iPhone comments after 5 months use
Recently a friend of mine asked me to comment on
how I felt about the iPhone now that I've had one for a while. I wrote him back
an e-mail, answering with my general commentary, and realized it would be good
to extract that portion and post it here.
iPhone Pros and
Cons.
Pros.
I really like this phone as a cell phone. It's an excellent cell phone. Making calls is easy and conference calls between multiple parties is amazing. I especially love how I can add/drop callers at will and even go private with a caller during the conference.
The Blue Tooth interface works great. I have a JawBone sound canceling bluetooth headset and it's outstanding.
The voice mail accessing technique is very clever. Being able to select a specific voice mail message from a list works great.
As an iPod, the iPhone is outstanding. I use it a lot. Listening to Podcasts, Music, Audiobooks. And I even have Serenity the movie copied to it.
The Safari web browser running on the iPhone is truly amazing. An obvious benefit is being to access Board Game Geek while at a game store and while browsing shelves. Very handy.
The built in e-mail reader/writer is excellent. Managing contacts between the phone lists and email lists is a snap. And I have it all synchronized painlessly with my home computer.
The photo camera takes great pictures and I love the large display for viewing.
I use the built-in calendar and alarm clock daily to help me remember my appointments and as a wake-up alarm clock in the morning. I put the iPhone on it's charging stand next to my bed every night and use it now instead of an alarm clock. I charge it up overnight every night.
I find battery life to be pretty good. I can go an entire day on one charge. However, if I listen to a lot of music during the day as well as browse and make phone calls, the phone needs to go back on the charger by around 7:00 PM. Not quite a whole day in those situations.
Here's a subtle but important difference about the iPhone. The software is routinely updated and improved. Apple has already done 3 updates since introduction and it's been a breeze for the user to do the upgrade/update. It just works. The updates have been security fixes and new features. All speak powerfully about how the iPhone has a lot of longevity.
Cons.
AT&T coverage is not as good as Verizon here in Omaha. The only real issue I encounter is that I cannot make phone calls while inside the local Target store. No AT&T coverage in there. I had Verizon coverage, it was spotty, but used to work most the time.
The EGDE network the iPhone uses for access, when not near any wireless access points, is useful but slow. You just have to allow for it's speed. Now in comparison, I do have comments. First off, the Blackberry uses EDGE and of course it is used everywhere, so EDGE can't be that bad. I suspect the bar is expected to be higher with Apple, so people want even better performance. Second, I do believe that next generation wireless networking will be available for a new model of the iPhone we're likely to see in 2008. Third, the speed of the wireless network connection is only part of the story however. I do believe, while EDGE is slower in data throughput than 3G, the web browser running on the iPhone works very well and quickly. You could make the case that the relatively slower performance of the current EDGE network is somewhat offset by the better browser software performance in the iPhone.
No voice control/dialing. I believe that Apple will eventually make a software update that will include this capability, but I miss it.
I wish the bluetooth capability includes stereo. I think it would be cool to have wireless stereo headphones that also support the microphone for making calls.
I wish the web browser supported Adobe FLASH and Java. It does support JavaScript and HTML/CSS. But some web sites expect you to have Java or Flash access. I believe a major update is coming in late January which will include one or both of the these features.
The camera does not perform zoom, not even an electronic zoom. The pictures are large and so cropping externally is easy with standard photo software tools, but I think zoom should be included.
The camera does not capture video. The iPhone plays video (Quicktime and YouTube videos just fine). But no video content is created with the iPhone. At least not yet. Again, I believe this is a software component that is missing. Perhaps we'll see that too in a future software update.
The phone is slippery. I've dropped it 3 times. That's not really a fault of the phone. It actually has some pretty good scrapes in the aluminum casing from hitting the sidewalk a few times.
Summary
Overall, I think this phone is amazing. For a first-release product it excels. My guess is we'll see announcements about a better version early in 2008. But I still believe the iPhone is amazing.
Also, I have installed 3rd party software via "Jailbreaking". I was initially opposed to this idea, but had to try out some of the cool software out there that's already available for free for the iPhone. I have a couple of games on it now and believe it or not, a working VNC client -- which I occasionally use to access/support the users of our computers at home.
Okay, that's a lot. And truth is I wasn't going to buy one because it's first generation. Melissa gave me the one I have for my birthday last July. I'm really glad to have this phone now. Melissa is waiting for her Verizon contract to expire and then she's going to switch too. Even with the limitations and complaints stated about the iPhone, I believe it's head and shoulders above the Windows Mobile phones out there in usability and coolness. The iPhone has some geek culture notion to it, but I see that as positive. And it's selling really well. It seems destined to be the top selling model smart phone within the first year of availability.
