Quick iPhone Thoughts

Whilst it isn’t as full featured as, say, the HTC Touch Diamond, I can’t think of anything that I’m really missing.

Text messages appearing as a conversation thread is so much better than the traditional display method (one text per screen).

Intuitive? Very. Although there are a few funny things, for example, you CAN set the keyboard shift button to turn into a CAPS LOCK style key, but it’s disable in the Settings by default.

Tip: To switch between keyboard modes (to add a ? for example), press and hold your finger on the 123 mode toggle button, keep your finger on the screen and slide to the ? and then let go. The keyboard inserts the ? and automatically flips you back to the ABC mode. Smart!

The screens is stunning, I’ve encoded Blade Runner to MP4 and… WOW.

Surfing the web and want to dial a number on a webpage? Click it. Simple.

Apps – 10 million were downloaded over the weekend. Impressive numbers. Some aren’t so good, but some, like Vicinity are awesome. It uses the built-in GPS to figure out your current location, then polls Yahoo Local directories to get you lists of taxis, restaurants and so on.

In short, I’m glad I waited a year to get my hands on this phone. The list of niggles is small and, quite honestly (and yeah yeah, call me a fanboy) it’s the best phone I’ve ever used.

Caveat: my last phone, a Samsung D800, was a crock of shit, but still. The iPhone is a helluva piece of kit. It, honestly, just works.

Comments

  1. 10 million app downloads. 10x as many as phone sales.

    Guess that’s what happens when a phone isn’t designed to be as hostile to humans as possible (i.e like every other phone ever ‘designed’).

  2. how do you find the typing, dear gordon? i was fooling round at the O2 shop on Friday and kept making an arse of every word. I need pointier fingers!

  3. The typing isn’t too bad, takes a little getting used to but after a day or so I’m already pretty up to speed.

  4. Gordon,

    You’re probably the man to answer this one then… can you connect it to a laptop (either wired/bluetoothed/wifi’d) to use the data connection? I currently have the brick which is the N95, but i’m thinking the iPhone might be a tempting replacement come February. The only downside is it’s only on O2, with whom I swore i’d never have another phone (they might say the same, of course). Kasia’s going to get one in September so I’ll have a play with it then.

  5. Steve, I don’t think you can unless you ‘jailbreak’ the iPhone and install a 3rd party app. Google will get you the details, although I guess something in the App Store may appear sometime…

  6. Ohh and one downside. The inability to set custom sounds and ringtones which, given there are now a couple of iPhones in our office means there is a constant “is that me?” discussion. I’d even pay for an App that sorted this!

  7. I might be in Shauna’s camp, I had a really hard time w/ the keypad when we (well, Larry) got the first version. And the battery life was really unimpressive. That’s gone downhill now, hasn’t it. Still , the interface is brilliant for browsing.

    Still holding out for the next generation of G3 Crackberry, mainly because I’m so used to the keypad after years of using one version or another.

  8. Gordon – what do you mean by custom sounds & ringtones? I use iToner (Mac app) to load in custom ringtones. You can then select those ringtones in sounds menu in the settings. You can also assign different ringtones to different people in the contacts app.

    Now that I’m looking at the iPhone I guess your meaning mail, text messages etc which you can’t add custom sounds too. Agreed – would be nice to change these too.

    May as well throw in thoughts on typing. I found it a bit fiddly at first and was using one finger only…and also wasn’t too accurate. However wrongly typed words usually have an autocorrect option underneath which you can select by pressing space. Double tapping space enters a full stop and a space and over the last few days it has got easier to type, more accurate and I’m now onto two thumbs. I also find it a lot faster than a normal phone keypad so it’s win win. For those use to a blackberry it will probably be slow – I’ve seen some at work who are demon’s on their berry’s.

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