Ok, I'm back home and on the
big keyboard. I feel lucky today as most of the time I was in the SF Apple store, all the iPhones were constantly in people's hands, with lines behind them. I saw an opening and grabbed the free iPhone.
It is a very slick device. Surfing the web on it is quite an experience. I could see that aspect alone being valuable for my commutes into SF on the train. I just don't know how fast it is on the cell network (I realized that I was on the Apple Store's wifi network after I did my posting, which was nice and fast). The Treo hits lags while surfing the web, and I could never figure out if it was the phone or the network (lately it's been the later with the flood of iPhone users in the Bay Area...I still think AT&T is putting priority on their network traffic..). But I could also see using that iPhone at home to check email or hit a quick web page rather than breaking out the laptop.
One of the neat features that I hadn't read about yet was the magnifying glass. I typed in the wrong URL and was trying to figure out how to fix it. When I touched the URL area in the browser it turned into a magnifying glass and gave me a small round zoom in window. It's kinda hard to navigate inside the zoom area (especially with my big fingers), but it worked well. One down side was when I had the phone in portrait mode, and the keyboard open, there was just a small sliver of space to view the web page up above. When you try to use the magnifying glass to update something, the zoom area appeared off screen. This is a bug that has to be fixed (hopefully someone from Apple reads this...)
There are still some compatibility issues with the applications that make my mobile device most valuable to me. Pocket Quicken comes in first on that list. Second comes access to blackberry email for work. Third is a password database program that is secure. Give me those on an iPhone and I'm buying one! (anyone listening?) The other killer aspect that has to be added (and I understand Apple will add in an soon to be released OS upgrade) is the ability to select text and copy/paste it.
The keyboard took some while to get used to. It kept entering wrong keys as I brushed by. I could type a lot faster on my Treo than on the iPhone, but the auto completion built into it learns from your use and gets better over time (that is what I have been told by an developer working on an iPhone application.
It is a sexy device...but I think my wife is happier that I use my $600 to buy her a Canon PowerShot SD850 IS versus an iPhone for me.
(look for a review posting on my
personal photography blog soon).
So, what do other iPhone users have to say about their coolest phone available?
