John's iPhone blog

Or, a few notes on my experiences with this interesting device.

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Day 1: Genesis.

The hype reached it's peak on June 29. I'm driving home from work, and there happens to be an AT&T office in Frankfort, KY. That didn't strike me as a hotbed of high tech thinking, so I thought - there might be a short line. I'll take a chance and swing by. If there is a long line, to hell with it.

But it's 5:00, one hour from start of sale, and the line isn't long, maybe 15 people. Ah, hell, let's go get one and for once, I'll experience high tech at it's highest, on the moment of it's launch. We had a great time, standing in line with total strangers, all with the same common interest. It's an interesting cross section - couple of businessmen and businesswomen, couple of housewives, one woman with her boyfriend in tow, couple of college age people looking to cash in on ebay, a former star of the University of Kentucky and New York Knicks basketball teams (which gives him near godlike status in central KY - you'd have to live here to understand), and two ladies who just wanted to pay their bill. There's a funny story regarding standing in line and the basketball star, but you'd have to be from KY to appreciate it...

Doors open, and they let 8 people in at a time. By 6:30, I'm in. Go to the counter, say I want to switch over my old Razr on a Cingular/ATT account. They take my billing address, and last 4 digits of social, take my credit card, and hand me a rather small box in return. That's it? Yep, they say. Take it home, plug it into iTunes, and it will do the rest. Okay, I think somewhat dubiously. Six hundred bucks for a small box. At least it's sort of heavy. Outside the store in the car, I have to take a peek.

It's small. Maybe the hype built it into larger than life porportions, but in person, it just seems so... small. Gamely, I push the home button, and the screen lights up. Apple logo as it starts up, and then.... ahhhh, look at that screen. Crystal clear. Definitely an Apple product, they didn't cut corners on quality. I'm tempted to whack the slider switch, but it says slide it to activate emergency 911, so I must remain content with a couple of halfway dabs at the slider. Smooth.

Finally get home at 8:30pm. Darn it, I never updated iTunes, so download that first. Fire it up, plug the phone in, and... in a few moments, it's prompting me for the last 4 digits of my social. Ah, a password. Punch them in, it asks me to confirm that I want to add internet service to my billing, and confirm that the number I'll be switching over is correct. Looks good, I think. But with almost half a million people doing exactly the same thing that evening, I settle back for a long wait. Three minutes later, the iPhone lights up and says it's ready to use. Whoa! That was quick. Still dubious, I dial a friend up on the maiden call, and sure enough, it's working. Must have been one hell of a server setup they had to handle that sort of activation load. Leave it plugged in overnight, so it has a full charge in the morning, and may as well sync up the tunes I have on my 8gb nano.

Day 2: Revelation.

Get up in the morning, it's time to play with my new toy. Somehow, I didn't get any sort of user's manual in the box, but I'm finding that you don't really need one. First, let's check out the album display. Just like the commercials show, it's a great way to thumb through the collection, literally. And in the video section, it downloaded the Traveling Wilburys videos from the newly released retrospective album. A couple of seconds to load, and darn that's good video. Smooth, not at all grainy. One hell of a screen. Configure the iPhone to my ISP email account, and sure enough, there are the most recent emails. And you can actually read them. That screen is precise, and I love the magnify function. Very natural to use, and nice touches on the UI, such as screens expanding and shrinking instead of just flickering off and on. A lot of thought put into this one.

Cute headphones, just like iPod phones, and the little mike actually works. A nice touch - you get phone audio in both ears, not just one, really nice if you have to talk in a noisy area.

Very natural scrolling, it has an inertia effect. Flip a finger across the screen, and emails zip by, but the scroll slowly fades and stops, like giving a small flywheel a flip and watching it slow. A typical Apple touch - they didn't have to do that, but it just seems so natural. Like I said - a Rolls Royce for your mind.

Overall, I'm still dazzled. Very clear and very readable screen, big improvement over a Treo or b-berry. And I'm amazed that they can run Unix on something this small. And run it very well.

Day 3: at the office.

I try not to be a showoff, but it gets spotted on my belt pretty quickly. Gave lots of demos today. The observers fall into two camps - those who own smart phones and want to compare (or defend their choice, as the case may be), and those who just want to see it. I do notice that it's signal strength readings aren't quite as good as my old razr - hits a few dead spots in the office. But for the most part, signal strength is pretty good. Later that day, it buzzes at me briefly. My first on the travel email. That's nice - I see why the treo and b-berry folks like this so much.

