Tag: iPhone
iPhone Trial Day 15 – My Thoughts Halfway
A lot of you have been wondering how my iPhone 3G S trial has been going. If you’ve been following me on Twitter or on Facebook, then you’ve likely seen some of the many photos, videos, and messages I’ve been posting from the phone while out and about. But I haven’t posted much on my specific thoughts on the iPhone itself now that I’ve been using it daily for two weeks.
Like last time, I’ll try to summarize each of my thoughts into a couple of brief sentences. Here we go…
Impressions of the iPhone After Two Weeks
Phone capabilities - I originally set out to get a new phone after mine was eaten by a roller coaster. So it was important to me that the iPhone performed well as a phone. Overall, I give it a B-. Talking on the phone is not comfortable. It simply does not feel right against my head. I find myself constantly shifting it around trying to place my ear in the right spot so I can actually hear the person talking on the other end.
Speakerphone – The good news is that the speakerphone is fantastic. The speaker is loud and the microphone picks me up very well, even while riding in the car. I feel much more comfortable talking into the end of the phone, as if I’m dictating notes into a recorder. Unfortunately, using the speakerphone isn’t always appropriate.
Noise – Unfortunately, the iPhone makes a heck of a lot of GSM noise come out of any nearby stereo system. GSM noise is that little beepabeepabeepbeepbeep sound that you hear through speakers when a phone is trying to grab up a signal. Well, I hear it a lot with the iPhone. If I’m in the car and I move from an area with 3G to an area with Edge (or vice-versa), my car stereo starts sounding like it’s giving me a Morse code message. If I’m at home sitting at my computer listening to music, classic rock suddenly turns into electronica as the blips take over for guitars. Is it possible to stop all this noise?
Dialing - I was concerned that dialing without physical buttons was going to be a problem, especially while driving. I have somewhat gotten used to it but can definitely not dial without looking at the phone. I’m still puzzled every time I hit the phone button and I have to poke around to figure out whether I want Favorites, Recents, Contacts, or Keypad. Fortunately, the voice commands for dialing work very well and I am able to pull the phone out of my pocket, hold down the home button, say “call home,” and it acknowledges out loud that it is calling home. That helps a bit, but dialing on the iPhone still takes me 10 times longer than dialing on a cell phone with physical buttons.
AT&T phone service – Good riddance T-Mobile. AT&T has been wonderful for phone service. I’ve only had one dropped call and it was a mystery. Now I have 3-5 bars of service almost everywhere I go. It seems like AT&T recently activated a new tower near my house as well as I have 4-5 bars of service here, whereas I only had 1-2 bars when I first got the iPhone two weeks ago.
AT&T 3G service – Unfortunately, 3G coverage is quite spotty and unreliable. One minute I’ll have 3G and my internet connection is fast, then I’ll walk 20 feet in one direction and the phone will switch to Edge, which is completely worthless. I also regularly experience a problem where 3G coverage is great and suddenly it switches to Edge without me even moving. If I flip the phone into Airplane mode and back, it reconnects to 3G for a few minutes, works great, and then dumps back into Edge again. Very confusing.
Phone usage – In the two weeks I’ve had the iPhone, I’ve used 74 of 450 anytime minutes, 38 of 5000 night/weekend minutes, and 13 mobile-to-mobile minutes. That’s an average of almost 9 minutes of talking per day. At this rate, I’ll wish AT&T had a cheaper 250 minute plan, as my rollover minutes will surely accumulate into the thousands very quickly.
Vibrate – As expected, I have missed almost all of my phone calls. If I’m driving, I can faintly feel the vibration of the phone when a call comes in. However, if I’m walking around, I never feel it. This is a huge downside as I like to always leave my phone on silent/vibrate.
Slide to unlock – I really wish there was a way to completely disable this. It seems pointless. I don’t see how the home button could accidentally be pressed while in my pocket. I’m tired of swiping my finger across the screen every time I go to make a phone call.
Keyboard – Everyone who said I would get better at using the iPhone’s virtual keyboard over time was right… sort of. I’m definitely faster at typing on it, as I’ve learned to trust the phone to correct my mistakes. Unfortunately, I still make a ton of typos and it doesn’t correct all of them. Since I type over 140 wpm on a standard computer keyboard, it’s very frustrating for me to be reduced to typing 20-30 wpm while using the phone. But it is a heck of a lot faster than using a number pad.
