iphone – one week later

ok, so I’ve had my iphone for a week-and-a-bit now, including the past 2 days where I’ve been out of the office – and out of wifi range – on a work training course (which was, at times, cool, and at times totally naff). I’ve wandered around with it, I’ve used it to find where I’m going, and I’ve used it (shock, horror) to play music and video, mostly podcasts. Keeping in mind that mine is a black 8GB on the O2 network in the UK (£30/75mins/125texts/unlimited 3G/unlimited wifi via TheCould and BTOpenzone), and I live in the (non-3G) Canary Wharf area, and work in the (non-3G and wifi challenged) White City area, here’s my verdict so far:

The good stuff

First up, as an internet device – email, web, apps – this thing is the shit. I can connect to pretty much everything I use – Google apps, remember the milk, twitter, wordpress (see previous post) – and a few on top (stock and weather). I can be anywhere in London – except the tube, which is 2 hours of my day – and get my email, rss feeds etc. That alone is very cool. I now use it to browse on weekends (on the deck, being it’s “summer” here), rather than using my Macbook which is wired up to a firewire drive and a 20″ monitor.

So, a big tick for the device as a whole, the 3G connection, and definitely the unlimited wifi connection. It doesn’t have fantastic coverage, but it’s good enough for the places I am – Canary Wharf/Canada Square, around London, at home, at work etc. 802.11n would mean I don’t have to have a G router here at all, but I can live without that, as BT just gave me another one (anyone want a BT homehub?).

The GPS is insanely handy. I have a pretty good sense of direction, except when I come out of a tube station. I tend to walk in the exact wrong direction (which should be a sign), and I use the compass on my watch as well as the GPS to work out which way I need to go. That said, it doesn’t stop me overshooting Regent St – by 6 blocks, FFS! – on the way from the work training to the Apple store. Id10t. It’s accurate, very quick, and all around useful. I’d love a button to say “cache Google maps in a X mile radius from where I am now” – eg, a 20 mile radius from work/home (ie, most of London), so I can use it when I’m otherwise offline – eg in Paris, or Wellington. I don’t expect to zoom, but I have 8GB of space, so USE IT. I dont expect routing in this offline mode – just the “where am I” icon and the basic street map.

The appstore (and itunes store app). ZOMG. Cromag, Crash Bandikoot, Monkeyball (to a lesser extent), Tomatoes, Twitterific, WordPress. Shiznit, 110% shuznit. Enigmo is the next on my list (… and I just bought it while writing this…). This is the reason that tipped me over the edge to get one.

The keyboard. It’s good, it’s accurate, I can type easily on it after a couple of days. Generally, bravo. Down side: I’m turning into a slight crackberry-addict-like-person, which I hate. Oh, well. self control and all that.

The device as a whole works well, and feels solid. I thought the plastic back was going be to fragile, but it’s not. Even with slightly damp hands (it’s been humid here the last few days) it doesn’t feel like it’ll slip.

Push email works well from Exchange. It’s neither a blackberry nor a winmo device, but push email etc works nicely. Prefect? no. Good enough? For sure. Now, can the BBC please enable ActiveSync? kthnksbai.

The bad stuff

It’s pretty unstable for a 2.0 product. Come on, I don’t expect Safari, iPod, SMS, maps or any of the other core apps to crash – or basically lock up – during normal use. I can crash safari without trying (slashdot and tuaw is a good example), and it appears to be when the internet connection is flakey, eg if I have 1 bar of wifi or a low 3G signal, which is most of the time.

Getting it on a plan means I’m now stuck with it for 18 months. Regardless of if I like it or not, I can’t ditch it and go back to my SP5 and Nano. That alone sucks. I don’t “get it” until I’ve used it for a month or 2. I can’t sell it to someone else, even if I wanted to. That’s bad.

The UI flow is nasty. For example, I’m in maps. I find a bar I want to go to*, so I click on their website. Now, to get BACK to the map, I need to press home, and select the maps app. There is no “back” button, which I’m oh so very used to with windows mobile, and browsers. Not a deal breaker, but it’s a big annoyance.

