More iPhone Impressions
I got in line at the Apple Store 5th Avenue at 6:05PM on Friday with 3 corners to turn on a very large New York city block; it was a LONG line. At 6:50pm, I had an iPhone in my hand. That's right, only 45 minutes! I was blown away at how fast they got me through. At the Apple 5th Avenue store, they had converted the entire genius bar into a check-out area with at least 15 cash registers dedicated to iPhones only. They moved people through so quickly it was amazing. So the lesson learned is that you didn't need to camp out. Apple clearly believes in this product and doesn't feel any need to inflate it's value by creating artificial scarcity. The other lesson is that Apple was prepared. I heard of people who upon seeing the long line left for several hours to run errands and then came back later. I found that the 45 minutes I waited was very pleasant.
Because I wasn't sure about the battery and activation, I stopped at the table to play with one of the demo units. My first impression was that it's the perfect size but that it's a little too slippery. I may look into a rubberized case, but that may not be necessary after all, given this drop and scratch test.
It's also incredibly inviting and fun to use. The web browser is a dream and in probably the killer app of the device. Then again, the killer app, may simply be the integration, and how smoothly everything works together. Or, it may be showing your friends the latest YouTube Video on that beautiful screen.
Unfortunately, as I was playing with the demo unit, the Internet capability ceased to work and nobody could figure out how to get it back. John Gruber reported something similar happening:
Hopefully, that won't turn out to be a pervasive problem.
I wish the notes app worked better. It doesn't sync and it doesn't allow you to type in landscape mode, only vertically, where the keyboard is much smaller. One of the best things about Palm devices was the ability to swap text notes back and forth. The iPhone seems to want you to do everything with email. Getting a note off the iPhone requires you to email it. It almost behaves more like an email "pre-editor" or a clipboard for storing unfinished thoughts that may in the future become emails.
Photos also require email unless you are near your computer in which case you just sync up. I posted my first iPhone photo to Flickr via email. You can post to Blogger via email too, however, don't make the mistake that I did. I made a typo in the secret blogger posting email address and now the whole message is just stuck. Somehow the iPhone knows that the message can't be sent because the email address is invalid and the iPhone produces an error message that says "Cannot Send Mail Verify that you have addressed this message correctly...". I'm going through a Gmail POP account, which may explain why a blogger.com email address gives that message, but I also checked by sending a test email to an invalid Gmail address and it goes, then comes back later bounced.
I've tried to delete the offending TO: address but alas, I can't. Neither can I add a new email address and I can't copy and paste the message, so it's just stuck. The only thing I can do is delete it, so I guess I'll just have to retype it. That sucks.
I also wish the email app had a contacts button. I thought, mistakenly, that I had added the Blogger secret email address to my contacts before putting it into the email message but I hadn't. I thought that if I switched to the contacts app (located in the phone app) and corrected the email address, the mail app might take it. Because I hadn't added it to contacts first, I couldn't. The way to get to the "contacts app" is through the phone. The mail app has no contacts button of it's own. Switching back to the phone app is annoying.
Mail seems to have it's own address handling similar to Gmail. As I type in the first part of said blogger address, it's showing me every permutation I've used so far, not just what's in my address book.
So, if you use Blogger, don't mess up the email address. Other than that, nobody should have this "stuck email" problem.
On the whole, I can say that the iPhone is the most polished version-1 product I have ever owned. The experience of buying it and owning it, with a few minor exceptions, has been very satisfying. I fully expect to find more exceptions with more day-to-day usage under my belt, but I would be happy not to.
One thing that I fully expect to be lame is trying to surf the Internet using the AT&T EDGE network, but we'll see.
Stay tuned.
Links:
Big Apple iPhone
YouTube - iPhone's first scratch/crash test ever! -iPhone Stress Test Via DaringFireball.net
YouTube - My iPhone showed up broken Via DaringFireball.net
YouTube - My iPhone showed up broken DaringFireball.net
REVIEW / Apple's simple, versatile iPhone changes the game:
Hands on: Five things I love, and three I don't, about the iPhone:
Because I wasn't sure about the battery and activation, I stopped at the table to play with one of the demo units. My first impression was that it's the perfect size but that it's a little too slippery. I may look into a rubberized case, but that may not be necessary after all, given this drop and scratch test.
