Technology

You’ve seen the Helio commercials “Don’t call it a phone.” Helio would have you believe their devices aren’t phones but much more.
On the other hand you have the iPhone. A device that markets itself as a phone and has the word “phone” in it’s name but in reality is very much a handheld Mac.

My MacBook’s hard drive died (7/3/2007) two days after getting my iPhone. Fortunately, I had synced my calendars, contacts, bookmarks, some pictures, music and movies to my iPhone. Because of the timing with the holiday and weekend, I went a full week without my computer waiting for a new hard drive from Apple. Some people would have panicked, but I saw it as an opportunity to put the iPhone through it’s paces. So that’s what I did.

Can you live for a week without your computer and only an iPhone? Yes. But, expect some catching up when you get your computer back up and running. For instance, invoicing, something you can’t do with your iPhone. As a tech support person I took my wife’s computer with me (just in case) on two different jobs and only needed it once and was done within one minute.

Activation:
I got my iPhone 2 days after they were released and I did have activation problems. After 3 or 4 phone calls and 9 hours my iPhone was working as expected. I recently activated a client’s iPhone in 4 minutes with no problems. It looks to me as though AT&T has worked through the problems they were having.

Safari:
You’ve heard Steve Jobs say that the iPhone isn’t the watered down web but a full web browser. I can confirm that it’s certainly not the watered down web, but it’s not the complete web either. Flash playback is missing. That’s probably the biggest omission that most people will notice when surfing. It’s possible that Flash playback just wasn’t ready by the release date of the iPhone and will be added later. Downloading audio and video files directly into the iPod or available memory is something I’m looking forward to in a possible future update.

Hardware:
iPhone 1.0 hardware seems very impressive. It’s like Apple built the best piece of hardware they could, knowing they would be building on it through software updates for some time. Software can greatly improve the device; anything missing will be added later. Problems with be corrected through updates. The iPhone that was released on July 29th won’t be the same iPhone we’re using 6 months or a year from now. After a few updates it will receive fixes and new features. I love devices that can be updated with new features. I wrote an article about gaming consoles and how they change through software updates. A year and a half after I bought my Xbox 360 they added H.264 and MPEG-4 video playback which allows me to stream videos from my Mac to my Xbox 360. That’s awesome.

It’s nice to no longer have a need to carry multiple devices around. Before I had my phone, iPod and computer. Now in many cases I can get away with just having my iPhone. And the camera is nice to have since I never had a camera with me before.

Applications:
The built-in applications are the only ones you’re going to be able to use for a while. Apple will add more later and may even let 3rd parties in the future. There are those web based apps you may have heard about but if you’re in Airplane mode (no internet connection) you won’t be able to use them. This doesn’t bother me because I know Apple wants the iPhone to be as stable as possible.

Syncing:
Using iTunes to get all your data makes perfect sense. I haven’t had any problems. It’s very easy to add what you want.

Keyboard:
I love it. I don’t even realize how often it corrects my typing. Only one application allows for horizontal use; expect an update to add horizontal keyboard use to other apps. I took all of the notes for this article on my iPhone while I was without my computer.

Apple, please include the same spell correcting the iPhone has into Leopard. I like the corrected spelling hovering below the word I’m typing and the space bar activation. This is brilliant. It will help me on my desktop and laptop Macs as well.

Wireless Networks:
Unlike a lot of the tech articles you may have read online where the reviewer blasts the EDGE network for being slow, Edge network is acceptable when Wi-Fi is not available. Especially to those of us users who went from the cheapest mobile phone with no data plan at all directly to the iPhone.
Wi-Fi works great. It’s always going to be faster than EDGE, so use Wi-Fi when it’s available.

Address Book:
It’s easy to find what you need, but it can be slow if you have 600 addresses in your Address Book like I do. A little work needs to be done for some quick searching, but it’s the first time I’ve ever had my entire Address Book with me.

Calendars:
Calendars do not sync without a computer. So even if you have a dotmac account the iPhone won’t update your calendar through the internet like your Mac does. This is probably to keep feature parity with Windows users. While I appreciate having YouTube on my iPhone I’ve used the calendar far more.

Calendar combines all checked calendars into one. I’ve confirmed that it actually stores them separately. Maybe a future update will allow viewing calendars separately on the iPhone.

Camera:
Camera works well. You need to hold it steady and the subject must be well lit. Video recording – I believe the hardware can support it so it’s just a matter of a software update.

Email:
It works the same as your computer’s email. I have no complaints. It’s easy to use and works well. No more traveling from one job to another wondering what email I might have missed while my MacBook was in it’s case without an internet connection.

Touch Screen:
Finger wiping becomes a requirement. I will wipe the tip of my index finger on my sleeve or pants before using my iPhone. This removes that tiny bit of finger oil that would have otherwise ended up on my iPhone screen. So I don’t have to clean my screen as often. The screen itself is brilliant, even if I had to clean the screen 10 times a day, I would still prefer it. I currently only clean the screen twice a day. Use the cloth that came with the iPhone or a microfiber cloth and your breath to get the best clean without any potential for scratching.

Calculator:
Just that and nothing more.

SMS:
Never used it. With email I have no need for it.

Phone:
It works well, and the headphones add to it’s clarity. I have no complaints about the phone. It’s very cool to be listening to music or a podcast and have them pause and fade to the background while you answer the call, then un-pause and fade back in when the call is over.

Time Shift:
From useless time to productive or entertaining time.There’s nothing like being stuck at Sam’s Club and grabbing a soda, sitting down in the food court, surfing the web and answering emails, while they rotate your tires. Now the most boring places (doctors offices, tire store and any place that you’re required to wait) can be like your office by simply getting out your iPhone and doing some work or having some fun.

There are things on the iPhone that I didn’t address, simply because they are there, they work well and as expected.

Since this is the first iPod with a speaker I was able to sit on my deck with my wife and enjoy the cool breeze while playing a little 80′s music that we could both hear.

Final Thoughts: I believe the iPhone is a Trojan Horse for Apple. It puts a Mac in the hands of people who simply thought they were buying a cool phone. Should you get an iPhone? I certainly recommend it. If you’re in need of both a new iPod and mobile phone it becomes more reasonable. For me it was a must, I was at the point of needing something that would allow me to take notes and create calendar events while talking on the phone. The iPhone has literally made me a better tech support person. Now I just need to get my wife one.