Another nice touch - the mute button is distinctively shaped, and hard to hit accidentally. I was forever turning the ringer off on my razr by just putting it in a pocket and bumping the mute button.

It will receive emails, but won't send them. Just leaves them sitting there. Go through settings and - duh! I hadn't set any parameters for outgoing email. And I develop graphical software for a living... surely I can figure this one out. Okay, it's sending them, though I need to change that "sent from my iPhone" signature. Seems a bit gauche.

The news is out - the people who thought they'd cash in on ebay aren't doing so well. Average price on ebay is maybe $50 more than retail, and that's $49 more than it's worth, if you have to send money to a total stranger living far away from you, and hope they do the right thing.

Day 7: Getting used to it.

One week gone by. No, the iPhone hasn't changed my life, other than getting me emails more quickly. No spam filter, so it gets me spam more quickly, too. I'm still loving the iPod display. They abandoned the click wheel, because the devised something a bit better. Don't these people at Apple ever rest on their laurels?

Wish I'd had this phone when I was single. If you're standing in line, and a cute girl is near you, just whip out the iPhone and peruse emails. More of ten than not, she'll speak to you.

Hey, what's this crap with the headphone jack? Maybe half my headphone jack devices (headphones, car cassette adapter) will work if you jam the jack in hard, half won't work unless you hold the plug tightly in place. Oh, I have to buy a special adapter? That sucks, 'cause it isn't cheap.

Google maps are nice, but would be a lot nicer with GPS. Found my house and farm on satellite photo.

Week 2: first problem.

Video is hanging up, doesn't want to play. I've packed it full, only 150 meg free. Okay, time to pare down the music collection. Really, I only listen to maybe 25% of the music loaded, so I pare out the B sides and album filler, and get it back to 2 gig free. Also do a power down/up, so it reboots. That seems to have cured the video issue. Plays great now.

Another nice touch - I can recharge it from my USB port without having to change any settings, or install special software on the PC. The razr needed software on the PC to do this.

Another problem - Safari crashes on occasion. Just shuts down and goes back to the main screen. Seems to be related to website content - a few sites run okay, the majority I want to visit will eventually crash. Definitely calls for a v1.1 update. And soon.

I'm getting a lot of UI ideas from the iPhone, so in that respect, it's paying for itself. UI's are something I work with a lot, and am always looking for ways to communicate messages to busy people - it's part technical, and part understanding their working environment. The natural action of zooming, and the smooth transitions from screen to screen... someone put a lot of thought into that.

Overall, I still love it. It sits in the hand so elegantly, very slender. Battery life hasn't been the greatest - looks like a charge will last two days under the use it's getting.

Oh, joy. They've put the Dogfights series on iTunes. It's a bit of a rip, as you can't burn the videos to DVD, but what the hell, I love that show, and have left enough room on the iPhone to keep two episodes loaded. Hey, I grew up in an age where boys had every aircraft from the last two wars memorized, so that show is a favorite for the kid in me. Note to Apple - let us rip TV shows to DVD so we can watch them on our big screen TV's. If I have to buy the set top box, I really will feel ripped off.

The iPhone is still going strong, and while I have a tough time justifying the hefty price, I'm still enamored of how smoothly everything works. Doesn't really do anything that a good b-berry will do, it's just smoother to operate and easier to read. Getting to like the weather forecast. This isn't a power user's telephone. It's a phone for people who want to be spoiled. I'm spoiled.

Week 4: Trouble in paradise.

Had my first major problem today. I was driving the family up to Newport, KY to visit the most excellent aquariam. Had been chatting with a friend, then decided to play some tunes through the headphones as my girls in the back seat were getting rowdy. After about 15 minutes, the iPhone goes dead. Quit mid song, and cut off Robert Plant. I mean, the screen is totally dark, and won't respond to the home or sleep buttons. Or the mute button. Or anything. Dammit!

I also noticed, two hours after it went dead, that it feels a bit warm to the touch. Hmmm, maybe it's not totally dead. That feels like something is running, and running hard.

Get home, plug it in to the PC with iTunes, and... nothing. Dead. No recharge, no recognition in iTunes. Online, I found the hard reset - hold down the home and sleep buttons for a few seconds. I try that - nothing. Maybe the battery is just dead. So I try the reset with the USB cord plugged in., and my dead iPhone comes to life. Sort of, as it says - charging, please wait - and the current battery level is pretty much nothing. Five minutes of waiting, and the battery has enough life to restart the OS.

