So, after 10 days, is this device - that I pined over for more than a month, that I am paying an arm and a leg for - worth it?
An emphatic YES after week one. Let’s break it down and see what’s what.
Phone and iPod
So, these are the two items this one device replaces for me, and one of the main reasons I wanted the phone - so I only had to carry one device instead of two.
I’ll admit it hasn’t made me use it as a phone any more than I normally would (which is to say, hardly at all). And I’ve used it as an iPod exactly the same amount as I normally would (a couple of hours every day). It’s the beauty of having them both in one that makes me feel like I’m getting my money’s worth.
The phone itself is crisp and clear, which is something I was concerned about - after all, what the hell does apple know about making a phone? But the quality is great.
And the iPod is far superior to my Nano; I absolutely love it. I mentioned before about the shuffling playlists/songs right from the top of each list, as opposed to having to go back to settings - I can’t even tell you what a difference this makes, as I have several playlists I like to play in order and several I like on random. It’s a small thing, but het.
Another small touch, I also really like seeing all the album art so nice and clearly.
While I have no quantifiable way of proving this and it may just be my enthusiasm fro the device, but I do believe the iPhone sounds better than my 2nd-gen Nano too. Whether it’s the headphones or the iPod itself, I am hearing softer “background” instruments and sounds I never heard on the Nano.
Speaking of the headphones, how great are they? Specifically, the click button/microphone? Wicked idea. I’ll admit a volume control would be nice, but the ability to pause/play, skip songs, answer/decline calls, etc., without having to take the phone out of my pocket, wake it up, etc. is huge. It’s another brilliantly simple design decision from Apple.
Data
On the data side of things, I’ve probably used it way too much. I have no doubt this will ease up a bit as the novelty of it wears off and I get into some routines about checking e-mail and Facebook etc. I find myself playing with it a lot and surfing the Web even though I’m never far from a computer. (Still, in 10 days I’ve used less than 100MB. I can’t imagine ever reaching 6GB!)
Safari works perfectly well, and though I’ve heard of people experiencing crashes, it hasn’t done so on me yet (knock on wood).
The 3G network has been uniformly fast, and always available. I’m sure living in Toronto helps, we’ll see how fast it is next time I go to Niagara Falls or something.
E-mail
Being able to get e-mail on my phone was a huge part of my desire to own an iPhone, and so far, I love the e-mail application. I’ve probably used it more than anything else except the iPod.
Of course I had to switch from Hotmail to Gmail, which necessitated logging in to a lot of web sites and updating my address. Then, it took me a while to get Gmail set up correctly and synced with Outlook; very nice of Google to bury the correct IMAP settings (and the fact that IMAP is the preferred method over POP3) nice and deep in the back alleys of their support pages. Sigh.
But it’s working now and it’s great on the phone (yet a little slow sending/receiving in Outlook 2007, oddly enough). It’s quick and smooth and I’m even getting the hang of the keyboard; I actually enjoy e-mailing on it.
Still can’t get Gmail to work through Outlook, Outlook Express, or Live Mail at all here at work. We must have the desired POP3/IMAP/SMTP ports blocked on our firewall. Sigh. Nothing’s ever perfect, eh?
Oh, and on the phone interface, I do wish I could collapse that Gmail folder! I don’t need to see all those background folders while my “real” folders fall off below the scroll. Sigh.
Other installed Apps
As for the other things that come pre-installed:
Maps - we made extensive use of the maps/GPS function going to a wedding last Saturday night. I’ve heard some complaints that it doesn’t work very well, and if you’re driving alone, I’d agree - since it doesn’t have voice prompts and trying to read it while driving would likely be deadly - but if you’ve got someone to read the prompts for you, it works great. The maps were accurate and the GPS follows you quickly and smoothly. I don’t know what people are complaining about! Of course were up in Vaughan, I’ll have to test it downtown sometime and see if the buildings interfere.
Weather - I’ve used this a lot, surprisingly! It’s only mildly more convenient than surfing to a news page or turning on the TV, but still, it’s appealing to get it in the palm of your hand! And the interface is pretty.
Stocks - no interest here, and I really wish I could delete the icon! Sigh.
SMS - works perfectly well, although I’m not sure I love the “conversation” layout your texts take. Each text sent/received by a single contact is added to one long stream - and you only have the option of deleting every text from that steam or saving every text.
I don’t need to keep all the texts that say “OK” or “be there in 10 minutes.” But someone might text me with an important number or address that I want to hang on to. And I might send a contact a text 10 days after I sent the previous one, but the iPhone still thinks it’s part of the same “conversation” More sorting/storage options would be nice! Still, other than that, it works just fine.
Contacts - one of my favourite parts of the phone. I love having my phone and e-mail contacts integrated, and synced with my computer! It’s the little things, you know.
Calendar - I’ve never used a planner on a regular basis, but I am trying to take advantage of everything this device has to offer. So far, I have actually been using this, and syncing it with Outlook; it works great, we’ll just have to see if I have enough need of a planner to keep using it.
Photos and Camera - sure, 2 megapixel with no flash isn’t great, but you know what, it’s not bad either! And I didn’t buy the thing for a camera. Both the photo organization and camera are perfectly useful. The screen obviously displays photos really well, and using photo-caller-ID on such a big screen is great (it never made much sense before when on a tiny phone screen, you could barely make the picture out anyway!).
Notes, calculator, clock - haven’t had much use of these yet. Especially the clock - it’s got a freakin’ clock on the top! Bit of a waste of an icon - I’d rather see the clock and weather integrated.