Physical buttons – I’m not happy with any of the physical buttons on the iPhone. Dust and pocket lint get trapped within the circle around the home button, leaving a rough feeling. The volume buttons on the side are almost impossible to accurately find and press while on a call. I have to look down to find them. And what the heck is the sleep button doing at the top? Why not put it on the right side, opposite the volume buttons, so I can easily press it from a natural position when I’m done using the phone? I also still wish the phone would slide open to reveal a physical number pad.
Camera – I’m quite impressed by the iPhone 3G S’s 3-megapixel camera. I’m not saying it’s a great camera. It doesn’t even replace my point-and-shoot. But it is great for taking and sending quick pictures like the one shown here I took last Friday. I was rather impressed with the image quality of that shot. I haven’t used the video camera function enough to decide if it’s any good. It seems good enough. You can see more of my iPhone photos here.
E-mail – As expected, I don’t really use the e-mail functions of the iPhone much. When I get out of the house, I don’t particularly want to have e-mail with me. When I have checked it on the phone, it was nothing more than a quick browsing through what has come in. I will likely never respond to e-mails on the iPhone as it will take me 5-10 times longer to write a message on the phone than it would on a computer. It’s just a waste of time. The lack of a junk mail filter is also incredibly annoying.
Web browsing – In the two weeks I’ve had the iPhone, I’ve found myself in very few situations where being able to browse the Web was useful. I tried to access Chase.com to move some credit card reward points onto my rewards card, but it kept forcing me to use the “mobile” version of their site instead of the standard browser version. Of course, their mobile version doesn’t have any rewards options so I ended up calling them instead. I also unsuccessfully looked for a particular magazine cover while I was in a store and unsuccessfully looked for a friend’s email address when wanting to send her a photo. I suppose having Safari in my pocket will come in handy some day. It just hasn’t happened yet.
Landscape mode – I wish all apps were available in landscape mode. I make much fewer mistakes while typing on the wider keyboard. Things are overall easier to read this way.
Useful Apps – Since I haven’t decide if I’m keeping the iPhone, I am only using free apps for now. Even so, I don’t anticipate myself purchasing many apps since the free ones seem to do the trick. The apps I’ve found most useful so far are:
TwitterFon – The best free Twitter app so far. Simple interface without too much flair. I also recently grabbed iTwitter, which supports landscape mode and has a “Nearby Tweets” option to see what people are saying around you.- Facebook – I initially tried accessing Facebook via Safari. Bad move. It’s slow and hard to navigate. The app fixes all that and makes posting messages and photos to anyone’s page extremely easy.
- Maps – I’ve only had an opportunity to use this built-in app once but it was quite handy. I was trying out a new route between my house and the Magic Kingdom, only to find myself at a dead end. I fired up Maps, it immediately located my position, and I discovered that Google’s map was out of date and showed a continuing road where there wasn’t one. So I used it to find my way back to a main road with ease.
- The Weather Channel – Zoom-able weather radar maps make this the best weather app out there. Now I don’t have to wonder if I’m going to be stuck in the rain while making a quick trip to the theme parks.
- Take Me To My Car – This app helped me find my car when leaving Disney’s Hollywood Studios last week. It didn’t lead me directly to my car, but the position it directed me to was within eyesight.
- Remote – This is Apple’s official remote control for iTunes, AirTunes, and AppleTV and it’s easily my favorite app. Even if I don’t keep the iPhone, I’ll be extremely tempted to purchase an iPod Touch just to keep this around. Having instant access throughout my house to my entire music library and being able to remotely control whether it plays in my office, audio zone 1 (living room, dining room, patio), or zone 2 (master bedroom & bathroom) is fantastic. I’ve been using my old XBox running XBMC for this purpose prior to getting the iPhone and this makes it so much easier. I thoroughly enjoy being able to sit outside on my patio and visually select which music I want to listen to with complete control over the volume.
- Showtimes – When I saw Transformers 2, this app helped me confirm the movie time. Simple as that. I only wish it had told me not to see Transformers 2.
