iPhone 3G- jkOnTheRun first impressions
I’ve had the iPhone 3G in my hands for less than a day but as tradition dictates I’m offering up my first impressions of real world usage for your amusement. Granted my impressions will no doubt firm up as I use it in the workplace but here’s what I think as of right now.
MID first, phone second
My initial impression of the iPhone 3G is a very firm one. I find that using the iPhone 3G for very long drives home the point that the device is a web-centric gadget first and foremost. It’s a combination of how well web apps function versus how easy and intuitive they are to use. Surfing the web is a snap with Safari, it’s easily the best mobile browser the way it’s implemented. Couple that with the tight integration the iPhone has with the AT&T network and it’s a simple affair. I find it thoughtless to pick up the iPhone to check something quickly online, and that’s the mark of a well-designed interface that provides a good user experience. Working with email couldn’t be easier making the iPhone a true communications powerhouse. Sure it’s no Blackberry but I find for the most part it doesn’t need to be.
I have never considered the iPhone to be a Mobile Internet Device (MID) but my thoughts on that are rapidly changing. I am finding it super simple to check my RSS feeds using Google Reader (iPhone interface) and it’s already become my "go-to" device for doing that. It’s fast and easy to go through hundreds of items in a short amount of time, delving into individual items of interest as deeply as the mood strikes me. For those items I want to check out later it couldn’t be easier to "star" it for saving, just tap the star and there you go. Having Google Reader open items in detail inline also keeps everything easy to use and minimizes the need to refresh the screen making it even faster. I am very happy with the internet capabilities of the iPhone 3G whether it’s on WiFi or AT&T 3G. That smacks of a true MID to me.
I haven’t gotten quite comfortable with the MobileMe syncing yet. I did my initial sync with my MacBook Pro via iTunes and everything came over fine. All of my 3,000+ contacts were there on the iPhone when done just as they should be. I then set the iPhone settings to sync them via MobileMe and all of the contacts disappeared, something I need to research to see what happened. I simply turned off push contacts with MobileMe and resynced with iTunes and all the contacts came back. I think my problem is on the MacBook Pro configuration so time should see me get this straightened out.
The iPhone is working fine on the phone front, although it’s not the best phone I’ve used. Then I see a lot of evaluation phones so I don’t expect it to be the best. It performs OK, though, and pairing it with my Bluetooth headset was quick and easy, in fact I did that in my car after leaving the Apple store yesterday. Today I had a one hour 3-way conference call using the BT headset and everything worked as expected. I’ll reserve any further impressions of the phone functions until I’ve had a chance to use it more.
It’s all about the apps
The real strength of the iPhone 3G’s functionality definitely comes from the Apple App Store. I’ve already loaded about ten free apps and they work very well as a rule. Of course I installed Super MonkeyBall which I have to admit is a HUGE time-waster, albeit very cool. My favorite app is already eReader but that’s no surprise since I have been a long-time eReader user. Once Fictionwise adds the ability to buy books direct from the phone it will be absolutely killer.
ereader
Another free app that is absolutely killer is the Evernote app that allows remote access of your entire note collection from the iPhone. You can add notes as you go and they can be text, images from the web or even snapped photos. It make be the killer app on the iPhone.
Evernote
Twitterific is a pretty interface to your Twittering buddies to keep you up-to-date with your online friends. There’s nothing that special about it rather it’s an easy way to interact with Twitter. Plus it’s free. Another cool free app is the Mobile News app which does simply that. Pulls news to your mobile.
Twitterific
That’s it for now, I’ll have further observations over time but wanted to share these for you now. I am very pleased with the purchase so far.
Hahaha! Another convert to the Holy Apple Cause!
Next, I predict you’ll buy a MacBook Pro!
Oh wait …
Having Exchange at my disposal I didn’t buy into the MobileMe thing. I can report, however, that it works perfectly with Exchange and the push feature works at least as well as with my Sprint Touch.
