Mahoney reviews iPhone

I got my iPhone on the  first day at 8:30 pm. The Apple store was busy with lookers and there was no line waiting to buy. However, I had to wait 12 hrs before activation occurred. Sure was nice and easy to setup the account in itunes. It could handle a residential (my sister's house) and a separate billing address (SKP). However, the AT&T computer saw fit to delete my PMB # from the billing address. Dropped in at a AT&T store in Eugene today and they quickly corrected the error and set up an auto-pay billing account from my checking account.

The iPhone is surprisingly dense. I like the feel. Yes, the screen smudges, but you only see that at an angle. straight on, the screen brightness hides the fingerprints.

To wake, press the sole button below the screen and slide the on screen slider to the right. It opens to the last application used. Hit the home button anytime to go to the 16 icon home screen.

Synching. Ah! a joy. it is near effortless after doing the initial setup in itunes. I have address book, safari browser bookmarks, calendar for 38 meg; selected music and podcast playlists for 4.88 GB, photos for 380 meg and 2.03 GB of free space. I have put no video on the phone.

I will not add mail to the synch until I setup a phone only email account... I have too many listserve msgs! Don't want to plow through 100+ such msgs each day, especially since deleting them is a one by one by one boring drudgery.

On screen keyboard. Easy to use since I have never used a smartphone keyboard. Apparently folks who have such, have  some unlearning to do. Since I have to look at the keyboard anyway, one finger typing is adequate. When I touch a key, it balloons up and I have visual feedback of what key I hit. For best results, I find using the center of the finger is best. When I used the side of the finger by having the hand at an angle to the phone, I would often hit the key one space to the right. Built in error correction speeds things up. When you finish a word with an error, a little popup with a suggested correction appears. Hitting the spacebar applies the correction.

EDGE data network. Yes this is slower than 3G, but only a little bit since AT&T has upgraded it considerably a few days before Jun 29. Tradeoff is longer battery life for EDGE. Besides, the phone will automatically switch to wifi whenever possible and that is about 10 times faster than EDGE.

Battery life: My use has been rather lite duty. I have yet to use more than 10-15 % of battery charge.

Bluetooth I bought the Jawbone headset. very comfortable but flakey to use. One day it will turn on and work all day. Other days, I never get it to work.

web browser. slow with EDGE but OK with wifi.

ipod. the interface is intuitive.

speakerphone. adequate loudness. Music is surprisingly clear.

stereo headset with microphone. Great for phone and music.

the apps:
Maps. best of all! In the search filed enter city, state (or zipcode) and product or business. Soon up pops a map with pushpins for the places found. Tap a pin and get a label with name of business Tap on the label and get a contact page (you can now save it to the address book). Tap on the phone# and it dials. I have used this to find Thai restaurants, Home Depot, a post office, fry's electronics. On the 4th of July friends took me out to supper. The selected restaurant was closed. We used the map function to find a substitute.

It can do routes. In the big cities, it can overlay the freeways with traffic conditions. late afternoon in Portland Oregon, it showed red for I-5 between downtown and the Columbia river bridge and patches of yellow on most of the rest of the road system.

It keeps a bookmark list of previous finds and routes.

calendar. synchs just fine. I have so few appointments that this will not see much use.

stocks. you can track a list of stock market results.

weather. setting up cities to monitor is easy.

photos. I synched my Alaska slideshow from last year. The pics are down rezed severely. You can double tap a pic to zoom in, but then you are at the raged edge of pixelation. I made my lead off pic of the fishing boat returning to Valdez harbor my wallpaper. resizing and centering the pic
took only a few seconds. FUDsters have complained that there is no video out for showing this on a TV screen. I think the resolution is way too low for that.

camera. It works.

notes. write short text entries.

clock. a timer, world clock, stopwatch, and alarm. Inerestingly, It can't identify Des Moines Iowa!

calculator. basic functions only

settings. all the control panel items.

SMS text nsgs. Don't plan to use this at all.

You Tube. tried one video. It is much clearer (H264) rather than the flash versions available on the web.

Overall, I am mighty pleased.

Thanks for the report Russ. Sounds like you have a neat machine. Glad to hear you're pleased with it.

Thanks for the report Russ.

Thanks for the honest and informative report Russ!

Smoky, how did you find this topic? TIA.

Tom:

I use the two links up at the top for show new messages since last visit, and show replies to your posts (approximate wording).

This is how I have navigated for the last few years on this forum.  I read every thread where someone replies in a thread in which I have posted, and then just skim the other link on threads posted since I last visited.  When I see a topic that interests me I click on it.  That is how I found Russ's iPhone report.

OK thanks Smoky. That's definitely two ways to use the forum, and probably the most common for regulars, although there are a number of others.

Russ, good review.

I believe it was Duke University where so many students had bought iPhones that they crashed the WiFi on campus. Campus IT departments all over the country are now scrambling to add WiFi bandwidth beore they get swamped. I got a note on it yesterday from our Sr Network Admin.

Bob Maxwell said:

Russ, good review.

I believe it was Duke University where so many students had bought iPhones that they crashed the WiFi on campus. Campus IT departments all over the country are now scrambling to add WiFi bandwidth beore they get swamped. I got a note on it yesterday from our Sr Network Admin.

Click to expand...

It wasn't number of phones but the number of accesses the phones were making to the network. No other schools have reported the problem and its assumed for now that the problem is specific to the Duke network design.

It's not only the iPhones but sites like MySpace that may need to hit 200+ internet DNS servers to load a page.

All the major network hardware vendors are scrambling to build new switching hardware that will handle the load.  Many larger companies simply block the sites along with YouTube and the like and many of the schools are using some scheme to limit access by a single device during a given period of time.

