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August 13, 2007
My impressions on my iPhone...
... in all it's technological splendor.
So, in case the title doesn't say it, I'm clearly impressed with my iPhone. You'll never catch me without it at my side. Thats not to say it's all roses. It's a first generation product from a company that's never been in a business remotely close to this before. It has a glitch or three. It's simply a better phone than I've ever used before, and that is to be expected given the price tag.
Here are the shots as I call them:
Likes
- The phone functionality is still... functional. Very easy to access! The iPhone is easier to use as a "phone" than the two previous Windows Mobile devices I've owned.
- Graphical interface is amazing! From the translucent bubbly icons to browsing music with coverflow. There is fit and finish throughout all areas of the iPhone.
- It's extremely intuitive. The keypad changes based on which application you are using. For instance, when you are using Safari (the web browser) it adds a ".com" key to the keypad so you don't have to type that out. Volume controls are zero click access. Music pauses and holds it's place if you receive a phone call, then starts just where you left off when you hang up.
- The battery life is better than I anticipated.
- All the applications are simple and useful, nothing on this phone is more complex than it absolutely needs to be.
- Videos look flawless on it's display when it's clean of smudges and fingerprints.
- Syncing is very quick!
- Google Maps and YouTube actually work... and better than you'd expect.
- You can view Word and Excel files.
- Even in my podunk little town AT&T's EDGE service is faster than I had expected.
Dislikes
- Clearly the screen is always in need of cleaning, being the neat freak I am, I've taken to buying about a million moistened lens wipes a week and compusively wiping the screen down after each use.
- It doesn't appear to support flash. What the heck!?
- Setting the background is pointless because you only get to see the background picture briefly when you wake it up before it goes to the home screen which you can't change the background on.
- You can't use your music as a ringtone. In fact, you can only use the ringtones that came preloaded on it.
- You can't change the order of the icons on the home screen or add links to it without downloading unsupported hacking software from the web that only runs on Intel macs.
- You can't download from iTunes on the go, and it won't sync wirelessly with iTunes even over wi-fi. You have to plug it into your computer via the USB cable.
- Bluetooth headset can only be used while on call, you can't listen to music through it or hear the phone's audio queues through it. Plus, even when you are using the bluetooth headset you have to dial on the handset. There is currently no voice dialiing. Also, there is no file transfer capability via bluetooth which even my RAZR can do.
- The mail application is not fully featured and doesn't apply filters so I constantly have to scroll through all the junk mail messages I get because it has no junk mail filter in addition to not using my rules and filters I set on the PC I sync the iPhone with.
- Video podcasts never seem to work correctly on the iPhone.
- If you don't turn the phone off at least once every three days the applications start crashing on a regular basis.
- It only has a camera, no mini video clips, or audio recording for the iPhone. That shocked me a bit as even my 3 year old RAZR can take little video clips or record audio.
- It's not a fully functional iPod. You can't play the iPod games you've purchased on it. In fact, there are no games on it at all, and you can't download them like you can for AT&T's other devices.
My final opinion. Clearly it's a phone for the young and modern,but not necessarily advanced technology enthusiast. It lacks some of the basic cell phone traits like downloadable ring tones, customization, bluetooth functionalities, and video/audio recording. It had some stability problems when I first got it but I ran the initial update and that seemed to squash most of the bugs.
It's certainly not a business device at this juncture, though it certainly has the capability to be one with a few software additions.
I'm pretty sure this phone is just a starting point. I wouldn't be surprised if Apple began selling additional applications for the iPhone through iTunes. It's going to be interesting to see how it evolves. I really love mine, and I would recommend it fully just based on the luxurious user interface, let alone the ability to finally bring your entire audio library along on a phone that actually has a decent audio player built in!
Posted by Decemberice at August 13, 2007 08:12 PM