iPhone Review

Okay, my 2 cents on the iPhone consists of 2 works: UTTERLY AMAZING!

The UI and the transitions between screens are awesome! I've never seen any phone user interface or PDA interface looks so smooth and have so much eye candy. The Google Maps widget is better than the web app!

There aren't many things I can fault with this phone but I do have a list:

1. No way to highlight, copy and paste text


2. No advanced preferences for mail, like marking the entire account as read, or only downloading unread messages on first poll


3. Can't re-organize widget icons on home screen


4. No instant messaging app or widget


5. No Bluetooth sync - syncing is done through iTunes through a USB cable, but I can't imagine why you can't sync contacts and calendars through iSync like everything else does


6. YouTube widget can't be tied to an existing YouTube account


7. No video recording


8. No games???!!!


9. No one-touch dialing or voice dialing


10. Virtual keyboard not for people with big hands or large fingers


11. No way to use music in iTunes as ringtones


12. Needs a camera of a higher resolution

Okay, so that's the bad list...here's the good list:

1. Zooming in and out of pictures and text is a major breakthrough


2. Navigating through iTunes via CoverFlow is awesome
3. 
   
4. Navigating through list by scrolling and swiping a finger across the screen is so intuitive


5. iPod can play music through the iPhone's speakerphone


6. The screen is really bright


7. Anything I didn't mention was simply awesome...I'm in total awe of this device

So far everything has been pretty smooth. Even setting it up on my wireless network at home was simple.

Was the device worth the hype? I think for the most part it was. It's an incredible device that does most things really well and puts it in an absolutely beautiful form factor, but do get the 8 GB model since that available space is for everything, including the phone's OS.

iPhone Buying Experience

Here's my review of the iPhone that I picked up at the AT&T Store near my house. BTW, almost all of the AT&T Stores have sold out of their allotment of iPhones so the only place left where you'll find one is at The Apple Store, or on apple.com.

Anyway, the AT&T Store experience was strange. It was a VERY controlled environment. When I got in line, an AT&T rep came up and took my name and assigned me a number (actually they assigned it to me through Christine who got there and held my spot for me). You had to stay in line and wait even though you were assigned a number.

Once 6:00 pm rolled around, they were only letting in as many customers as their were available sales people. This usually meant that customers were being let in one at a time. Once you got inside, there was a staging area where a sales person greeted you and confirmed who you were when they took down your name while waiting in line. This procedure prevented people from jumping the line or have people hold spots for other people. It was a good idea and it worked, especially when there were 3 police officers standing in that staging area. After they confirmed your identity, they asked you some questions that were designed to help the sales rep completing your order to upsell certain products like their DSL service or cable or whatever.

The entire sales process didn't take that long at all. They even ran a quick rudimentary credit check and gave you a pre-authorization number so that the iPhone registration process that you performed online through iTunes wouldn't do the same credit check.

By the time I left, I had waited about 45 minutes in line after they opened the doors at 6:00 and there were about 12 people in line still. An hour or so later, there was no line at all.

The Apple Store experience was different in that the queue control was not as tight as AT&T's as they were letting in 50 people at a time and any of those people could hold spots for anybody else. One of my co-workers got there around the same time Christine got to the AT&T store and we both left with our respective iPhones around the same time.

All in all, it was an alright experience. Sign-up and activation was easy as expected. It's amazing that you can't do this with any other phone or provider.

Happy Canada Day!!!!

O Canada...our home and native land...

What does this have to do with cameras? Absolutely nothing! I don't care!