- PandoraBox – I’ve found that this is the best app for finding new apps. Like the official App Store app, it separates all apps into free and paid. But it also shows which apps were once paid and are now free, which is a great feature.
- Slacker Radio – I downloaded a bunch of “radio” apps and this is the only one I’ve tried yet. It worked great for finding an endless loop of Michael Jackson songs. The quality of the stream was great too.
Not-so-useful Apps – I downloaded over 150 free apps and kept around 100 of them. Out of that 100, I’ve only really used a handful, but the rest are there waiting for me to use them when I need them. The 50 that I deleted, however, were completely useless and not even worth mentioning here. I suppose keeping two apps for every one I delete isn’t a bad ratio. I just wish I could filter anything rated 2 stars or less out of the App Store.
Time-wasting Apps – There are certainly plenty of apps designed to completely waste time. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately), I don’t have a lot of time to waste, so I even though I downloaded plenty of fun apps, I haven’t really used them much. However, I am completely addicted to PhotoSwap. The simple concept of taking a photo and anonymously receiving a random one back never gets old. While many of the photos sent back are of people’s legs or televisions, there are quite a few gems to be found as well. Maybe I’ll start saving them to post some of the most unique ones. Beyond that, I have around 20 games that I have played once and never bothered to play again. They’re not bad, but I just haven’t found an urge to play games on the iPhone. Arcade Hoops Basketball Lite and Arcade Bowling Lite (poor name – it’s actually skeeball) are the only two games I’ve played more than once. Backgrounds is great for finding new iPhone wallpaper.
Organizing the apps – When it comes to computers, I’m a neat freak. I like everything to be organized into folders. The fact that the iPhone’s apps are just listed in grids of 16 kind of drives me nuts. I spent at least an hour painstakingly rearranging the 100+ apps I have installed so that each screen has a theme. If I could name each screen, they would be Useful, Information/Shopping, Music, Utilities, Games, Fun, and Misc. The problem is that if I install any new apps, I have to rearrange things to fit with my organization scheme. This really should be easier to do.
Battery – The iPhone battery is impressive. It has yet to drop below 50% in a day’s usage, even on days where I’m at a theme park sending a lot of photos and videos. Battery charge does seem to disappear quickly when I’m using PhotoSwap for some reason.
Accessories – The USB cable that came with the iPhone definitely needs to be plugged into a USB 2.0 port for any data transfer to happen quickly. This means I need to purchase a new USB 2.0 hub in order to keep all of my devices plugged in to my computer. I’ll hold off on that until I decide if I’m keeping the phone. I did however purchase an iPhone car charger for less than $3. I was already ordering some other cables from the same site and figured I might as well add this in. If I end up not keeping the phone, I’ll just give the cable to someone who can use it. I have found that I will likely buy a tight-fitting case/skin for the iPhone if I keep it. I’m tired of wiping finger smudges off the screen (particularly on the “slide to unlock” area) and plenty of dust is getting trapped around the home button and along the edges where the metal meets the glass.
iPod functions – I have yet to use the iPhone as an iPod. In fact, I have yet to even load any music on it. I’m still using my old black-and-white iPod in the car and likely wouldn’t use my iPhone there as I’d need to unplug it from my car connector every time a call would come in. The only other time I use an iPod is when I travel and I have no travel plans for the remainder of my trial. But I’m sure it works great as an iPod.
Obviously I haven’t decided if I’m going to keep the iPhone yet. Some days I feel like I should whereas other days I feel like I should save the $30/month (a total $720 over the next two years) and just buy an iPod Touch instead. I’m leaning toward keeping it, as I have enjoyed using it, but will definitely need another 7-10 days to decide for sure.
I’ll post some more thoughts again a day or two before I make my decision and then a wrap-up afterward.
If you have any recommendations on what else I should try to do with the phone over the next 7-10 days, let me know in the comments!
TweetWireless Charging Comes to iPhone
From pcworld.com:
The ability to charge without wires is an idea that’s been teasing us for a long time, with Palm the first company (I am aware of) to take it mainstream. The feature will soon be available for iPhone users, too.
The iPhone solution, from WildCharge, requires placing the iPhone or iPod touch into a gel skin inductor that looks pretty much like any other form-fitting other case. It includes a small connector that plugs into the iPhone. Once installed, the user places the iPhone onto any WildCharge charger pad and the phone starts charging.
