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Quick Review of First 24 Hours with iPhone Posted By: jeff stein Date: 7/1/07 04:57 GMT
In Response To: I have been iPhoning.... (Chicagoland Chuck Maddox)
so tell us, Chuck, over the first 24 hours (or maybe more like 30 hours), how have you liked this new iPhone? Hmmm, well, I guess the one sentence summary is:
It's pretty much what Apple said it was, the worst predictions of the critics [for the most part] are unfounded, but there still are some changes I'd like to see.
I realize that this question may be too broad / overwhelming to even attempt a response (like saying how do you like Omega Speedmasters, but can you give us a very quick reaction? It's certainly too broad and overwhelming to tap out one index finger tap (or two thumb taps] at a time on the virtual keyboard, and there will be no "Chuck's formatted posts" when I'm using the iPhone.
I was the third person in line [the two 20-somethings had lawn chairs in hand and were walking across the lot, when I pulled in], but I was the first person out of the store with iPhone in hand at my in-town AT&T store. There was a crowbd of about 12 until about 2:30pm when the crowd doubled in the next thirty minutes [to about 25 people] and it doubled again [about 50 folks total] by the time the store reopened for sale. The store ran out about halfway through the line. I'd guess they got between 25-30 phones total at this store. The day was completely overcast until about 5pm and the temperature never got above 70F with a slight breeze (some people actually were using blankets! In short a perfect day for waiting in line. We had heard from people who'd drove by the two nearest Apple stores that the line was over 500 people at each by 9am Friday morning and growing.
Once I got home and got the phone unwrapped and connected to the computer [after updating iTunes] Activation of the phone took at most the 1 minute stated time, and probably less, and the AT&T transfer of my account to the new phone took less than the 3 minutes stated. Very painless.
Moving a playlist of songs over was easy, however, even though I had created a short version of my Safari bookmarks (only 68k instead of my recently slimmed down 400k file) I could not get them to transfer over Friday night. Well, actually... I couldn't believe it was taking that long to transfer a 68k file so I kept on aborting the transfer. I couldn't get this resolved Friday night.
However Saturday morning my bookmarks synced fairly quickly. One note. To my knowledge, the Safari on the iPhone does not allow you to have a set home page [my links page is typically my home page on my lap/desktops] so you'll need to create a bookmark for your home page and place it promenently in your bookmarks file on your iPhone [unless there's a setting I've missed -- Any help here?].
The next issue I had was getting mail to work properly. That took me a couple of hours to get straightened out and figured out. Important advice: it's usually better and more effective to delete what you've done and start a new fresh email account than to try to salvage one that isn't working and set up right. But I finally got it, and the problem with getting my sbcglobal.net account was I had an error in the name.
OK... I haven't used the phone away from my Airport wireless network yet, so I can't comment on how slow web surfing is away from wi-fi. My thinking is that you'll probably make a print-out of free w-fi in your state from one of the listing services and then visit them if you need wi-fi on the road. Panera Bread, McDonalds and Barnes & Noble here I come!
But the email works great, the web is amazing, and I've only briefly tried SMS messaging. I'm not sure how one finds people on it yet. But this is the first time I've had this feature, I'll get the hang of it sooner or later. The Google Maps ROCKS! YouTube is very cool too. If you're stuck somewhere, you can always pull up a video to pass the time, etc.
The virtual keyboard is AMAZING. It corrects your mistakes automatically! I miss this feature when I go back to my laptop or desktop machine, believe me. All of the whining and moaning about not having a keys... Well, I'm sure there are some pretty speedy "Crack"Berry users out there who'll always prefer real keys but they "glass keyboard" works and works well. Not that I'm going to be making long-winded replys in forums with my iPhone. But the virtual keyboard guesses at words and will correct spelling, auto capitalize at the beginning of a sentence, even automatically do contractions. It also bases it's future predictions on what you've typed in the past. It's really pretty amazing and I'm a Newton early adopter too. So I'm used to that sort of thing.
The battery life is pretty phenominal too, I have yet to draind the batter completely and it seems to be very good on siping instead of chugging the juice.
There are some features that I'd like to see revised with software. The ability to change orientation on web pages isn't available for emails or Google maps, that should be an easy firmware update. I'd really like to see a Weather RADAR program so that I can check on the progress of storms in addition to the 6 day forecast. It'd be nice if Apple would bring the ability for people to make their own widgets to the iPhone.
