The iPhone

[halfwaytree]

Re: The iPhone

Well, I purchased my iPhone last night.

First impression (never having owned an iPhone, or iPod for that matter) is <span style="font-weight: bold">THE DANG INSTRUCTION MANUAL IS HARD TO READ !</span>

I know I'm getting older and my eyesight is getting a little weaker every day, <span style="font-weight: bold">but seriously!</span> The type could not possibly be any smaller!!!

Apple must be trying to seriously discourage anyone over the age of thirty from ever purchasing another iAnything.

I will play with it on the weekend (the iPhone that is) and report back.

[Nanook]

Re: The iPhone

OHHHH Goody! I am looking forward to your report Milo! That's how I got my iPod! My poor almost 80 year old mother bought herself one and couldn't figure it out so she gave it to me! Lucky me! I figured it out in about 1 minute, teeheee.

Anyway, I am waiting with baited breath for your IPhone report because i want one bad bad and am saving my pennies.

[Ensomgirl]

Re: The iPhone

I'll wait as well. I'll probably get mine next month.

[Boopie2]

Re: The iPhone

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Milo Man*</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Well, I purchased my iPhone last night.

First impression (never having owned an iPhone, or iPod for that matter) is <span style="font-weight: bold">THE DANG INSTRUCTION MANUAL IS HARD TO READ !</span>

I know I'm getting older and my eyesight is getting a little weaker every day, <span style="font-weight: bold">but seriously!</span> The type could not possibly be any smaller!!!

Apple must be trying to seriously discourage anyone over the age of thirty from ever purchasing another iAnything.

I will play with it on the weekend (the iPhone that is) and report back. </div></div>


You don't have an Apple store near you? They have a place called &quot;The Bar&quot; where techies will help you with questions and problem solving. I couldn't get my IPod to work on my computer at home. I went to the bar and he fixed it.

Everybody else in line was having problems with their IPhones.

[j-kid]

Re: The iPhone

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Milo Man*</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Well, I purchased my iPhone last night.

First impression (never having owned an iPhone, or iPod for that matter) is <span style="font-weight: bold">THE DANG INSTRUCTION MANUAL IS HARD TO READ !</span>

I know I'm getting older and my eyesight is getting a little weaker every day, <span style="font-weight: bold">but seriously!</span> The type could not possibly be any smaller!!!

Apple must be trying to seriously discourage anyone over the age of thirty from ever purchasing another iAnything.

I will play with it on the weekend (the iPhone that is) and report back. </div></div>

<span style="font-size: 17pt">Milo, I see yuh been doing dat ting again dat yuh mother keep telling yuh &quot;not tuh duh or yuh wi goh blind&quot;!</span>

Si if dis wi help:

[halfwaytree]

Re: The iPhone

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: J kid</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Milo Man*</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Well, I purchased my iPhone last night.

First impression (never having owned an iPhone, or iPod for that matter) is <span style="font-weight: bold">THE DANG INSTRUCTION MANUAL IS HARD TO READ !</span>

I know I'm getting older and my eyesight is getting a little weaker every day, <span style="font-weight: bold">but seriously!</span> The type could not possibly be any smaller!!!

Apple must be trying to seriously discourage anyone over the age of thirty from ever purchasing another iAnything.

I will play with it on the weekend (the iPhone that is) and report back. </div></div>

<span style="font-size: 17pt">Milo, I see yuh been doing dat ting again dat yuh mother keep telling yuh &quot;not tuh duh or yuh wi goh blind&quot;!</span>

Si if dis wi help:






</div></div>


No sah! Mi pass dat now. Mi need suppem a likkle strongah dan dat.


Maybe dis?

[halfwaytree]

Re: The iPhone

OK, I have lived with my iPhone for about 4 days now.

<span style="font-weight: bold">The Good</span>

- It's operating system is very solid. After 4 days of use, not once have I had it freeze up or crash. Totally dependable, just like what you would expect from OSX.

- Apple has perfected the touch screen to the point where someone like myself with no experience can easily adapt and feel comfortable using the device in a matter of a few minutes.

- The G3 network is fast and it's great for visiting sites such as You Tube.

- Adding applications are easy by tapping the Apps Store icon. They range from being free up to a cost of around $10 each. Most are worthless but some are very ingenious and I am still considering which ones to download.

- The phone it self is very user friendly. I showed it to my sister who is very technically challenged and she was impressed and really took to it quickly.