The normal enterprise does a lot of blocking and can do almost anything it wants. I expect the reason it hit Duke is that a lot of the stu8dents at Duke have the $$$$ to be first purchasers.

Given the fact that 8 or 9 of every 10 students has a cell phone and the quickly get whatever is the in phone, it will not be long before the iPhone , if it takes off, rules.

The major difference is that most campus systems will never be able to block any site due to the sacrosanctt principle of academic freedom. It trumps almost every effort of ours to block sites and only inappropriate use of sites  -not the sites themselves- can be proscribed. That works for staff, but faculty and sudents find the most amazing reasons for spending time in the bandwidth hogs.

I believe the problem was the huge number (>10,000/second) of ARP queries being sent by the iPhones to the access points that overloaded the APs and brought down the network.  Basically a DDOS attack by cell phone   Of course, they could just block ARP queries in the routers but that would probably remove some useful functionality.

Thank you, Russ -- I enjoyed your feedback. After seeing the iPhone ads, can see why you like your new toy. The wider screen and touch scrolling of a web page was most impressive to me. As I'm sure it has been to potential buyers. As you may know, my smartPhone is a $49 Motorola Q. The Q Win Mobile OS simply reformats an Internet paragraph as long as it contains soft carriage returns so I don't have to keystroke scroll, just have longer paragraphs.

>> Yes, the screen smudges.
====
The Q smudges as well -- and it's not a touch screen  .  I purchased some eye glasses wipes and bottled lens spray at SAM's Club that I use on my glasses, iPod, watch face, and Q each AM. Works great for me. I also have some in the Jeep for my Garmin 2610 GPS touch screen.

>> Hit the home button anytime to go to the 16 icon home screen.
====
My home screen is a pin up picture of Ashley Judd wearing just a Kentucky Basketball jersey.  Of course, this is a Win Mobile OS, so I have a Home key icon and a Start key button to display my Home desktop or Start Menu and associated icons.

>> Syncing. Ah! a joy.
====
Yes, I can understand your joy. So far I only sync w/the elements of MS Outlook -- but haven't moved my email to that SW as yet. As a business person, my contact syncing with Outlook is such a joy, using your terms (wireless syncing from any remote location).

>> On screen keyboard.
====
Looking at all the models w/different strokes for different folks, I just didn't like having to unfold or do slide outs of keyboards and such. As a touch typist I found the "Q's" Qwerty keyboard easy to adjust to -- and am enjoying being "all thumbs". But as with you, I will not be doing much typing other than short text messages via the phone. Mostly, picking up email is the major usage -- plus net surfing.

>> EDGE data network -- 3G -- WiFi.
====
The Q does not have WiFi. When I asked why -- the response was, "why do you need it?". The Q has EVDO 3G technology, and unlimited data minutes as long as I don't go over the FAP level of, I believe, 5gig/ month. So if I need to get on the Internet or get email, I don't care about finding WiFi -- I just log on from anywhere. And if EVDO technology is not available, I doubt WiFi would be either.

>> Battery life.
====
That is a downside of the iPhone -- IMO. I have already had some very busy days on the "Q" while away from my rig. I bought the extended life battery, plus have the battery that came with the unit as backup. So if either ever goes south, I can just buy a new one.

>> Bluetooth.
====
Yes, Russ -- I experimented with one "in the ear" device because I wear glasses -- and was very disappointed. I don't like the sound and it was uncomfortable after awhile. I took it back to Verizon and will stay with a wired headset until I have time to experiment further. The technology tho is terrific -- and am also looking into Bluetooth wireless remote full size folding keyboards, external speakers, and stereo headsets.

>> ipod. the interface is intuitive.
====
With your iTunes/iPod set up, I can see why that's a big feature for you. I "never" sync with iTunes w/my 30gig Video iPod. The whole idea of having MP3 players in phones, GPS's, and wherever still makes little sense to me. I put my music, music videos, photo portfolio, and audio books in my iPod -- and take the time to "do it right". To move some of that to other devices would just take more time than I have available. I "have" moved a few of the tracks I enjoy the most to the Q -- and will sometimes have need to listen when the iPod is not with me. The Q's stereo speakers are great - tho I have had to buy an adapter for a wired stereo headset to fit the "Q" headset jack.

>> the apps:
====
Haven't gotten into Q apps as yet -- tho have looked at the abundance that are available. I may get the GPS SW, but for now am just to busy to explore that. If I recall, the iPhone initially was not going to have apps -- or only have those sold by Apple? That has been changed now, hasn't it. Lotsa negative feedback on that from what I read prior to the iPhone release date. There are many 3rd party programmers developing for the "Q".

>> stocks. you can track a list of stock market results.
====
I use "MyYahoo" as my home page on my desktop network WinXP & VISTA computers -- and have all of what you mention listed there plus tons more of stuff I like. I put that page as a Favorite (bookmark) on the Q so have it a couple of keystrokes away no matter where I am. This AM at breakfast with friends, I was told that McGuire still held the Home Run record at 70. I tried to get a $20 bet going that they were mistaken, then quickly stuck my thumbs in my Q, brought up my My Yahoo page, and keyed in "Home Run Record" search keywords. Within seconds I was gloatingly reading aloud the details of Barry Bonds wiping out the McGuire record.

>> camera. It works.
====
That's about all I can say for the 2mp camera in the Q. I have little use for a cell phone camera.

>> Overall, I am mighty pleased.
====
That's great, Russ -- am looking forward to checking it out the next time our roads cross . . .

Re battery life: The iPod charger for cars will charge the iPhone. I expect someone will come out with a external battery pack kludge solution.

re iPod setup:  Took but a few seconds to select a few playlists and podcast categories.

re smudges: I use a damp microfiber cloth to wipe down the screen followed by a drying swipe across my T shirt.