The iPhone Experience

Tuesday 6 May 2008 - Filed under Default

I’ve had an iPhone for the past couple of months and I’m what you’d call a heavy user. I need email on the go and I like to check websites as well. So I figure it’d be useful to mention a few things I think haven’t been mentioned before about the device.

1. The iPhone is one of the few devices you can actually hand to a baby(granted it’s protected by an incase) and not worry about random phone calls or even that the little one’s going to change the song.

2. Takes too many clicks to get places. Put two more buttons down there(with OLED’s like this thing) and it’ll be a lot quicker to do stuff.

3. Wireless data over ATT’s network works well enough that jumping on tmobile’s network while at Starbucks is unnecessary and actually annoying because you have to sign in to maintain internet access. So I’ve “forgotten this network” several times while at Starbucks only to logon again later when I have the urge to check out the recently played songs. Maybe there could be an option to demote an ssid below the cellphone data service.

4. As an iPod, it’s replaced my other one I use in my car for this one cool feature that is born out of integration. It turns off the music when you get a phone call! So I can totally blast it and not worry that I’ll miss a call. Unfortunately if I blast the music, my particular setup tells me a lot more about the phone’s communications with the cell network than I ever wanted to know but it just tolerable enough that I tolerate it. If anyone has some tips on how to minimize that interference, I’m all ears.

5. Visual voicemail is every bit as useful as it was billed to be.

6. Your phone message gets played without any annoying cell-phone provider pretext. No, you don’t want to hit 5 to page. Yes, you know how to end a damn voice message. Duh! On the iPhone, and I can imagine Jobs throwing a hissy fit for this and for good reason, the first thing you hear when you are unfortunately sent to voicemail, is the greeting. It’s nice having a little more control over the voicemail experience.

7. It has no redial.

8. It’s actually a mini-boombox and that’s all kinds of fun.

So I’ve only got 8 items right now. Maybe I’ll think of more. Maybe not. But if you’re trying to decide whether or not to get one, I say do it. I didn’t even jailbreak it and it works well for me.

2008-05-06  »  David Sterry