I waited out the first iPhone mostly because I was happy with my Blackberry, but with the launch of the App store I decided to take the plunge. Below is my take on the sold-out phone.
General Thoughts:
The hardware is beautiful and has a solid feel unlike any other consumer electronic device I have played with. The user interface is incredibly intuitive, powerful and easy to use. There are countless features that I thought were
missing, only to find even better ways of doing them as I got more comfortable (i.e. better ways of navigating contacts, no scrolling mechanism…).
Web: Amazing experience. I browse entire sites and even enjoy it. The experience is 100x what it was on my blackberry, almost like comparing horseback riding to airplanes.
Phone: Very good quality. The controls (speaker, conference call…) are easy and intuitive. The sensor is incredibly responsive, so my face never accidently touches any buttons. I wish it had speed dial keys on the main page or voice dialing, instead of having to click on the phone button then the favorite button and then finally select my contact. That’s my only complaint and otherwise a great, great phone.
App store: Unbelievable!!! I have about 15 applications and they are all amazing. I think the app store is the single best thing about the phone. Pandora, Facebook, YelloPages, Yelp, Voice Recorder, Bloomberg…the list goes on, I get my news, entertainment, everything on it. Very cool and will keep getting better.
GPS: A cool feature, but no reason to get the iPhone 3G over the last version. It’s great when searching with the Yellowpages or Yelp apps, because you just search for “restaurant” and it shows you the closest ones. There are a few apps that make use of the GPS, and it is cool and convenient - but not critical.
Keyboard: Much better than I expected. The correction software is quiet amazing. I would say its somewhere between typing with a Pearl and a full-fledged BlackBerry.
MobileMe: I had this, but cancelled mostly because I have exchange and I am on a PC. It worked well, but I like using Google Calendar and mobile me only syncs with outlook on the PC. (CompanionLink just released an app that I think works better than MobileMe, but without push email). The contacts can be synced with Google but not the calendar. Otherwise worked very well. Push email was equally as good as on my blackberry.
Ipod: Amazing. Brilliant. Love watching movies on it.
Battery: By far the biggest knock and almost a deal breaker. It barely makes it a whole day of heavy use. I solved this by getting a battery pack from RichardSolo which I keep with me as backup. On the positive note the charger is tiny, so it’s easy enough to have that handy in the office.
My Recommendation: Overall I love the iPhone and I can’t remember what I did without it. If you have a first version of the iPhone I wouldn’t upgrade just for the 3G and GPS, but if you don’t then absolutely go for it!
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