So that's what probably happened. It locked up in an infinite loop, and was warm to the touch earlier because it was thrashing the processor, and the battery ran down in the process.

I'm duly chastised. A software developer like myself should have figured that out. But, as I'm so fond of saying to people who bring me MS Word or Excel problems - hey, I just write them. I don't use them. Okay, so it's amazing that they fit so much functionality into a small space. Have to be a few bugs somewhere. Definitely need an OS update, and a browser update.

However, the aftermath of the infinite loop has me somewhat concerned. While researching the lockup, I also looked into a warranty replacement. figuring that it had croaked. Here, there's a real problem. AT&T won't replace the phone under warranty. They will just give you a refund and take the iPhone back. If you want repair or a warranty replacement, you have to go to an Apple Store, or send it to Apple. Google Maps shows me the nearest Apple Store - Cincinnatti. 80 miles away. That's Not Good.

Yet another summary - the iPhone is a killer iPod, and a not half bad email client. As a telephone, it leave something to be desired. Reception is okay but not the best. And simple warranty replacement or repair is a royal pain. Wake up, Apple. Cell phones are essential to most people these days. If it croaks, they need another one quickly, within one day. I can get that with a Treo. Had my iPhone died completely and I been without a phone for one to two weeks, I would probably have sold it and bought a Treo. Set up warranty service through the AT&T offices, or you are going to get a black eye. Service to the customer is essential, in this market.

And we really need a fix to the crashes in Safari. It's borderline useful right now. A pity, because with the magnify function, you can actually do meaningful browsing - when Safari doesn't bomb out.

Battery life is much more respectable, now that I'm not taking it out and playing with it constantly. If I don't talk too much on it, and cut email updates to once an hour, it seems to last about three days.

Week 8: maturty.

It's been two months now. An interesting occurance - after the big crash and the flat battery, battery life seems even better now. Could be my imagination, could be I'm just not playing with it so much or demo'ing it so much, but I'm not watching the battery monitor so much any more.

Two updates now, and Safari seems a bit more stable. It still bombs, but not nearly so often. One slightly positive aspect - a crash just causes it to disappear, typical of Unix applications. It doesn't die in the loud, noisy fasion that a Win app does.

The iPod was stuck on shuffle, and it was getting damned annoying. Took me a little time to figure that one out. Put on a song, hold it vertically to get the single album display, tap the screen to get the full options up. Shuffle is to the right on the top, and it's blue if it's turned on. If you set one album to shuffle, they all shuffle.

People don't seem to ask much about it any more, although it is interesting to note that in my office of 600 computer and support people, there seems to be only one other iPhone. Nice to know someone else has a sense of style. To date, I've seen two other iPhones in public.

Speaking of local iPhone events, a local (well, Louisville, where I work) cell phone company traded a Nissan 350Z and three iPhones to the kid who had cracked one. Given the dubious legality of selling a cracked iPhone, the kid probably did as well as he could have. Of course, he still has to pay for an insurance policy on that hot car. For a 20 year old kid, that's going to cost a pretty penny.

So, after two months, what do I find? It's a pretty damn good phone. Easy to manage voice mail, redials, and phone lists. And they're all very visible, very easy to read.

Email? Also pretty good. They need to make one change, let it reorient itself in the horizontal, so you get the large keyboard. That seems like a blatant miss on Apple's part - email is where you tend to type the most.

As an iPod, it's great. As a video iPod, it's actually viewable, unlike the previous video iPod with it's tiny screen. One minor annoyance, the stereo plug isn't quite a stereo plug, standard mini jacks almost work. Almost... well, if you push in hard and twist the jack a couple of times, a standard mini jack does seem to work. That, or pay the 20 bucks for the official adapater.

Has it changed my life? Well... probably no more than getting one of the other latest gen smart phones. Having email, maps, news, and weather on the road has been very handy. The difference is, this one has one hell of a screen.

And now, the big question. Was it worth six hundred bucks?

...pause...

Yes, it was. Despite the poky Edge network, it's a very good smart phone, largely because it's so readable and useable. It's a lot smaller than the typical b-berry smart phone, yet easier to work with the onscreen buttons and very clear screen.

But, there's an added bonus. For once, I got to experience the absolute latest and greatest in electronic devices. That, alone, was worth something.