editor Posted September 24, 2007 Share Posted September 24, 2007 After a month of seeing what a joy my wife's iPhone is and slowly realizing what a piece of junk my "smartphone" is, I'm finally going to get one.I'm at Starbucks right now. The Apple Store down the block opens in 30 minutes. Hopefully they have an 8 gig model in stock.It's not that I didn't get good use out of my old phone. It really is state of the art. But the more I used my wife's phone the more I realized that Windows Mobile, Symbian, Blackberry and friends really don't have a clue what they're doing. My M600i does everything the iPhone does, but it does it slower, uglier, harder, and less reliably. Simple tasks are simple on the iPhone. Complex tasks are simple on the iPhone. Sure, it doesn't have every feature under the sun, and it's even lacking one of my most important features (Bluetooth tethering). But all the other wonderful things about the iPhone more than make up for its minor shortcomings.So in 28 minutes I'll walk down the street, plop down a credit card and my wife's $100 iPhone rebate (Thanks, Steve!) and walk out with a $299 phone that is so much better than what I have now. I don't care if people think I'm fashionable. I just want something that works. Something I don't have to struggle against. A device that was designed to work for people, not a something that was designed for people to work around the device.Don't hate me because I'm beautiful. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark F. Barnes Posted September 24, 2007 Share Posted September 24, 2007 You go Wayne, you will never regret it. Unless it drops to 199 next week! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jax Posted September 24, 2007 Share Posted September 24, 2007 Haha! Awesome. I have to wait until either my t-mobile contract runs out, or there is a t-mobile version of the iPhone... In the meantime I have an Apple theme on my Nokia Symbian phone. At least my data plan with t-mobile only costs $6 per month and it gives me web (Opera) email (POP client), and Google Maps. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gwilson Posted September 24, 2007 Share Posted September 24, 2007 The two things holding me back from the iPhone are:I'm on T-Mobile. I cannot stand Cingular. Customer Service is crap with them, their rates are horrid.I use my Dash as a way to get online when wireless networks aren't available. The iPhone lacks the broadband connectivity and I don't know if it allows internet sharing even if it did.I also would REALLY REALLY love to see more capacity on the iPhone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
editor Posted September 24, 2007 Author Share Posted September 24, 2007 Well, it's done. That was remarkably quick and painless. I started the sign-up process at 10:22, and my phone lit up "iPhone is activated" at 10:33. I'm now a drooling fashion zombie.The two things holding me back from the iPhone are:I'm on T-Mobile.I was on T-Mobile, too. I guess technically I still am until I cancel my T-Mobile account. Switching to AT&T doesn't bother me because they're both GSM providers and in most places when you can't get a signal from one you end up roaming on the other.I cannot stand Cingular. Customer Service is crap with them,I'm not surprised. I've had nothing but perfect fabulous customer service from T-Mobile. But everyone knows that AT&T Mobility's customer service blows. That's why when you have an iPhone you don't deal with them. You deal with Apple. There's a different customer service number for iPhone customers and Apple handles it.their rates are horrid.AT&T is a little more expensive than T-Mobile, but I don't find it significantly more. But then, I'm not much of a talker. I'm all about e-mail. My average talk time usage on T-Mobile was 13 minutes a month. The AT&T plan I just signed up for is 450 minutes a month + 5000 weekend minutes + 200 texts + unlimited data. The regular (450 pool) minutes roll over from month to month so a year from now I'll have a bazillion minutes. Hopefully I can donate them to some charity or troops overseas or something somehow.The only thing I'm going to miss from T-Mobile is the data. T-Mobile has the cheapest data plan out there. For $19.99 I got unlimited GPRS and hotspot access. Now I have to switch to the $29.99 hotspot plan since I won't have a T-Mobile phone anymore. For all its flaws, AT&T's EDGE is faster than GPRS, but since I only use it for e-mail it doesn't really matter all that much.I use my Dash as a way to get online when wireless networks aren't available. The iPhone lacks the broadband connectivity and I don't know if it allows internet sharing even if it did.It doesn't currently allow internet sharing. I really wish it did. If AT&T does that, I can drop my T-Mobile hotspot plan.I also would REALLY REALLY love to see more capacity on the iPhone.I bet you see this. Since the iPod Touch is 16GB I bet the next iPhone will have that capacity, and probably at the higher price point that was just dropped. Remember, that's how Apple has done it with all of its iPods -- drop the price, add higher capacity at the top price point.Also, the 8GB isn't too bad for a phone. The majority of phones out there are in the 64 meg range. Some go to 1GB through an additional card. But even the few with SD card slots max out at 4GB. My wife's LG phone was that way. It has a great transflash/MicroSD slot, but could only handle up to 4GB -- half an iPhone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