YouTube - haven’t used much Youtube either, but I’ve tried it and it works just fine. Perhaps I’ll get more into the viral video thing now that I’ve got access to it!
App Store and iTunes - I haven’t actually purchased anything from iTunes directly through the phone yet, but I’ve used the App store and it works perfectly well… if you’ve got the time to sort through the thousands of apps. Which leads us to…
Downloadable Applications
Let’s just say it outright - there’s a lot of crap out there in the App store, for sure, and finding the good ones can be a challenge. But here’s notes on a few I’ve discovered:
Facebook - I’m not a huge Facebook user, but since I can’t use it at work, I figured I might use it more now that I can get it on the iPhone. All you can really do is update your status, write on walls and upload photos, but that’s basically what Facebook was in the beginning so that should be enough.
But, I’m a little disappointed in the proprietary Facebook app. It looks nice, but for some reason, it won’t load all my friends’ profile pictures! I also don’t like how the news feed carries only status updates.
If you check Facebook through Safari, it loads up great, and of course you can use it in landscape. You get news feed items as well as status updates, and all the profile pics work fine.
The application has better photo support, though! Frustrating - I’d much prefer to use only one, but each does something better than the other! What was I saying about nothing being perfect… right.
Sportacular and The Score Mobile - Both are sports/scores updaters. The Score has a much nicer interface (and I do like The Score as a station, in general!), but Sportacular offers way more information, with news updates, and more leagues. Both are free, though.
Shazam - Mentioned this one before, and it’s still a killer “check this out!” app to show your friends, but ultimately, the opportunities to use it aren’t plentiful. Still, you never know when you’ll hear a song you simply must own, whether it’s in a movie or at a bar or whatever, and it’s free, so why not?
iWik and Wikipanion - A pair of Wikipedia viewers, that purport to optimize Wikipedia better than Safari. Both can be used in landscape and portrait and Wikipanion supports pinch-zooming. I find I prefer the interface of iWik, but both are than using Safari to access Wikipedia directly, in which the wiki layout is just too small. And if it’s possible, Wikipedia is even more useful on mobile than it is on PC! Any time someone asks one of these “did you ever wonder…” questions, you’ve got the answer!
Google - The Google app is a little better than Google on Safari simply because you have more local search options. It’s great to type in “Swiss Chalet,” hit Local, and get directions on the maps app to the closest one.
Koi Pond - It’s a $0.99 fish pond. Yes, it’s as dumb as it sounds, but it’s just so damn cool! It’s got some nice soothing pond sounds, the fish move around (and swim away when you “splash” the screen), you can even feed them! It’s so dumb. Yet so cool. Definitely a “show off my new toy” app.
WordPress - As mentioned the other day, this works really well and is another in the line of “it blows my mind what this thing can do” apps. But as I also said the other day, I can’t see myself using it all that much - I’m just too wordy in my blog posts (like this 2,500 word opus!).
Games - There’s way too many to go into detail, but Sol Free Solitaire, ClassicBreak Lite, 21 Pro Blackjack, Sudoku, and Pegjump are all free games I’ve downloaded and kept. They all pass the time adequately. 
I may suck it up and pay the $7.99 for Tetris. Who doesn’t love Tetris?
Basically, as you can see from the list above, there’s a lot that you can do with this little device. And I’ve just scratched the surface, I think.
There are a couple of issues with the iPhone, most of which have been covered elsewhere, but I’ll mention my experiences with them.
Battery life
It’s definitely not long-lasting. I grant that for everything the phone does, you have to expect that it’s going to drain the battery. I get that. What’s frustrating is Apple’s policy of not letting you replace the battery. Like the iPod, the battery is kept hidden away in “void my warranty land” if you attempt to take it out.
So what that means is, if it dies, you can’t just go to Future Shop, buy a new one, and swap it in. You have to send your phone to Apple. That’s right. You have to live without your phone for a week. And it costs $100! And it wipes all the data off your phone! I’m sorry, that’s bloody ridiculous. You don’t even have the option of taking it in to the Apple store, or at least, that’s not an option given on the Web site. What a joke.
Now, hopefully, you’ll never actually NEED to flat-out replace the battery. It’s total life-span should last through the life of the phone, and if it’s faulty, chances are it’ll die before your one-year warranty expires.
Where it really irks though, is not having a backup. Again, this thing sucks battery life pretty quickly; if it didn’t, this wouldn’t be a big issue, but one forgotten charge, and you might be outta luck. If you could have a backup charged and handy at all times, this wouldn’t be an issue, but you can’t, so you gotta be super-diligent about charging.
It would also suck if you were camping or taking a long flight, or being anywhere for an extended period, without a power source - no matter how diligent you are there’s some places you just can’t plug in! Again, keeping a charged backup around would be handy.
Thankfully, for me, I don’t anticipate being in such a situation often and I’m near enough to various power sources (home, work, car) that I don’t ever have an excuse for not charging. I may need to buy an extra USB/power cable for work though.
Crashing/freezing
The other well-documented problem has been somewhat frequent crashing or freezing. Yesterday was the first time I’ve experienced anything crashing - when checking the football scores in Sportacular. I guess I just wanted too much info too fast and it crashed! Other than that it’s been fine; I suspect that I got in at the right time, when software 2.1 was released. They seem to have worked out a lot of the kinks! (Knock on wood.)
In conclusion…
I love this device. I’m so glad I bought it, and especially glad we got a good deal on the voice plan. If I were paying the full price of Rogers’ advertised plans, I probably wouldn’t be glowing about it so much, because practically speaking, it wouldn’t be worth it. But at almost $30 less per month, it is worth it - worth every penny.
Tags: iPhone
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