The iPhone charging skin and charger pad combination costs $80, while the Pre wireless charger is a $70 add-on from Palm. One important difference: The WildCharge pad and skin are part of a system that works with other devices, such as the BlackBerry Curve and Pearl as well as the Motorola RAZR phone.
The iPod touch skin is available now, with the iPhone version available “in early July,” WildCharge officials said.
$70-80 is a bit much for the ability to simply plunk down your phone on your desk instead of taking a few seconds to plug in a cable. But I’d imagine it’s only a matter of time before the iPhone and other devices come with the wireless charging ability out of the box.
TweetiPhone Trial Day 1 – Initial Thoughts
Yes, after posting a 1,200+ word rant about why I don’t want an iPhone, I decided to buy one – to at least try it. For this decision, I give full credit to those who commented on that post, either directly or via Twitter and Facebook. They convinced me that I really don’t know what I’m talking about until I actually spend a good amount of time with an iPhone.
I was planning on switching to AT&T Wireless anyway (their least expensive family plan had the best price out of all the major wireless providers), so now I have 30 days in which I can use the iPhone and really decide if it’s the right phone for me. And by that I mean that I can find out if paying an extra $30 each month for the required data plan is worth keeping the phone or exchanging it for something else.
I will keep track of my thoughts across this 30-day trial, posting every once in a while about everything I find to be good and bad with the device. Yesterday was my first day with the iPhone 3G S and, as you can imagine, I have a lot of first impressions, so I’m going to keep each one short to avoid turning this post into another essay.
First Impressions with the iPhone
Out of the box – Battery nearly fully charged. Switch from T-Mobile to AT&T active almost immediately. Good start.
Initial confusion – It helps to read the instructions that came with it. I didn’t know how to perform certain actions (like rearranging icons) at first but reading the short booklet helped.
Keyboard – I make way too many typos. Keyboard is much better in landscape than portrait. I wish more apps supported landscape mode. Typing is frustratingly slow.
Camera – Easy to use and decent quality, though sometimes filled with color noise. I’m surprised I can silence the shutter sound. This picture of my cat is the first picture I took with it (click for full-quality original image).
YouTube – Incredibly simple to use and looks/sounds great over Wi-Fi. Video wouldn’t play at all over 3G.
Safari – Very similar to Safari on a Mac but it often selects links I don’t mean to. Zooming will take some getting used to. There’s a weird bug(?) that stops zooming from working occasionally. I have to leave Safari and relaunch to get zooming to work again. Or I just don’t know what I’m doing.
Maps – Seems useful though not entirely intuitive to use. Had to get used to the fact that it knows where I am already.
Copy/Paste – I’ve already used it a million times. Would have driven me nuts without it. I’m glad I didn’t get an iPhone sooner. It’s slightly clunky to get working (especially the text selection), but it’s better than nothing.
Battery life – After two hours of non-stop fiddling, I still had over 75% battery. At the end of the day, after many more hours of playing with it, I still had 40% battery. Didn’t turn it off or plug it in overnight and now it’s at 29%. I’ll run it down to 0% today before charging it fully for the first time overnight tonight.
Brightness – Holy cow, this screen can be bright. Too bright even. That’s better than too dark.
E-mail – Tried to enter IMAP e-mail settings manually and couldn’t get it working. Asked for help and was told that syncing to my Mac would set all that up for me. Worked like a charm. Reading e-mail is easy but I really wish it had a junk mail filter. Responding to e-mail will rarely happen for me – typing is way too slow.
Software Updates – I was required to update iTunes to sync the phone. It also said I should update Quicktime. Not sure why.
Syncing podcasts – Extremely slow. Probably 5-10 times slower than syncing my old iPod via Firewire. The initial iPhone backup had already completed, so I don’t know why it was so slow. I guess I’m blaming it on USB.
iPod – Haven’t tried iPod functions yet. Noticed that the connector is smaller than on my old iPod, which means I need some kind of adapter for my Belkin car plug if this is going to become my primary iPod. Is there such a thing?
Free space – iTunes reports 14.1 gigs free out of the box, not 16 gigs. There are only 2.6MB of apps and 160MB of “other”, so where are the other 1.5 gigs?