- Steve
Pros.
I really like this phone as a cell phone. It's an excellent cell phone. Making calls is easy and conference calls between multiple parties is amazing. I especially love how I can add/drop callers at will and even go private with a caller during the conference.
The Blue Tooth interface works great. I have a JawBone sound canceling bluetooth headset and it's outstanding.
The voice mail accessing technique is very clever. Being able to select a specific voice mail message from a list works great.
As an iPod, the iPhone is outstanding. I use it a lot. Listening to Podcasts, Music, Audiobooks. And I even have Serenity the movie copied to it.
The Safari web browser running on the iPhone is truly amazing. An obvious benefit is being to access Board Game Geek while at a game store and while browsing shelves. Very handy.
The built in e-mail reader/writer is excellent. Managing contacts between the phone lists and email lists is a snap. And I have it all synchronized painlessly with my home computer.
The photo camera takes great pictures and I love the large display for viewing.
I use the built-in calendar and alarm clock daily to help me remember my appointments and as a wake-up alarm clock in the morning. I put the iPhone on it's charging stand next to my bed every night and use it now instead of an alarm clock. I charge it up overnight every night.
I find battery life to be pretty good. I can go an entire day on one charge. However, if I listen to a lot of music during the day as well as browse and make phone calls, the phone needs to go back on the charger by around 7:00 PM. Not quite a whole day in those situations.
Here's a subtle but important difference about the iPhone. The software is routinely updated and improved. Apple has already done 3 updates since introduction and it's been a breeze for the user to do the upgrade/update. It just works. The updates have been security fixes and new features. All speak powerfully about how the iPhone has a lot of longevity.
Cons.
AT&T coverage is not as good as Verizon here in Omaha. The only real issue I encounter is that I cannot make phone calls while inside the local Target store. No AT&T coverage in there. I had Verizon coverage, it was spotty, but used to work most the time.
The EGDE network the iPhone uses for access, when not near any wireless access points, is useful but slow. You just have to allow for it's speed. Now in comparison, I do have comments. First off, the Blackberry uses EDGE and of course it is used everywhere, so EDGE can't be that bad. I suspect the bar is expected to be higher with Apple, so people want even better performance. Second, I do believe that next generation wireless networking will be available for a new model of the iPhone we're likely to see in 2008. Third, the speed of the wireless network connection is only part of the story however. I do believe, while EDGE is slower in data throughput than 3G, the web browser running on the iPhone works very well and quickly. You could make the case that the relatively slower performance of the current EDGE network is somewhat offset by the better browser software performance in the iPhone.
No voice control/dialing. I believe that Apple will eventually make a software update that will include this capability, but I miss it.
I wish the bluetooth capability includes stereo. I think it would be cool to have wireless stereo headphones that also support the microphone for making calls.
I wish the web browser supported Adobe FLASH and Java. It does support JavaScript and HTML/CSS. But some web sites expect you to have Java or Flash access. I believe a major update is coming in late January which will include one or both of the these features.
The camera does not perform zoom, not even an electronic zoom. The pictures are large and so cropping externally is easy with standard photo software tools, but I think zoom should be included.
The camera does not capture video. The iPhone plays video (Quicktime and YouTube videos just fine). But no video content is created with the iPhone. At least not yet. Again, I believe this is a software component that is missing. Perhaps we'll see that too in a future software update.
The phone is slippery. I've dropped it 3 times. That's not really a fault of the phone. It actually has some pretty good scrapes in the aluminum casing from hitting the sidewalk a few times.
Summary
Overall, I think this phone is amazing. For a first-release product it excels. My guess is we'll see announcements about a better version early in 2008. But I still believe the iPhone is amazing.
Also, I have installed 3rd party software via "Jailbreaking". I was initially opposed to this idea, but had to try out some of the cool software out there that's already available for free for the iPhone. I have a couple of games on it now and believe it or not, a working VNC client -- which I occasionally use to access/support the users of our computers at home.
Okay, that's a lot. And truth is I wasn't going to buy one because it's first generation. Melissa gave me the one I have for my birthday last July. I'm really glad to have this phone now. Melissa is waiting for her Verizon contract to expire and then she's going to switch too. Even with the limitations and complaints stated about the iPhone, I believe it's head and shoulders above the Windows Mobile phones out there in usability and coolness. The iPhone has some geek culture notion to it, but I see that as positive. And it's selling really well. It seems destined to be the top selling model smart phone within the first year of availability.
- Steve
Posted: Wednesday - December 12, 2007 at 07:19 PM |
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Published On: Jan 19, 2008 09:36 PM
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Published On: Jan 19, 2008 09:36 PM