You see, something like that would be great to have on a phone, especially if your on the road, traveling or doing outdoorsy activies.
Fun or frustrating? It was very modestly frustrating at first. I really wanted to have my bookmarks over quickly so I could put it through it's paces. I don't know if I was just too impatient or if there was something else going on Friday night. The mail thing is probably as much my fault as the iPhone's. but since then, it rocks!
What you had visualized or surprises? It was pretty much what I had expected, I fitured what Apple promised would be achieved, but there probably wouldn't be a huge amount of "easter eggs" or new undocumented features not previously discussed. It's like having a Palm III sized device that has a BEAUTIFUL color display, a solid MP3 player, access to the internet and a phone all in one. Oh and they threw in a camera too.
Phone quality? Audio quality I'd say comparable to my Motorola Razr v.3 or my first generation v.60 Moto that I previously had. The big difference are all the easy to access and use features. You can have up to six people on a conference call on the thing!
Photo quality? Well, it's a 2 megapixel camera with no zoom, no flash and no settings. So it's good for taking an on-the-fly picture in good light, like if you meet a friend, you can take his picture and put it in your address book, and maybe if you need a picture of something you run across. But if you're going to the museum or a sporting event, you'll want to bring your regular camera too.
I assume the video and audio are consistent with the iPods? Well, I believe the moving over of music and videos is more restrictive than other iPods. With other iPods, you can grab a bunch of tracks and dump it on the iPod's icon and they shoot across. So far with the iPhone I've had to move stuff over as playlists. I haven't experimented with it too much, so I get to explore that in the days to come. Chances are that if you're a heavy iPod user, you'll probably have an automatic playlist or two create (like last 36 hours of podcast downloads) and have it set to auto sync. You'll have a couple playlists of your favorite tracks, a couple movies, a couple episodes of TV shows that you watch then replace with new ones. If you're a REALLY HEAVY USER of iPod's you might want to keep that 8gigabyte Nano for most of your daily listening needs. just in case.
Jeff
Chuck's actually *using* his iPhone? *PIC* Posted By: allen st. john Date: 7/1/07 14:25 GMT
In Response To: Quick Review of First 24 Hours with iPhone (jeff stein)
How shortsighted!
In 30 years think how much a first day of issue, NOS iPhone will be worth to the KISse of the future. (Computer Idiot Savant, like my college roommate, who rewrote his OS, but couldn't work his spell check.) Well, they are projected to sell as many as 500,000 of them this weekend. No I'm not kidding!
It's not like they are going to be especially rare.
Maybe as much as an "Orwell" McIntosh.
A minty IIce
A Lisa Lisa Cult Jam
or even, the elusive "Ike" Newton.
Can you text "Holey Grale?"
If you won't think of yourself, Chuck, think of the boys. Stop him before he dials again! Besides, it's hard to decypher alphanumeric s/n's...
(I realize this is a little OT, and perhaps we should move this thread to our sister site for vintage Apple collectors: On the Mouse.)
best
Allen  Very nice MP 2x00 there! Is that a 2000 or a 2100? I have a couple of those sitting around here. I probably should try getting them up to date with all of the die-hard's hacks. I also spy an Enterprise cutaway poster and perhaps an eWorld dealie of some sort on the wall.
A kindred spirit!
iPhone Serial Number? Posted By: jeff stein Date: 7/1/07 15:08 GMT
In Response To: Chuck's actually *using* his iPhone? *PIC* (allen st. john)
Chuck:
did you get a low serial number? I'd assume so, but with a serial number that looks like the last name of a Vulcan, I'm not sure how I could tell.
shall we create a registry, with photos? Well, there are "where's iPod?" sites up on the web. Of course there will be a "Where's iPhone?" sites as well!
are you on the original battery charge or are they the after-market ions? Oh, I've put it on charge at night while I sleep.
so do you love the thng?? There are two classes of people, those who own iPhones and those who wish they owned one [even if they don't admit or know it].
=) I'm of the former classification.
Jeff I'm pretty sure with time (and a firmware update or two) it'll only get better.
When you see one in action for the first time, you all are so going to want one! | 