Overall, I like the phone and while I’m about 50/50 on keeping it, my reservations are apparently being addressed so patience is probably a virtue. However, data rates around here are abysmal. Maybe 1/3 the speed of Sprint’s network, at best. That should go up significantly in time but right now it sucks. Second, there’s no Slingplayer and I bought the Comcast MLB package specifically to watch via Slingplayer. I know one is coming…eventually….one day…but I’ve had it on the Touch since day one. I’m actually kind of surprised it wasn’t available when the App Store launched. I’d be a lot more into the iPhone if it had Slingplayer. Or even something that could play Orb. And finally, apps don’t run in the background…a major, major drag. I hear that’s to be addressed this fall but if there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years, it’s to never buy a phone based on what might happen in the future. I did that with the Sprint Mogul and what an ungodly piece of trash that turned out to be.
In the end, I might return the phone and cancel account and wait until fall to try again. Or I might not. Like I mentioned above, I’m on the fence about it. But that’s not to say it’s a bad phone, it’s just not what I’ve grown accustomed to.
Sounds like everything worked out for everyone. You got a neat new phone, and your wife got a manicure and a pedicure. I’d call it Even Steven.
Thanks for the great comments. I’m much enjoying my 2.0 iPod Touch, but I’m tethered to the wifi. Your comments will help a lot in deciding whether or not to join the 3Gers.
I’m not a game player, but had to buy Monkey Ball for my kid. What a crackup…the whole game is controlled by the gravitometer (or whatever the correct term is). It’s great active fun and wonderfully colorful, and it downloaded directly to the iPod in a few minutes.
It going to be tough for Treo, Blackberry, Samsung, et al, to catch up when each Apple phone comes with a huge network of apps and content.
We’ll be interested to see how the 3G battery holds up with all the interesting things to do.
Al
Santa Monica
Here’s a secret I want to share about app store. If you have purchased one app you can install it to another device for free. see http://www.pimpmyumpc.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=64&Itemid=9
James, can you figure out how to connect to the fictionwise bookshelf instead of the ereader one in that ereader apps. It says it suppose to be able to, but I can’t find the place to do it.
Richard, I was told by fictionwise that is coming in a future version. Right now you can only connect to your ereader bookshelf I’m pretty sure.
Valto, I’m sure you’ll get caught, probably sooner than later.
I use the 2.0 iPod Touch and a Treo Centro. I find the Palm contacts and the one handed use while driving in California (mandatory ear piece). I have trouble sometimes using the ipod touch spelling. I am able to use the centro almost without looking. I find the Touch great(at Star$$$$$) when I do not need to utilize my Laptop.
I use the 2.0 iPod Touch and a Treo Centro. I find the Palm contacts and the one handed use while driving in California (mandatory ear piece). I have trouble sometimes using the ipod touch spelling. I am able to use the centro almost without looking. I find the Touch great(at Star$$$$$) when I do not need to utilize my Laptop.
James, I hope you understood, my post was meant to be for humor with all that shhh, shhh stuff. Maybe I have not been blogging long enough to know, how to be humorist or use disclaimer etc., or perhaps maybe my English is too bad.
Anyhow, I’m not trying to steal apps, I could not buy them to iPod touch even if I wanted to (without creating a new account for myself, and I don’t think I should, since those are all still my devices) and I want to buy these two apps to both devices, but app store will not allow me to!
I wanted to point out this fault in app store. and I feel that this should be pointed out and fixed by apple and I hope they do.
I guess I have to add disclaimer to my post too
it’s pretty much all clear now. Being able to sync up to five devices, is the way it should be
So my “secret” really was no secret at all, but there is at least one other conflict in terms versus actual service… that without knowing about it, many are/will be breaking the terms without really knowing…
How do you rate 3G Safari against Opera 9.5 ? How far has the gap been closed ?
“It going to be tough for Treo, Blackberry, Samsung, et al, to catch up when each Apple phone comes with a huge network of apps and content. “
Yeah, no apps on any other platform !
