rhmahoney
Well-known member
- Joined
- Feb 9, 2005
- Posts
- 1,405
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.
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.