It’s been just over two months since I got one of Mr. Jobs’ latest playthings, so I think it’s time to do a quick “how-do-I-like-it-so-far” post. (My earlier posts are here, and another here.) For those with A.D.D., here is my conclusion up front: I love it. Go get one.
And I do love it. Besides it’s cooler-than-all-get-out looks (which I keep covered with one of these goofy silicone covers ‘cause I’m a klutz) it’s darn decent phone. Let’s take a look at the features one by one:
OPERATION
Click on, touch screen, go. Couldn’t be simpler. And the screen is excellent, even outside in direct sunlight. The tapping and dragging with your finger really does become second-nature. Even the two–finger double tap or drag versus the one finger variety. The mechanical controls are easy, though the sound/ringer silence switch can be hard to operate with the silicone cover on. Minor issue, really. The keyboard is pretty good once you get used to it. And the “intuition” AI works well. I have come to rely on it, and it makes typing on such a small keyboard workable. The one big “Gurr” annoyance I have is the headphone jack. OK, I know Apple had to go to a smaller diameter jack housing to keep the iPhone as thin as it is, but c’mon guys – an adapter would have been nice for those who have after-market headphones or, like me, plug it in and run it through the audio system in my car. My solution was to whack about 3 millimeters of the plastic off of the bottom part of the jack so it would seat to the correct depth. So far, so good, but it’s not quite what I should have to do to get this to work. My other, all be it minor “Grrr”, is that the phone sometimes gets, well, brain-farts - and freezes up for up to 30 seconds. This especially happens right after you take off the charging stand. If you do a reboot, the problem stops for a while, but it eventually comes back. Syncing the iPhone is as simple as setting in the charging cradle. iTunes does the rest. I’ve had no problems with that so far.
PHONE
As I’ve said before, it's light years better than the Treo. I’ve had only a few dropped calls, and it will even work in most interior spaces. The Treo, on the other hand, would drop a call if you went under a tree branch. Without leaves. I really like the Bluetooth capability, too, which allows the phone to be linked through my car’s audio system for hands-free use.
E-MAIL
This works OK, and seems to sync with our Outlook server at work but for one thing – if you delete an e-mail from the iPhone, it does not delete them on the server when it syncs. Minor problem if you are talking about being away from your desk computer for a few hours or a day, but more than a few days and this can be a real annoyance when you get back to your desk. It may be a setting I do not know about, but for now it is a real pet peeve.
INTERNET
After having that rump browser on the Treo, having (nearly) full-blown Safari in your pocket is great. (“Is that browser in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me? Oh, it’s a browser….”) But the ‘Net on the iPhone is Slllloooooooooow with ATT’s EDGE. I mean, slower than dial-up slow. I heard somewhere that there is a major iPhone software upgrade coming in October that will correct some of this (G3, perhaps??). I sure hope so. If you can hook onto a wi-fi network things speed up to tolerable levels. For some reason, Safari on the iPhone will not display Flash or YouTube, which seems very surprising. Especially the YouTube embeds. It’s more annoying than critical, but considering what you pay for the thing…..
IPOD
Oh, wow. Oh…… Wow. And, it works great with the Bose ‘Sounddock’, too. If you set it on ‘Airport’ mode though, the Bose controls don’t seem to work. (Or, is it vice-versa. I can’t remember.)
OTHER GOODIES
I use ‘SMS/Texting’ only because it seems to be the preferred method of communication for my 13-year old daughter. Works OK.
The ‘Calendar’ syncs fine with Outlook, but it has a limited selection for setting alarm times. Sometimes I need to set an alarm for 1:45 before the event. Weird, I know.
‘Photos’ is wonderful. I have every darn family image in my pocket, and I’m going to be a real annoyance at my wife’s family’s next Christmas reunion.
‘Camera’ is OK, but I already have a 4 MP digital in my day-timer for construction photos, so it’s redundant for me.
‘YouTube’ is a waste as far as I am concerned. Bad image quality, craps out constantly, and a lot of videos are “unavailable”. What’s with that?
‘Stocks’ I initially ignored, but I entered some stocks and now watch them daily. Call it voyeuristic capitalism.
After the main four apps, ‘Maps’ is for me THE most useful app on the iPhone. I have used it to get around in all sorts of places and find all sorts of locations in the US since June, and the ability to have the address, phone number and website (if they have one) in one click is nothing short of amazing. There is very little that the iPhone database has not found (it found my old apartment in Florence, Italy, with no trouble). This app could easily put AAA out of the map business. The satellite image feature in ‘Maps’ really impresses folks at dinner parties, but I haven’t found it to be as useful as I initially thought. But it is good for close-in navigation in a strange place.
‘Weather’ is cute, but logging into a dedicated website is much better. Though, knowing what the highs and lows will be in Florence, Italy is kinda neat. Again, great for dinner parties.
‘Clock,’ ‘Calculator,’ and ‘Notes’ are useful and not much to complain about. I do wish the calculator had a ‘Clear Entry’ button along with the 'Clear All' one.
‘Settings’ is a fine control panel; easy to use and simple to set.
CONCLUSIONS
All things being equal I could have gotten another phone that does almost all of these things almost as well at a lesser cost. No argument there. But the iPhone does them without the “almost” factor, and it does them elegantly, to boot. I am continually amazed how tight the integration is between functions and applications. They really thought this one out. I must say that this is one Apple product that truly seems to have lived up to it’s hype, and one where I’m not regretting having the 1.0 version.