The biggest problem I see is no easy way to transfer files from a pc. What’s up with that? Even early ipods could be mounted like a drive.
I miss the speed and less cluttered interfaces of the earlier, jailbreak Twitter apps compared to Twittierific. It may crash less, but it’s trying to do too much in a small space. And I’m not down with “double clicking”
@NigelG
Yeah, I haven’t installed 20-some apps on my Windows Mobile-based Sprint Mogul, and more importantly– nevermind that if you look on the App Store, half of them are duplicated applications (I counted at least 10 Tip Calculators on Friday).
I guess the plus side is that you don’t have to hunting for where the apps live.
The Nokia N8×0 maemo apps work like this and I quite like that you just click on “what can I install” and it shows you.
Dunno, does having a “limited” but centralised choice of apps outweigh a larger but more diverse locality ?
You hit it on the head, but my experience has differed in some details. For instance, I like Bookshelf much better than eReader, largely because it doesn’t require me to buy the texts from eReader, instead letting me use my old files.
Many of the apps look rushed and half-finished and overly reliant on Apple libraries for much of their functionality. There’ll be a shake-out, with only a few competitors in each category making real money and offering frequent upgrades. You could offer a great service to consumers in keeping your finger on the pulse of that process.
Getting back to the big picture, it took a day for me to realize that this was not just a replacement for my phone, but also for my N800. The N800 does some things better and some worse and they COULD complement each other, but it seems more likely that I’ll be carrying one device most of the time instead of two.
For example, movies are smoother on the iPhone. Although it has a smaller screen, I can encode movies at a higher res (and higher bitrate) than I can for N800. I can search back and forth in a 480×272 movie on the iPhone, but that was painful in a 400×224 movie on N800. In some ways, the higher res screen on N800 is crippled by the slow processor. And I am prepared to endure iPhone’s battery to get its processor!
FYI, you can log into both your eReader and Fictionwise Bookshelf with the eReader application on the iPhone. I buy nearly all of my ebooks on Fictionwise (they have great discounts and deals) and just went in there today to update my credit card since my old ones are gone and then accessed the library on my iPhone. You simply enter your Fictionwise username and password and you should see all of your Fictionwise eReader books in your library where you can then download them to your iPhone. You can also then go sign into your eReader account (I bought one book to test this out) and download and read those titles too right from the iPhone.
IMHO, this is AWESOME and confirms that I no longer need to buy a Kindle. I also understand you can use Safari to buy books and then download them with eReader, but haven’t tried this yet myself. I wish you could access the eReader or Fictionwise store through the application and maybe that is coming in the future.
My fav app so far is AOL Radio. It’s amazing.
iPods/Phones have never had FM radio…but AOL has AM and FM and many stations all over the country.
The “Local” button is pretty amazing, giving good coverage for local radio.
And, is the Apple App Store creating business? How’s this? I was bummed at how slow the ereader.com site was until I read their explanation that they have been overwhelmed by new business from iPhones!
As I say, there is almost no way for other phones to catch up. The iTunes network, along with the App store and related content flows is a MONSTER feature that no other manufacturer has.
Doesn’t the eReader violate the App store terms of service? I was under the impression developers were not allowed to distribute apps that download/save content. It’s a shame when the most popular app is actually prohibido
To even be offered on the App Store Apple has to approve the program so I don’t think it violates anything.
I had a confusion between programs that can download ‘updates’ outside of apple’s store v.s. pure ‘content’ which seems kosher. Thanks for prompting me to check the docs myself.
James…try moviefone web app for iPhone. Really amazing with great trailer service. Get it at moviefone.com. Make it an icon.
For Valto or anyone who’s wondering how to log into your Fictionwise account instead of your eReader account, I found out by accident! Just type in your Fictionwise ID and password, and you’ll be redirected automatically to your Fictionwise bookshelf. I have the same eReader and Fictionwise login ID, and I was taking forever to figure out why I could only get my Fictionwise bookshelf until I remembered to add the “@….com” part of the eReader login as well, doh!!!