editor Posted September 25, 2007 Author Share Posted September 25, 2007 First impressions:The headphones have been redesigned. They look like the old iPod headphones, but there's a rubber ring around them which helps them stay in place. I've never liked iPod headphones because they don't fit my small ears. These are an improvement, but I'll still probably use my old headphones.The iPhone feels heavier than my old phone. Looking up the numbers I see my old phone was 112 grams. The iPhone is 135 grams. Not that much different, but it feels positively solid compared to the Blackberries people have at work. They feel like plastic toys that should have candy in them compared to the iPhone.For a phone with a touch screen it has an awful lot of buttons. But it's designed so that you don't really see them or notice them unless you need them.There's a huge dead spot in AT&T's coverage between my home and work. Lasts for about five minutes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Marty Posted September 25, 2007 Share Posted September 25, 2007 I spend alot of my time in Tomball and I don't have a camera, I am thinking this is what I am going to purchase the next time I buy a CP, I like the freedom aspect, now pass the Kool-Aid. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gwilson Posted September 25, 2007 Share Posted September 25, 2007 Well, it's done. That was remarkably quick and painless. I started the sign-up process at 10:22, and my phone lit up "iPhone is activated" at 10:33. I'm now a drooling fashion zombie.I was on T-Mobile, too. I guess technically I still am until I cancel my T-Mobile account. Switching to AT&T doesn't bother me because they're both GSM providers and in most places when you can't get a signal from one you end up roaming on the other.I'm not surprised. I've had nothing but perfect fabulous customer service from T-Mobile. But everyone knows that AT&T Mobility's customer service blows. That's why when you have an iPhone you don't deal with them. You deal with Apple. There's a different customer service number for iPhone customers and Apple handles it.AT&T is a little more expensive than T-Mobile, but I don't find it significantly more. But then, I'm not much of a talker. I'm all about e-mail. My average talk time usage on T-Mobile was 13 minutes a month. The AT&T plan I just signed up for is 450 minutes a month + 5000 weekend minutes + 200 texts + unlimited data. The regular (450 pool) minutes roll over from month to month so a year from now I'll have a bazillion minutes. Hopefully I can donate them to some charity or troops overseas or something somehow.I have a family plan that I have my parents on as well as my business lines. I carry two phones pretty much all the time. I used a lot of minutes and T-Mobile has the best rates for high minute usage. I have four phones, unlimited text/mms for all the phones as well as unlimited data/hotspot (I got it for $9.99, woo) for my dash. Your rollover minutes expire if I remember correctly. They are only good for 90 days or so.The only thing I'm going to miss from T-Mobile is the data. T-Mobile has the cheapest data plan out there. For $19.99 I got unlimited GPRS and hotspot access. Now I have to switch to the $29.99 hotspot plan since I won't have a T-Mobile phone anymore. For all its flaws, AT&T's EDGE is faster than GPRS, but since I only use it for e-mail it doesn't really matter all that much.Edge isn't all that much faster than T-Mobiles data. While it has the capacity for 200k a second, it rarely, if ever, makes it there. If the iPhone was 3G, it would be great. I guarantee the next gen will have it so that you can buy stuff from the iTunes store anywhere you want.It doesn't currently allow internet sharing. I really wish it did. If AT&T does that, I can drop my T-Mobile hotspot plan.I bet you see this. Since the iPod Touch is 16GB I bet the next iPhone will have that capacity, and probably at the higher price point that was just dropped. Remember, that's how Apple has done it with all of its iPods -- drop the price, add higher capacity at the top price point.Also, the 8GB isn't too bad for a phone. The majority of phones out there are in the 64 meg range. Some go to 1GB through an additional card. But even the few with SD card slots max out at 4GB. My wife's LG phone was that way. It has a great transflash/MicroSD slot, but could only handle up to 4GB -- half an iPhone.My Dash has a 2gb microsd and miniSD just hit 4gb and regular SD is 16gb. I'd like to see, at a minimum, a 20-30gb iPhone model. While 16gb might be good for a phone, it is still an iPod as well. Having a music collection larger than your iPod is painful. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