It's also incredibly inviting and fun to use. The web browser is a dream and in probably the killer app of the device. Then again, the killer app, may simply be the integration, and how smoothly everything works together. Or, it may be showing your friends the latest YouTube Video on that beautiful screen.
Unfortunately, as I was playing with the demo unit, the Internet capability ceased to work and nobody could figure out how to get it back. John Gruber reported something similar happening:
My wife?s iPhone at first seemed like a lemon, in that it would not connect to our home AirPort base station. Mine connected just fine, and hers saw the network and prompted her for the password, but it never actually switched to using the Wi-Fi instead of EDGE. Then she power-cycled the iPhone and it looked like it was using Wi-Fi, but wouldn?t actually connect to anything. She used the Restore feature in iTunes (the thing was only out of the box for 30 minutes) and that fixed it.
Hopefully, that won't turn out to be a pervasive problem.
I wish the notes app worked better. It doesn't sync and it doesn't allow you to type in landscape mode, only vertically, where the keyboard is much smaller. One of the best things about Palm devices was the ability to swap text notes back and forth. The iPhone seems to want you to do everything with email. Getting a note off the iPhone requires you to email it. It almost behaves more like an email "pre-editor" or a clipboard for storing unfinished thoughts that may in the future become emails.
Photos also require email unless you are near your computer in which case you just sync up. I posted my first iPhone photo to Flickr via email. You can post to Blogger via email too, however, don't make the mistake that I did. I made a typo in the secret blogger posting email address and now the whole message is just stuck. Somehow the iPhone knows that the message can't be sent because the email address is invalid and the iPhone produces an error message that says "Cannot Send Mail Verify that you have addressed this message correctly...". I'm going through a Gmail POP account, which may explain why a blogger.com email address gives that message, but I also checked by sending a test email to an invalid Gmail address and it goes, then comes back later bounced.
I've tried to delete the offending TO: address but alas, I can't. Neither can I add a new email address and I can't copy and paste the message, so it's just stuck. The only thing I can do is delete it, so I guess I'll just have to retype it. That sucks.
I also wish the email app had a contacts button. I thought, mistakenly, that I had added the Blogger secret email address to my contacts before putting it into the email message but I hadn't. I thought that if I switched to the contacts app (located in the phone app) and corrected the email address, the mail app might take it. Because I hadn't added it to contacts first, I couldn't. The way to get to the "contacts app" is through the phone. The mail app has no contacts button of it's own. Switching back to the phone app is annoying.
Mail seems to have it's own address handling similar to Gmail. As I type in the first part of said blogger address, it's showing me every permutation I've used so far, not just what's in my address book.
So, if you use Blogger, don't mess up the email address. Other than that, nobody should have this "stuck email" problem.
On the whole, I can say that the iPhone is the most polished version-1 product I have ever owned. The experience of buying it and owning it, with a few minor exceptions, has been very satisfying. I fully expect to find more exceptions with more day-to-day usage under my belt, but I would be happy not to.
One thing that I fully expect to be lame is trying to surf the Internet using the AT&T EDGE network, but we'll see.
Stay tuned.
Links:
Big Apple iPhone
YouTube - iPhone's first scratch/crash test ever! -iPhone Stress Test Via DaringFireball.net
YouTube - My iPhone showed up broken Via DaringFireball.net
YouTube - My iPhone showed up broken DaringFireball.net
REVIEW / Apple's simple, versatile iPhone changes the game:
"It has its flaws and omissions, but this is a device that will be defined by what it brings to the table, not what it leaves behind."
Hands on: Five things I love, and three I don't, about the iPhone:
"YouTube. This is the killer app for this phone (so long as you have WiFi and don't have to rely on AT&T's EDGE network). The quality is many times better than the flash videos you're likely used to from a desktop web browser "Via MacSurfer.com
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