Thoughts and experiences with my iPhone

First and foremost, the iPhone is a really great phone. The interface is intuitive; the syncing process seamless. Integration between my address book, pictures, and even music is top notch. I’m glad I held out for the iPhone and I’m glad I waited until now to try web and mail on a mobile device. Until the iPhone, I simply dismissed web and mail as something that was cool but would entirely frustrate me.

Now that I have the web, maps, and email, I’m in love.

I’m sure I have not found all of the goodies on this phone, however I’ll outline some that I have found I particularly enjoy:

  • Contact list: The “Favorites” contact list function allows you to take anyone in your address book and add them to a special “favorites-only” address book. This is stupid easy and insanely useful. Sort favorites however you’d like — I have Emily at the top, then Adam, then my family. It’s the most used feature on the phone so far!
  • Earbuds: They double as the microphone/headset. No more bluetooth for me (I’ll outline this in the negatives below).
  • Text messaging with a QWERTY keyboard: Textile or not, it is a snap. Never having it before, WOW! What a difference.
  • The by-letter scrolling feature of the contact list: I originally thought lack of a keypad would make dialing someone a pain (before hitting 5 would go straight to J and hitting 5 three times would go to L — easy), however this is really intuitive and I can usually go to the right letter just by touching the right side of the screen so in the end it ends up being even less keystrokes
  • Google maps: How did I ever live without maps on my phone?!
  • The “locked” screen: Whoever had the idea to show you what has happened without unlocking is a genius. I just press the button and it tells me I have 2 missed calls and a text message from various people. Wonderful!

Being a first generation device, there are things that aren’t perfect. I’ll go over a few things that are bugging me so far:

  • Battery life: Charging every night is a huge pain. I understand I’m doing more with this phone than any phone I’ve had before, but I really should be able to go longer than 24 hours without a charge. This isn’t faulting Apple exactly, but why is battery technology so far behind?
  • Bluetooth: Maybe it’s my Jabra JX10, but it still doesn’t sound good. I don’t understand how people can use bluetooth headsets. The batteries never last and they sound like crap. Adam’s motorola headset is the same.
  • Ring Tones: How do I add a new one? Or select a song from iTunes to be my ring tone? Come on, Apple, seriously… ring tones are HUGE business. How can this NOT be an option!
  • Missing plugins and readers: I need to listen to .WAV and .PPT files via my email. And where is Flash?
  • Fragility: This phone seems so fragile. I’ve watched an iPhone stress testing video where they dropped the phone on concrete and it held up without scratching the screen, but the first time I drop this thing I’m going to die!

I’m sure as time goes on we’ll see more features, including ring tones and perhaps even hacks to enable disk access to the phone and edge internet via the usb cable connection to a laptop. I’m ok waiting for these features as I primarily want the iPhone as a phone but once they have them this will be a major contender for the “real” smart phones.

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Published:
07.03.07 / 11am
Category:
Technology
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