Apps – I started to sift through the App Store on the phone until I realized that it was quite cumbersome to do so. Then I spent an hour or two going through all the top 100 free app lists on iTunes. Downloaded 123 apps. Only tried about 20 so far. Good free selection, but too many garbage apps. I won’t be purchasing any apps until I decide if I’m keeping the phone (and even then I won’t buy many).
Phone – After fiddling with the iPhone for a few hours, I finally left the house to get dinner and actually try it as a phone. While at home, service ranges from 0-3 bars, but it always seems to still work well regardless. It does a great job at finding service when there is none. Better service than I ever had with my old phone and T-Mobile.
Vibrate – Biggest complaint so far. I always keep my phone on vibrate as I find ringtones to be obnoxious (it seems like everyone notices your phone ringing except you), but the vibrate function on the iPhone is way too weak. I barely even notice when it’s active. Not good. I expect a lot of missed calls.
So there it is. My first day of thoughts with the iPhone 3G S. Mostly good, some bad. I’ll continue to play with it, adding more apps and functionality, and post again next week with more thoughts. As of right now, I’m undecided on whether I’m keeping it. After a few days of taking it out of the house, we’ll see in which direction I lean.
TweetWhen is a phone not a phone? – Why I don’t want an iPhone
Today is launch day for the new iPhone 3G S. Based on the number of people who have made it clear to me that this was the perfect week for me to lose my phone, I’d say there’s quite a lot of excitement about the new iPhone release (as always).
But I am not here to write about how great the iPhone is. You can find plenty of that on Twitter. Instead, I intend to do quite the opposite.
I am on the hunt for a new cell phone. That is, I’m looking for a portable telephone that allows me to easily and clearly make calls from just about anywhere. With the cell phone industry expected to sell 4 billion phones by 2010, you’d think it would be an easy task to find a good, solid phone that makes calling people simple. Think again.
I really don’t like talking on the phone. I’m a very visual person, so having to pay attention to someone on the other end of a telephone is a big deal for me. Often, I have to force myself to physically stop what I’m doing in order to actually take part in a phone conversation. So when I’m out doing something, I really would rather not be interrupted by someone somewhere else wanting to talk to me.
Despite the fact that there was, in fact, a time when cell phones didn’t exist and people still managed to get through with their daily lives without dying,today’s society seems to be so dependent on cell phones that I must own one. After all, how else would I know what I need to pick up for dinner when I’m on the way home from the mall?
So now that it’s time for me to find a new cell phone, I find myself wondering what all the fuss is about the iPhone. Every time I’ve used one, I’ve found it uncomfortable to hold and requiring way too many virtual button presses in order to simply make a call. Sure, there’s an “app” for finding the nearest restroom and another for trading pictures with random strangers, but what about the make-a-darn-phone-call app?
When I’m at home and I want to call someone, I pick up the nearest telephone, dial 10 numbers (on physical buttons) and it’s ringing. Shortly thereafter, someone on the other end picks up and I have a conversation. My old cell phone behaved in the same way. It was a Samsung slider phone (I forget the model number) that I could pull it out of my pocket, slide open, dial 10 numbers (on physical buttons), and press call to talk to someone. I even was able to assign numbers that I frequently called to each of the keypad buttons so it only required that I press and hold down a single number to call home.
The iPhone and its touch screen have significantly complicated the calling process. After I lost my phone, I used my friend’s iPhone to call home to let my wife know that she couldn’t reach me for the near future. In order to do so, I had to swipe my finger across the bottom to unlock it, tap the phone icon at the bottom, then tap the keypad button to bring up the virtual numbered buttons, tap out the 10 digits, and then tap call. While it is mildly amusing to watch all the words and graphics on the screen fly around while I was doing all this, the process would definitely get old after two or three phone calls.
When I’m driving and need to quickly make a call or answer the phone, I’d like to be able to take the phone out of my pocket and perform whatever actions are necessary without having to actually look at the phone. Some might say I can do that with the new iPhone 3G S now that supports voice commands, but that would require: a) me to turn down the music or podcast that I’m listening to & b) it to actually understand the voice commands – technology I’ve had very little success with in the past.
