u l t r a m o o k i e

Yes, I have an iPhone. I have had one for a week now — my lovely wife gave the iPhone to me as an early Christmas present! Isn’t she the best?? The acceptance of the iPhone is a complete reversal from my anti-iPhone attitude of earlier months.

So, here were some of my beefs from previous postings, and some corrections (ie. me eating my words) or “still beefs”:

• Customers need to escape from their contracts to get an iPhone since the iPhone requires AT&T service. Our family plan with T-Mobile had been on a month-to-month basis for almost a year now, so that was not a biggie.
• iPhone costs too much. This was a beef when the 8GB iPhone was $600 and the 4GB iPhone was $500. Now that Apple has dropped the price of the 8GB iPhone to $400, it is not as big of a price pill to swallow (still expensive though) — I bought the very first generation iPod (ah, five whole gigabytes and six years ago) for the same price, but, the iPhone provides a helluvalot more functionality.
• No 3G on the iPhone. This is still a beef, but thank goodness for WiFi — I have WiFi access in all the regular places I am at (home, work, parents, Eileen’s work, etc), so that helps. I also have free AT&T WiFi access because of our DSL package. But, still EDGE access is pretty darned slow and that can’t be overlooked.
• “How can I buy music through the iPhone?” You can’t. You can now.
• Non-user replaceable battery. This is still a beef.
• Screen will scratch up easily. After owning an iPod touch (which is going up on Ebay soon), I have been corrected on this one. The glass screen on the iPod touch and iPhone are really resistant to scratching (unless you carry diamonds in your pocket).
• The iPhone is gonna weight more than a Windows Mobile device and pull down my pants like a Treo. Wrong again on my part. The iPhone is very light — not plastic toy-like light, but it has enough weight to make it feel solid, yet not “heavy”.

What got my wife and I really interested in the iPhone was the iPod touch — jailbroken and running iPhone applications, that is. Steve Jobs really did a number by removing the iPhone applications — especially Mail.app — from the iPod touch. Sure, the iPod touch has Safari and that can be used to check webmail, but the total convenience of Mail.app is indescribable. It really does make a difference. The other apps are also pretty cool; Weather and Stocks by Yahoo!; Google Maps by Google. Steve Jobs was quoted as saying, “The iPod touch is training wheels for the iPhone.” After using both the iPod touch and iPhone, I agree with him. Did the iPod touch have to be training wheels for the iPhone? No. Steve Jobs orchestrated it so that people who used the iPod touch only got a small taste of what the iPhone could do (I don’t believe him when he says the applications were not included just because the iPod touch is a “music” device) — and if they were interested, they would “trade up”. Good business strategy on Jobs’ part.

Let me get this out though: The iPhone is not the perfect mobile device. It has a bunch of flaws: No cut & paste, no Flash support in Safari, it crashes, and other minor things. But, what it does, it does really well — and it is a mobile device that will change the way other mobile device makers think when they start designing iPhone-killers. My SonyEricsson w810i was a great phone and it did everything the iPhone did: Mail client, Web client, music, video, camera, and other things. But, the iPhone just does it much better. The virtual keyboard works great, a lot better than the chiclet keyboard on the Treo, and on-par with the spacious keyboard on the Sidekick II. iTunes syncing makes a big difference when it comes to music management (since I am an iTunes using guy). The camera on the iPhone is not as good as the auto-focus on the SonyEricsson though.

After a week with the iPhone, am I happy? Damn straight, it is the best mobile device I have ever used — and I have gone through a bunch of mobile devices, some of them smartphones too (Nokia 6682, Treo 600, Sidekick II), none of them match the iPhone. I eat my words from my previous posting doubting the iPhone. I have been converted.

Update: I forgot to mention stuff about how I carry the iPhone around. I know people that carry the thing “naked” in their jean pockets with their keys and wallet and stuff. I’m a little paranoid about that (even though I know the screen is pretty scratch resistant). So, for the last week, I have been carrying it around in my old orange Timbuk2 Accessory Case (no longer available). I was looking for a really good case for my iPhone all week long and had been thinking about two: Agent 18 Eco iPhone Shield and the Contour Showcase for iPhone. The Agent 18 got shot down after I found reports that the case scratches the chrome on the iPhone face. The Showcase is really, really nice, but I like being able to hold my iPhone without a case around it. Finally, I found the Sena Ultraslim iPhone Pouch. Perfect case for my iPhone. Eileen picked one up for me today, the case fits the iPhone like a glove and works great.