<span style="font-weight: bold">The Bad</span>

- Two words...<span style="font-weight: bold">Battery life</span>!! if you are a iPhone junkie like I was during the first couple days or you run a business or are in sales etc... and are going to be on this phone constantly, you will probably need to charge it every night. There are features you can adjust or turn off all together that will save on battery power but then you have to ask yourself, &quot;I bought this phone to perform all these added features and now I find I have to turn them off until needed to save from charging by battery every two bells.&quot; For a casual user like myself, I will probably have to charge it every two or three days. To make matters worse, the battery is internalized so changing it without sending it off to be done by a pro will be risky for many, including myself.

- As reported many times, the camera can not take video and adjusting things like colour, brightness and contrast are not possible.

- Can't send pictures via text messaging as far as I know.

- The G3 network is for the most part limited to largely populated areas. If you live in a small town or out in the bush somewhere then you may want to find out if it is available in your area. I do believe it is being expanded every day but there are huge areas that still have no coverage.

- There is a fear of someone going out of their way to steal it as they are in short supply at the moment. I read on the net that you can get rubber covers that you can slip over the iPhone to make it look like another device which not many would bother stealing. Maybe I will check that out.

<span style="font-weight: bold">The Ugly</span>

- Hey, it's an Apple, how can it possibly be ugly? I have had total strangers come up and ask me if they could look at it. It's cool, it's sexy... until the next generation of iPhone comes out that is. Then it will just be another &quot;has been&quot;.

<span style="font-weight: bold">Conclusions</span>

I'm not sorry I purchased the iPhone as I am a long time user and fan of Apple and know the quality of their products. However, I will say this, if your livelyhood depends on a phone that is going to be hassle free in terms of having to charge it often then maybe you may want to go another route, such as a Black Berry etc... .

Oh! Got to run! My iPhone is beeping.

[Nanook]

Re: The iPhone

Thanks for the review Milo! My crappy phone that I now have won't even keep a charge for more than a day and I don't have to use it before it dead. I imagine a car charger is available so that would probably be a big plus!

I live near a small town and the internet worked there. I asked if here was connection area problems and was told that wherever I could get service the internet would work. This sure would be better than dragging a whole laptop to art fairs and such!

Did you purchase the extra insurance?

[j-kid]

Re: The iPhone

Milo you did not mention if you could view business document (PDF, Spreadsheet, powerpoint, Wordprocessing, etc ) on the iPhone?

[halfwaytree]

Re: The iPhone

Hey Nanook:

The phone does indeed have chargers you can plug into your car. i just picked one up at WalMart on the weekend.

While the slower edge network may be available (iPhone can run on that too) the G3 network is the one that will offer increased speed. Kind of like comparing dial up internet service to broadband.

I don't think they offer the insurance plan up here in Canada, at least I was not offered one. I purchased the phone on my credit card which gives me a total of two years limited warranty. I would be totally shocked if I needed service during that time however. Apple products seem to run to near perfection, at least that has been my experience. Obviously if the phone is damaged outside of what is considered &quot;regular use&quot; the warranty will not be of any use anyway.

J-kid:

Good questions! The iPhone can open PDF files. As far as the other type of documents you are wondering about, I'm not sure. I am on holidays this week so I will check to see how iPhone handles the rest of those files when I return to work next week.

[Tuff Gong]

Re: The iPhone

<span style="font-size: 14pt">iPhone: Trouble in the App Store</span>
It’s been a confusing week for both sellers and buyers at the App Store — the venue for third party software that is the best thing to happen to the iPhone (except maybe the price cuts) since it arrived more than a year ago.

The iPhone 3G is OK, if you manage battery consumption very carefully. And Mobile Me is slowly getting up to speed (see here). But the App Store — with 1,574 programs as of Saturday morning, from Abacus to Zxilophone — is a runaway hit, a software candy store that offers iPhone and iPod touch owners a fresh tray of tasty treats nearly every day.

So what are we to make of the fact that Apple (AAPL), without explanation, has started pulling programs from the store, leaving both the people that wrote them and the customers who bought them scratching their heads and wondering who’s in charge? At least five apps have disappeared so far, but three dominated the tech news this week:

