Wednesday, September 03, 2008

Apple iPhone Review

For the longest time I said "I just want my phone to be a phone". I think a lot of people think this way, but you know what? It's just so darn convenient to keep everything in one device. And I believe that is the iphone's greatest strength. You have to admit, it is not easy to carry around separate phones and mp3 players. I always need my phone, but I found it too easy to forget my ipod at home. Or to just reason that I wouldn't have time that day to listen to it. Not only the ipod, but I'd have to remember headphones and carry those too. Too much to carry around in my pockets and I'm a guy so I can't carry around a purse. Not that I want to....why are you looking at me like that? The iphone solves this problem beautifully! One device and you don't even need the headphones. They finally put a damn speaker on it. Now I'll be the first to admit that it's not the best speaker system in the world, but I'm not carrying headphones anymore.

The iPod interface is good, though the coverflow interface is not a highlight for me. It works differently than iTunes. Say that you're browsing your favorite techno playlist and you want to look for an album via the art (coverflow). So you flip the iphone sideways and...well now it's displaying all music... Flipping it back returns you to the techno playlist, but why can't I browse a playlist in coverflow? The phone also has a tendency to flip into coverflow a lot which I find annoying. I wish I could disable the whole thing. I am also mad that I can't plug in whatever headphones I like. I bought an adaptor but that's just one more thing to carry around. The adapter stays in my car mostly since the Eos has an aux in port but not line-in. Having an iPod touch for a short while previously, I now appreciate the volume control buttons on the side of the iphone. This is a major downfall of the ipod touch. Of course, the screen size is awesome, videos look great, and album art looks great. Despite my coverflow woes, it really is the best ipod ever.

The other apps come in real handy too. Maps is as useful as google maps on the computer. (read: somewhat useful for some things). It will show me if traffic is bad on the way home from work, but also i will search for something and drive there only to find it's not there. Useful for finding large monuments and maybe an address. Searching for starbucks or pizza notsomuch. I find the GPS unnecessary as I usually know where I am on the ground, so wake me up when you can fly a GPS approach into an airport in overcast clouds only 300 feet above the ground. That's all I ever use GPS for Stocks, calculator, and weather, yeah ok moving on...ah! Notepad! Even though it looks like it was coded the day before the phone was released, it's probably one of the most useful apps on the phone. I use it to store blog ideas right now, which will lead to more entries since I don't forget as often. I can also store radio frequencies for when Alison and I watch planes at Dallas Love Field, things to buy, etc... Mail is good for being a mobile client. I don't email people much these days. The camera is pretty good, though it lacks zoom and a light. Instead of displaying a bunch of huge pictures, I will link them:
Pic shot with Panasonic x70.
Pic shot with Motorola PEBL.
Pic shot with iPhone.

Getting better with time I suppose. Now Safari....oh boy Safari...It is awesome. So awesome that I don't even carry my laptop around when I'm flying anymore. The laptop is too easily damaged and I get almost the same functionality here. I used to carry my laptop in my flight bag, but I was always fearful of it getting stolen or damaged. I switched aircraft a lot so I was always on the move, it was crammed in the case with all my approach plates and manuals..it was bound to be damaged sooner or later. Luckily it can be safe at home when I work because my phone has safari. Obviously no java. We knew that. Moving on...

Even the phone is great. It's a pain in the butt to add all your contacts into the phone but once they are in it looks great. Easy to use. Favorites, Recents, and the way it picks out phone numbers from websites, texts, and email is useful. I don't have visual voicemail because I'm on T-mobile but since I rarely have more than one voicemail anyways I don't really care. I do get ghost voicemails when my phone loses the network. When it picks it back up, it will chime and indicate that I have voicemail but when I check it there is nothing. At least the indication goes away after that. Alison has a hacked iphone as well and hers is normal. When I upgrade to 2.0.2 the phone will be reflashed and hopefully cured. Doesn't bother me too much. Texting is great too because the texts read like an ichat conversation. The pebl had incoming and outgoing texts seperate and it was hard to follow a conversation. This was one one of the biggest eye-opening "why didnt anyone else think of that" revelations on the phone. I kinda miss the flip phone, and I haven't had a brick phone since my original nokia from sophomore year, but the size is okay and its loud and easy enough to talk on. Bluetooth is slow to activate but works.

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