Fans of the iPhone keep telling me that if I get one, I won’t understand how I ever got along without one. They make it seem like it’s impossible to be anywhere without the ability to check e-mail, surf the web, watch YouTube, look at Google Maps, and play Peggle.
To all that I say: Bah. I spend so much time in front of my computer at home, responding to e-mail and surfing the web, that I really would like the ability to get away from it once in a while. I already would prefer to not have a cell phone at all but, as I wrote above, that’s not really an option anymore. So since I have to have one, I’d rather it only enable me to make and receive phone calls and keep all that other Internet stuff away from me while I’m on the go. There no such thing as an e-mail that is so important that I absolutely need to know about it while I’m shopping at Target. It’s actually nice to be able to be away from a computer now and again.
Now, since I host a popular podcast about Disney and co-publish a magazine about Orlando theme parks and attractions, there are those that tell me that I will be happy to be able to Twitter, update Facebook, and post pictures/video from an iPhone. To that I say: Maybe. I just *might* want to do those things every once in a while. But I don’t need an iPhone for that. Nearly every cell phone that’s currently available has enough built-in features to send various messages and multimedia with relative ease. What’s the difference? Doing so on the iPhone will cost me an extra $30 a month via AT&T’s required unlimited data plan.
Here’s where we reach part three of why I don’t need or want an iPhone: the cost. I don’t use a phone enough to justify paying $70+ per month on my line alone. For the last few months, my wife and I used between 300 and 400 minutes per month on both of our cell phones combined. The AT&T family plan with 550 shared minutes would be more than enough for us, especially as the minutes roll over. That plan costs just $59.99 a month for both of our lines. If I really wanted an unlimited data plan, I could pay $15 per month for a non-smart phone when I need it and cancel the data plan when I don’t want it anymore. With the iPhone, I’d be locked into shelling out $30 a month whether I use the data plan or not. Plus, getting an iPhone would cost me at least $99-199 up front for the phone ($199-299 if I wanted the iPhone 3G S), whereas I can get another phone that will make calls just as easily (if not easier) for $0.01.
Hopefully this explanation of why I don’t want an iPhone will help explain… why I don’t want an iPhone. I doubt it will stop anyone from telling me I should get one, but at least you know where I’m coming from. Feel free to comment and tell me why I’m wrong and why an iPhone is the best invention since sliced cheese. Maybe someone will convince me. Probably not.
TweetSkype for iPhone Officially Coming Tuesday
From reviews.cnet.com:
Months after teasing us at CES with an announcement of Skype’s native VoIP client for the iPhone, the free Skype for iPhone will finally be available to download from the iTunes App Store sometime on Tuesday.
[…]
In terms of navigation, Skype’s VoIP app for iPhone looks more like your traditional iPhone app than it does Skype 4.0 for Windows. For many who already prefer Apple’s sleek interface archetype, that’s a triumph, but those who enjoy Skype’s branding may feel disappointed.
Skype’s screens are well organized and use the iPhone’s ability to add filters, for instance, to sort your contacts alphabetically, or by who’s online. There’s chatting as well, though Skype’s flagship feature is its VoIP calling that’s free to other Skype users and an inexpensive per-minute fee to landlines. Calls on Skype for iPhone work only if you’re in range of a Wi-Fi network, so your call quality will in part be at the mercy and strength of wireless networks nearby–calls will not work over the cell phone network on the iPhone (but chatting will.) Assuming your connection is solid, you can dial a number or quickly call a contacts stored in your address book. iPod Touch users will need earphones with an embedded mic to talk. During a call, you can mute the line, go on hold, or put the call on speakerphone. In the My Info window, you can follow a link to buy more SkypeOut credit online.
Taking a photo from within Skype to serve as your avatar image, or pulling a picture in from the camera roll are two iPhone-only features that makes use of the phone’s hardware attributes. Another imperfect, but still neat, feature is the ability to accept incoming conference calls. While you won’t be able to initiate a call, we’re told, you will be able to jump on one if a buddy invites you in. We hope the next version includes placing conference calls from the iPhone.
So while Skype for iPhone won’t replace your regular calling plan while you’re on the go, you will be able to use a WiFi connection in place of using your AT&T minutes.
Tweet