editor Posted September 25, 2007 Author Share Posted September 25, 2007 I have a family plan that I have my parents on as well as my business lines. I carry two phones pretty much all the time. I used a lot of minutes and T-Mobile has the best rates for high minute usage. I have four phones, unlimited text/mms for all the phones as well as unlimited data/hotspot (I got it for $9.99, woo) for my dash.I can't imagine a situation where I'd need as many minutes as you do. A woman I worked with in Houston was constantly on her Sprint phone. She had their highest plan at the time and her bill still came out to $500/month for one line due to overage charges. Remarkable. Your rollover minutes expire if I remember correctly. They are only good for 90 days or so.I have the same memory as you do -- about AT&T rollover minutes expiring, but it did away with the expiration in the Spring, so they last for as long as you're a customer. AT&T ran a very cute series of ads around here promoting that fact. There was a great one where a mother was picking unused minutes out of the trash that her children had thrown away because they thought they were expired.Edge isn't all that much faster than T-Mobiles data. While it has the capacity for 200k a second, it rarely, if ever, makes it there.I used to speed test my T-Mobile GPRS on occasion. It pretty reliably maxed out at 40kbps download and 13kbps upload. I just speed tested the iPhone and it got 72kbps download. The test I used wasn't java or flash-based so it's not as accurate as the one I ran on T-Mobile. When the iPhone gets Java or Flash I'll re-run it to see what happens.If the iPhone was 3G, it would be great. I guarantee the next gen will have itYou don't have to guarantee it. Steve Jobs already did. He said it in January, and again in March, and again last week in London.My Dash has a 2gb microsd and miniSD just hit 4gb and regular SD is 16gb. I'd like to see, at a minimum, a 20-30gb iPhone model. While 16gb might be good for a phone, it is still an iPod as well. Having a music collection larger than your iPod is painful.Tell me about it. My wife's music collection is close to 80 gigs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark F. Barnes Posted September 25, 2007 Share Posted September 25, 2007 I am sitting here at Heathrow waiting on my connector to Dubai. People over here are facinated with this iPhone they all want to touch it and look at it. It's 4:50 pm now and I have another hour to wait. The koolaide is all the buzz over here. Typical crappy London weather........... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
editor Posted September 25, 2007 Author Share Posted September 25, 2007 I am sitting here at Heathrow waiting on my connector to Dubai. People over here are facinated with this iPhone they all want to touch it and look at it. It's 4:50 pm now and I have another hour to wait. The koolaide is all the buzz over here. Typical crappy London weather........... Sounds like a great opportunity to try out the iPhone's camera. Send us lots of pictures! Or you can e-mail them to me and I'll post them for the group.A couple more thoughts from two whole days of use -- 1. The keyboard rocks. It really is very easy to type on, especially if I just hold the phone with my left hand and tap with my right index finger. It's almost as fast as my last phone's two-thumb-driven keyboard, but far more accurate. 2. The thing seems to run out of juice rather quickly. I'll have to play with the settings to see if it's something I've done wrong. On my old 3G phone I had to turn the brightness down to 50% to get an acceptable level of batter use. Maybe the same is true with the iPhone. Also, I've read that doing a lot of wired syncing can drain the battery. That's probably part of the problem because I synced 12 or 14 times this morning while I was playing with it. Tomorrow should be more typical use (one sync in the morning). We'll see what happens. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HoustonMidtown Posted September 26, 2007 Share Posted September 26, 2007 2. The thing seems to run out of juice rather quickly. I'll have to play with the settings to see if it's something I've done wrong. On my old 3G phone I had to turn the brightness down to 50% to get an acceptable level of batter use. Maybe the same is true with the iPhone. Also, I've read that doing a lot of wired syncing can drain the battery. That's probably part of the problem because I synced 12 or 14 times this morning while I was playing with it. Tomorrow should be more typical use (one sync in the morning). We'll see what happens.You may have a battery issue if it's running out that fast - mine goes for several days without charging - although I don't know how our usage compares....If you haven't already - check out the support boards on apple.com, they have lots of info re battery charging best practices, people that have had bad batteries, etc...I thought it charges while connected to your PC ? ....so syncing it shouldn't drain the batteryKool-Aid is good !!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
editor Posted September 27, 2007 Author Share Posted September 27, 2007 You may have a battery issue if it's running out that fast - mine goes for several days without charging - although I don't know how our usage compares....If you haven't already - check out the support boards on apple.com, they have lots of info re battery charging best practices, people that have had bad batteries, etc...I thought it charges while connected to your PC ? ....so syncing it shouldn't drain the batteryKool-Aid is good !!!It looks like all that goofing off was what was draining the battery. Today I had more normal usage.Synced in the morning.Surfed the web via EDGE during an hour long train trip.Wifi at Starbucks for about 30 minutes.Watched two episodes of WKRP In Cincinnati on the train trip home.Make three phone calls of about five minutes each.Checked e-mail constantlyWhen I got home I still had 75% of the battery left.I looked into it, and on my ancient computer the left USB port is not powered, so hooking anything up to it can potentially drain the battery. If I want to charge something I'm supposed to use the right USB port.Another note about the iPhone -- the display is FANTASTIC. As I mentioned earlier I watched video for about an hour today, and the whole time I had the sun at my back and it was shining full on the screen and the display was still perfect to watch. My other phones were worthless in the sun -- you simply couldn't see the screen. Not so with the iPhone. It wasn't even washed out. The sun was bright enough that I could see the sensors through the black casing, and the video was still great.I don't know why people haven't made a bigger deal of this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
