Living With The iPhone 3G, Part 1

I've had my iPhone 3G for more than a month now.

Overall, I like it (with one glaring, inexcusable exception - the Safari browser crashes constantly). It has changed the way I "operate in life" to at least a small extent. I'm able to "stay connected" with news, blog posts, and email better than I've ever been able to do before. The iPhone 3G is much more a computer that you stick into your pocket and bring along with you, with the added benefit of being a phone, than it is a phone with computer / Internet features grafted on.

One of the first things I bought before leaving the Apple Store was a clear plastic "skin" for the face of the iPhone. That's been well worth it in protecting the faceplate from the inevitable dings - smudges, scratches, etc.. I also bought a "rubber bumper case" for the iPhone. That came off after the first few hours. The iPhone is comfortable enough and slim enough that it naturally gravitates to a pocket, and the case impeded smooth movement of the iPhone in and out of pockets. So far, I haven't dropped the iPhone (major impacts, anyway...). In my opinion, Apple ought to include that faceplate protector on the iPhone as it ships, and include a spare.

Overall things done right on the iPhone 3G itself:

• It's smooth and comfortable, easy to hold in your hand. I find the shape much more comfortable to hold in my hand than the average small flip phone.
• One of the best features of the iPhone is that there's a silence switch - an honest-to-goodness old-fashioned mechanical toggle switch that silences the iPhone completely. No misc. tweets, etc. are emitted when silent mode is on - it just vibrates briefly when it wants you to know about something - incoming call, etc. Other phones "silent" mode requires you to turn off all kinds of things in obscure menus and worse, use push buttons that can get bumped or seem to change state entirely on their own - silent when you don't want silent, audible when you want silent, etc. The iPhone truly gets the silent mode right.
• A really pleasant surprise is that the iPhone 3G is readable in direct sunlight - no compromises. I sure didn't expect that. I'm amazed that they were able to put that good a display into such a compact unit.
• The speaker(phone) mode is surprisingly loud and intelligible. One example is that I listen to podcasts while I'm doing something like cleaning up the kitchen after dinner and I don't want the iPhone in danger of taking a bath as I lean over to scrub a pot.
• As a phone, it works... about as well as any other "wireless telephony" device I've used since my first Dyna-Tac phone. It's not any worse, that I've observed. Again, that's the iPhone 3G itself - the AT&T Mobility network comes in for some criticism.
• The handoff between "wireless telephony" and Wi-Fi networks is seamless. I've got mine set not to "grab onto" just any Wi-Fi network it finds - it only accesses my home Wi-Fi network and a very few others and otherwise stays connected to the AT&T Mobility network.
• Battery life is "pretty good". Battery life could always be better, but overall I can get a full day out of my iPhone, and the battery recharges are fast (at least with the included AC-to-USB charging adapter).
• It's really nice that the "charging cable" is "standard" iPod-to-USB; you can buy multiple chargers, from multiple sources, have multiple cables (and spares...) and you can always plug it into a handy USB outlet on a computer if you gotta get some juice. It's been maddening to me that you end up with all kinds of odd chargers, car adapters, etc. when you change phones.
• The transfer / synchronization of contacts between iPhone and desktop computer (at least my Mac) is seamless... a little too seamless. My iPhone has inherited the 5000 or so contacts that resided in my Mac's Address Book (it took me a year to realize that the email address of everyone I sent a message to or received a message from was automatically being added to my Mac Address Book. (A bit of a fiasco given that I was subscribed to a lot of mailing lists; it's going to take quite a while to "decontaminate" my Address Book).
• The 2.1 software upgrade definitely fixed a number of issues, including maddening long pauses when trying to scroll through contacts. My iPhone itself doesn't crash any more (my definition is "rebooting" to the Apple logo), and the connectivity is better overall.
• When it works (it's a bit slow) and in apps that support it, the ability to rotate the iPhone into landscape mode from portrait mode makes the iPhone twice as usable. Things that are hard or uncomfortable to read in portrait mode are much more comfortable to read in landscape mode.
• I'm relieved that Apple changed the headphone jack to being flush to allow any corded headset with a mini stereo jack to be used.
• Apple included the capability - now being implemented by third-party apps, for the iPhone to be used as a capable voice recorder. Wow... that has some really interesting implications for recording impromptu meetings.
• The "soft keyboard" feature works decently. It's an acceptable compromise between the utter unusability (at least to this middle-aged mind and fingers) of entering text on a 12-key numeric pad, and losing "device real estate" to a miniature keyboard 'ala BlackBerry. It's great to send full-sentence mixed-case, all (correct) punctuation text messages.

Future installments of Living With The iPhone 3G:

• iPhone things done not so well;
• iPhone things done wrong;
• Apple / AT&T / ecosystem observations (some scathing);
• How I use my iPhone - Gmail, Greader, etc.
• BWIA implications of the iPhone

By Steve Stroh

This article is Copyright © 2008 by Steve Stroh except for specifically-marked excerpts. Excerpts and links are expressly permitted (and encouraged).

This article was written and posted via Broadband Wireless Internet Access (BWIA) ; Sprint Mobile Broadband service using a Sierra Wireless 595U USB modem - 1xEV-DO Rev. A on my MacBook Pro laptop... while sitting in Starbucks with "free" (with onerous terms and conditions, including allowing AT&T to spam you) Wi-Fi available.

This article is Copyright © 2008 by Steve Stroh except for specifically-marked excerpts. Excerpts and links are expressly permitted (and encouraged).

This article was written and posted via Broadband Wireless Internet Access (BWIA) ; Sprint Mobile Broadband service using a Sierra Wireless 595U USB modem - 1xEV-DO Rev. A on my MacBook Pro laptop... while sitting in Starbucks with "free" (with onerous terms and conditions, including allowing AT&T to spam you) Wi-Fi available.

Comments

[jonathan]

Very good overview and right on review.
I look forward to the future installments.

[Al]

Hi Steve, I agree with you 100% on the usability of iPhone 3G (I am from Singapore, btw.) The only setback is, iPhone is not able to forward text messages or forward contacts. I hope Apple is going to include it on the next update.