*please to ask me about bars which have flash-only websites. grrrr. Atleast put your address and postcode in text please!

The lock. Yes, I lock my phone. When I turn (slide) it on, I have to enter a pin code. Fine, I have too many passworded things on this to NOT do that, but come on – I can has timeout please? eg, don’t ask for my pin if I re-access the device within X seconds. Having the ipod controls come up without be having to unlock it is a good start, but not quite enough. [someone explained this one - now not a problem!]

The phone interface. It’s missing a few things, like who I called last, rather than who called me. The favorites is good, visual voice mail is good for the one voice mail a year I get, and contacts is ok, tho if it’s called from mail, its SLLLLLLOOOOOOOWWWWWW.

Capacity. OK, I know 8GB doesn’t mean 8GB, but it is definitely not 7GB. That’s how much I start with, according to iTunes. OK, so it’s only 300meg more than my nano, but it feels a lot more.

The REALLY bad stuff

The iPod. I’ve had a few of these, as my collection of cables shows. I started with a 1st gen Shuffle 1.0 (the chewing gum pack shaped one) which is my second favorite, followed by a 1st gen Nano, and when that broke, a 3rd gen Nano (my current favorite). We have a 5.5gen 80GB iPod (now called a classic), which has ALL of our music on it ( about 70GB, backed up, of course), and we use this to offload the cameras (Canon 400D/Digital Rebel XTi and a Canon G9) when we travel.

And now the iPhone.

Of all of them, I’d rate the iPhone a dismal, distant LAST in the iPod stakes. This device totally stinks as a media player – it feels like an after thought. The interface is very list-based – tho most ipods are – but this feels clunkey, with oversized lists, and a break in the normal “flow” which I can get into with the 3G nano.

They have removed (on purpose?) some of the good features of the latest iPod firmware, too. For example, I listen to the NPR Science Friday podcast, as well as Russell Brown’s Media7 vodcast, which I love. I have accepted that I have to play them in top down order – newest to oldest. I’m fine with that, tho I hate it. But the iPhone refuses to move to the next unplayed “track” (ie, podcast entry) when the current one is done, which means I have to take the phone out, unlock it, select the next track, and start it playing. This sucks. BADLY. This alone would make me dump this device and go back to my SP5 and Nano. Keep in mind that 90% of what I listen to is podcasts, the other 5% being audiobooks and music, so it’s kinda important to me.

[update: this has been mostly fixed in v2.1. It's not perfect, but it's SO much better then 2.0. Thanks Apple!]

Conclusion

All up, the iPhone – and I think all of this applies to the 1st Gen as well as the 2nd/3G – is an interesting device. The appstore infrastructure makes an amazingly wide variety of applications available, and if I put my mind to it, I could even participate without too much of a problem. But it has, for me, some serious short comings, especially around the iPod functions, and for me this is it’s #2 purpose for being.

Would I recommend one? Well, it depends on what you want. If you are looking for a phone and an iPod: hell no. Get a 3G nano and a basic phone, it’s smaller, easier to use and just better. As an internet connected, mobile platform which will be the single largest target for application development in the next 5 years? well, no one else is even playing the same sport, let alone in the same ballpark. And I’ve now sold my nano to a friend, because honestly, I can’t justify two ipods, even if the phone isn’t a very good one.

On a completely seperate note: to PaulB and Vodafone NZ: throw in free (or cheap), unlimited wifi for the device (not the user) like they do in the UK, eg on CafeNet or something like that, and you have a total, 100% winner at your current prices and structures. Or even just another 500meg of wifi for $10 or something. You DO own IHUG after all. With that thrown in, there is NO argument with your pricing, because 90% of my data usage is over wifi, not 3G. And while you are at it, buy (and extend) cafenet all over Auckland (and NZ) :). Actually, dont – they are a great little company…. not sure if it’d be a positive to be bought by a large multi-national.