Monday, November 12, 2007
Well, it's finally here in the UK, and I have an iPhone.
I waited in line at the Apple store (pics, video), like a good (sad?) geek and had my mitts on one pretty much as soon as was possible.
So, first things first, it is absolutely awesome. I love it almost irrationally, and I wanted to get that out of the way before proceeding :)
I don't think anyone has summed up the experience and the hype quite as well as Stephen Fry did in the Guardian this weekend, in his piece entitled "Not sensible, but oh, the joy of it".
Also interesting was the fact that there were, by my reckoning, somewhere upwards of 150 people queuing at the Bullring Apple Store at 6:02pm, and yet the O2 and Carphone Warehouse stores were deathly quiet. Funny, isn't it?
Actually, there was one man who stoically queued on his own outside the Bullring O2 shop all day, with nobody but three O2 dolly birds to keep him company. Hang on, he may have been onto something there......... ;)
Anyway, my experiences so far have been almost entirely positive. Everyone has different requirements from a phone, and I know some people that are unhappy about things that definitely don't bother me (MMS messaging, for example - if I get an MMS, I have to use Safari to go to the O2 website and collect it that way). However, there are a few things that bother me, especially coming from a Treo:
1 - No search. I loved being able to search my Treo. If I forget someone's name but remember their company, or maybe don't recall someone's surname, search is really useful. Apple are also kings of search with spotlight, so I dunno what's up with this at all.
2 - There's only one calendar on the iPhone. I have two calendars on my desktop iCal, each in a different colour. It's nice. Why can't I do this on the iPhone? - everything is merged into one.
3 - No to do list. I like a to do list. I have one in iCal/Mail on my desktop; why is it not on my iPhone?
4 - No notes sync. Come on Apple! - what were you thinking? I have notes in Mail on my desktop. I have notes on my iPhone. Neither is synced to the other platform?!!
5 - No week view in the calendar. The list, day and month views are cool, but I do like a week view.
6 - Missing apps. I had a few that I really liked on the Treo (ssh client and encrypted text storage being the main ones) that are not possible on the iPhone. (Yet).
7 - Mail app on the iPhone doesn't support "Send As". I use this in GMail a lot, and it would be nice to be able to use it on the iPhone.
8 - No Flash support. Kinda annoying with some websites using it so extensively.
That's it so far though - not bad, really. There are loads and loads of positives, but I am currently really enjoying the easy, native synchronisation with my Mac. Palm conduits and all that bollocks were always a huge pain and caused endless problems if there was a twitch (which there was from time to time). The iPhone just works, as you'd expect.
I'd basically sum up by saying that it's not as flexible or well-featured as some alternatives, but what it does, it does supremely well. I can't see myself wanting any other phone for quite a while.......
Oh, and Apple have released 3 new TV adverts, all poking fun at Vista - "Podium", "Boxer" and "PR Lady". Enjoy :)