BoxOffice: This free application, which listed movie times, locations and links to reviews, was one of the first programs available when the App Store opened on July 11 and offered worthy competition to Movies.app, a must-have program from the early days of the original iPhone. BoxOffice disappeared from the App Store (and users’ iPhones) on July 31. “Apple pulled the app yesterday without giving my (sic) any notification that they were doing it, or what their justification was for removing it,” its developer, Metasyntactic, wrote the next day on a MacRumor forum. “I’ve tried to contact them about the issue, but it’s been a complete dead end. If anyone has a useful contact number for apple, please let me know.”
I Am Rich: This one is a little easier to understand. The priciest app in the store — it sold for $999.99 — was also the most useless: it did nothing but take your money and display a red gem on your screen. “The red icon on your iPhone or iPod touch always reminds you (and others when you show it to them) that you were rich enough to afford this,” the information page on iTunes warned. “It’s a work of art with no hidden function at all.” Apple, which was collecting $300 for every copy that sold (and at least eight did, developer Armin Heinrich told Silicon Alley News), may well have received complaints and felt obliged to protect unwitting customers. But what kind of screening process approved I Am Rich in the first place?
Nullriver: This may be the most bewildering case of all. The application allowed Mac owners to use their iPhone as a wireless modem to reach the Internet over AT&amp;T’s (T) cellular networks — either 3G or EDGE, whichever was available. It was removed from the store on August 1, briefly reinstated, and then pulled for good. According to Nullriver CEO Adam Dan, technicians at Apple told him it was pulled the first time by mistake. “They want to get NetShare back up, but they want to do some technical analysis that they couldn’t explain to us,” Dan told Wired.com. As iPhone Savior pointed out at the time, AT&amp;T’s user agreement clearly forbids unauthorized tethering (see here), but it’s not clear why AT&amp;T would object to the extra revenue stream. “Apple runs the app store, so you’ll have to ask them about the availability of this and other apps,” an AT&amp;T spokesperson pointedly told Gizmodo. “For customers looking for a smartphone with tethering capabilities, AT&amp;T has a number of other options to choose from.” Perhaps it was Apple that had a problem with Nullriver. They may have their own tethering plan in the works, and Nullriver might well have offended someone in Cupertino’s sense of how easy-to-use an iPhone app ought to be (tethering is never easy, and the instructions included in Nullriver were hopelessly inadequate.)
Apple has not responded to requests for comment, so nobody really knows for sure what’s going on. But it sounds like they were overwhelmed by the initial flood of applications and may be trying, by fits and starts, to develop a rational policy.

“From what I can tell their approval process is not very strict at all, Nullriver’s Dan told Wired.com. “I think they run it, start it up and if it doesn’t crash they approve it. They brainlessly click through, and if there’s problems they remove it.” (link)

Even more troubling, for some observers, is the discovery of a blacklist mechanism buried in iPhone OS 2.0 and unearthed last week by Jonathan Zdziarski, author of iPhone Forensics. It consists of an URL that points to a page of unauthorized programs.

“This suggests that the iPhone calls home once in a while to find out what applications it should turn off,” writes Zdziarski. “At the moment, no apps have been blacklisted, but by all appearances, this has been added to disable applications that the user has already downloaded and paid for, if Apple so chooses to shut them down.”

For an extensive discussion of the significance of the blacklist, see Techmeme here.

http://apple20.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2008/08/09/iphone-trouble-in-the-app-store/

[halfwaytree]

Re: The iPhone

That is very interesting reading Tuffy. I swear in the middle of the night I can hear it giving off a little buzzing noise for a few seconds. Perhaps it is &quot;phoning home&quot;.

I have downloaded a couple of the free apps.

One enables the phone to be used as a voice recorder which was one feature missing from the phone when it was first released.

The other app allows you to to turn your phone on while listening to a song on the radio, or even while at a club and the name of the song and its artist will be displayed. You can even hum a tune that you have heard on the radio and it will display a few songs that seem to match. This app really does work and I never have to ask myself &quot;what is the name of that song&quot; again.

As far as battery life goes, I find if I can log onto a WiFi connection and use it to connect to the web instead of via the G3 or the Edge networks, I am using MUCH less battery power. So I always look for a WiFi connection first when I launch the web browser.

The phone can open Power Point and PDF documents but I am yet to try and open some other varieties. Will try and open an excel and a word document next week when I'm at work.

So far I'm loving the phone. Just need to start loading it up with some music now.

My biggest worry is losing the dang thing.

[Tuff Gong]

Re: The iPhone

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Milo Man*</div><div class="ubbcode-body">That is very interesting reading Tuffy. I swear in the middle of the night I can hear it giving off a little buzzing noise for a few seconds. Perhaps it is &quot;phoning home&quot;. </div></div>

LOL...lock outside the door at night it might be watching you!

[j-kid]

Re: The iPhone

Milo, did you ever find out if you can view or edit MS Excel, Word, or powerpoint files on the iPhone? Yuh was going fi check it out fi mi.

[halfwaytree]

Re: The iPhone

As of this moment I can not, but check this link J kid.

Link

Seems as though iPhone users will be able to shortly, if not already (for a price).