So I’ve had the device for a few days, and I have to say – the iPhone was totally worth getting. I love it more than I expected I would. The UI is incredibly expressive, and if the English language doesn’t have a word to express how intuitive and user friendly it is. I treated it like a movie I wanted to see and didn’t read much about how it actually worked. As I mentioned before, I bought the iPhone early and in a direct response to my unhappiness with how well my BlackBerry Curve II synced with OS X 10.5 Leopard. Plus the calendar on the BB was so ugly that it was practically unusable. In fact for a smart phone I only used 3 applications on it: Email, which was superb and in many ways still better than the iPhone; Google Maps, where the iPhone does trump the Curve; and TwitterBerry, a decent twitter client that allowed me to send updates and read a few of the last updates of my friends, but lacked any kind of ‘Wow’factor.
In the end, I switched to Apple’s device for the promise it offered – having one device be the center of my digital experience, and one that I would use every square inch of. And it has more than delivered.
With the addition of MobileMe, which also gives me access to the .Mac features I’ve never bought, but always kind of wanted – I now have calendars and address books synced to all the Macs I use regularly (now at 3). The over the air push is cool, but for email is not that impressive, since my BB did that flawlessly. It is also a bit slow, where I had to wait longer than I wanted. I noticed it 12 hours later, but could have happened sooner – I stopped checking it every 5-10 minutes after about an hour. Right now, I’m chalking it up to the load of the 1M new users that are probably playing with the 60 day trial for it. I imagine they will scale up and out to support the traffic, and it will get better. It eventually synced up, and in the end that’s all that matters.
The Calendar app is better than I expected, and is basically iCal mobile with some intelligent design decisions to adapt it to the device. Event reminders are almost a pleasure to receive and its nice that I can see it on screen without doing anything more than waking it up. With my BB I had to wake it, unlock it with a password and then view the reminder, so the experience is far superior on my new toy. The app store is also cool, with GTD software maker Things and Twitterrific (a ‘real’twitter client) topping my list.
But as usual, its the little things Apple does that blow away its competition. The silence switch that shuts the ringer off and automatically sets it to vibrate only is incredible useful and saves time fumbling through an interface (any interface) and just makes sense. Being able to click a link in an email and launching the real internet in a browser capable of rendering real web pages without mangling them is jaw dropping. I mean, anything else is just unacceptable in our data-driven age, and Apple seems to realize this 100 fold. But the most incredibly useful feature is the Visual Voicemail. I haven’t listened to voice mail in years, and now I listen to ALL of them. This is huge, and shocked me with its simplicity. As anandtech says, its Voicemail done right. In fact, this may actually save it from being another Fax Machine – everyone needs one, but no one likes using it, because everyone uses it wrong, mostly because the interface to it has not kept up with the times. When it all adds up, the iPhone (with Exchange access) enables me to seamlessly navigate between my full time gig, and my freelance consulting with a surprising lack of friction that I have become more productive than I could have ever imagined. <insert evil laugh>
The iPhone is not with out its drawbacks though, and I guess no device is perfect. It sometimes doesn’t seem to recognize a tap, some gestures can be unreliable, and GPS has been flaky for me (after working like a charm the first couple). However, I fully expect most of these to be addressed in future upgrades, and once Things from Culture Code has released its full featured version (both Desktop and iPhone version), my ‘holy grail’will be acquired and my digital life complete.
What are your impressions? Leave a comment and let me know. Also tell me what you upgraded from, and which carrier (if applicable).
This was a really informative review, Eric. I especially liked your comparisons between the iPhone and the BlackBerry Curve (which I use now).
I do have the agree on a couple of points, the Calender App does bloweth chunks mightly. It is mediocre at best, sub par at worst.
I also wholeheartedly agree on the Mac OSX syncing. RIM needs to update that God-awful Mac syncing app. Maybe if it actually ported the one they use for the PC over, things would get better. Syncing on my PC is painless, on the Mac… I think I’ve had root canals that were more pleasant.
The one thing I wish iPhone would have implemented is a simple cut & paste. I mean, how difficult would it have been, really? Palm OS using Graffiti had it, for the love of Babbage!
Also, how was the adjustment for your from keyboard to virtual keyboard? I tried using my sister’s iTouch keyboard and I wanted to toss the thin in the pool I was so frustrated. I have to say I like the tactile feel of the BB more, and I’m looking forward to BB’s implementation of haptic touch tech in the Thunder.
Again, great post!
You get used to the keyboard very fast. In fact I may actually be faster on this one, then on my Blackberry – and I’ve only had it a couple of weeks. If you give in to the spelling auto-correct, you should have no problem.
Copy and Paste will eventually be added, and is sorely missed. The only time I copied and pasted on my BB was when I was adding people to the address book. However, with MobileMe syncing, I just type stuff off the phone into my address book, and its on my phone in minutes anyway. So I’m okay with it for now.
Thanks for stopping by.
- Eric Marden