to talk to someone and access the PDF document they just e-mailed was nothing short of fantastic, especially since I could actually read the numbers on the document we were discussing by just zooming in.
Mail has been working OK, but I have noticed that it will download an e-mail header and only get the content after a bit. Can be annoying. Also, there does not seem to be a ‘Delete All’ for the Trash. At least, I don’t know where it is yet.
Internet is also OK, but since it uses Safari it has all of the little quirkiness Safari is known for. Such as occasional missing scroll bars in frames, ignoring some buttons, and getting testy with certain sites. It also started crashing suddenly (more about that, below). The ability to have several Web pages open at the same time made looking at weather radars and traffic reports along the way pretty easy. The EDGE network seems to have improved since I first got on last week, too. It may just be perception, but pages seemed to load faster.
As an iPod, ditto the phone. Worked great. No complaints.
Since we were on the road we put my favorite application, ‘Maps’, to the test. It did not disappoint. We were looking for the address and location of a general store in a small village in the mountains – a place few had heard of – so I typed in the store’s name, the name of the town, and the state. Within seconds I had a map of the village, the store’s phone number, address, and website (they HAD one!). Entered our current position, and I had directions to get there. Because you can zoom in on a map to pretty fine detail, getting round in two cities we had never driven in before was pretty painless. My wife and me started playing ‘Stump the iPhone’ while driving down the Interstate, and it didn’t miss once. We did notice that if you do not get specific about city and state, it appears to only search the area you have on the screen. Or give you places in Germany. Guys, get an iPhone and you will NEVER have to ask for directions again. Assuming an operational EDGE network, of course. (And you are looking for things in Germany...)
If you are going to use the iPhone extensively in the car, get a car charger – battery life to 20% charge with full-tie use was under five hours.
Now, I am going to say something I have never said in 18 years of owning Apple products: I am impressed with their product support. OK, I’m impressed so far. Yesterday, Safari started crapping out constantly, and the “Slide to Unlock” bar was sticking. So I called the Apple Support number expecting voice mail hell and at least 45 minutes on hold. What I got was about five voice mail questions, and about 90 seconds after that, I was talking to a real live human being. A friendly, real live human being. He told me how to solve the problem, and the iPhone was working again as advertised. I hope my experience was not atypical.
The bottom line is I (so far) do not regret my decision to buy an iPhone. It is pricy, yes, but you get what you pay for. And remember if you had to buy all of those components separately, they would cost just about as much. And they wouldn’t integrate as elegantly as does the iPhone.
No comments:
Post a Comment