editor Posted September 27, 2007 Author Share Posted September 27, 2007 More thoughts --I love reading my mail on the iPhone. It's so slick. So fast. I use Mail at home, and Outlook on Windows XP or 2000 at work (depending on which computer I'm working with that day). I have the sort of mail flow that involves getting 150 to 200 e-mails a day that I don't need to reply to -- just look at them and delete. The iPhone totally rocketh for that. It's smooth and quick and remarkable. I know my workflow is not typical, but for me it really is a wonderful thing.Remember how when you got your first iPod you fell in love with your music collection all over again because it was so accessible and simple? Same deal for e-mail.Another thing I noticed is that all of the Apple gadgets talk to each other!As I mentioned yesterday, I was watching WKRP in Cincinnati episodes on a train. I stopped in the middle of one episode (where Venus Flytrap admits he's an army deserter). When I got home I synced my iPhone and didn't think anything more about it. This morning I found myself in Starbucks with a little time to kill and no wifi access (I lost it when I dropped my T-Mobile account) so I opened up iTunes and decided to finish that episode. A double-click on the episode in question and I was right back where I left off, except of course in full-screen on my laptop instead of the iPhone. The iPhone told my computer where I left off and it automatically resumed for me! No scrubbing through the episode. No searching. It "just works."Then this afternoon I wondered who was talking to whom, so when I got home I turned on the TV and flipped over to the Apple TV and selected the same episode I was watching at Starbucks (I only had time to get through three minutes more before I had to go). Yep -- the AppleTV started the episode right where I left off on my laptop.This. Is. Too. Cool. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Marty Posted September 28, 2007 Share Posted September 28, 2007 This device is more advanced than anything seen on The Jetsons or Star Trek just by reading your comments, except the Star Trek transporter. This must be a new flavor that I have not tried yet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Talbot Posted October 5, 2007 Share Posted October 5, 2007 I have seen a few people with the iPhone, 2 that I personally know and boy do I want one bad. But I know I will be depressed as hell the first time it drops. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
editor Posted October 21, 2007 Author Share Posted October 21, 2007 I have seen a few people with the iPhone, 2 that I personally know and boy do I want one bad. But I know I will be depressed as hell the first time it drops.I think you don't have to worry about it too much. I've only seen two crashbabies (cracked screens) on the internet so far. Considering that Apple is estimated to have sold a million of them (we'll know for sure on Monday), if it is all that delicate we should have seen more.That said, I treat mine like a priceless piece of art. I worry about it every time I handle it. My wife, on the other hand, confessed to me the other day that she can't even guess the number of times she's dropped hers. Apparently it happens a couple of times a week. The only protection she has for it is a stick-on plastic screen cover. I have the same thing on mine. So now that I've had it for a couple of months here are my complaints:AT&T coverage is not as good as T-Mobile. Not horrible, but in the places I go AT&T has only about 95% of T-Mobile's coverage.The chrome bezel scratches. The only thing I've ever had in my pocket with my iPhone are a pair of Sennheiser headphones and I have a couple of tiny scratches on the bezel of the phone now.Syncing doesn't reliably remove already listened/viewed podcasts from the iPhone. I recall that the first generation nanos had this problem, too, but it was fixed in a firmware upgrade, so here's hoping.I would like better PDF support. The New York Times sends me a PDF e-mail every day and the iPhone doesn't render it right. But the good news is that's the only PDF I've come across that I've had problems with.Here are my praises:AT&T does a MUCH better job of recovering data streams in dead spots. With T-Mobile if I moved through a known dead spot while transmitting data I was SOL for any data long after I left the dead spot. With AT&T the data resumes almost instantly after I'm back in coverage.The power of having a FULL web browser cannot be understated. When waiting for a bus I can check the PDFs on the transit company's web site to see how long I'll have to wait so I know if I have time to duck into Starbucks or something.The thing has made me immensely more productive. For example, a couple of days ago I did my company's payroll while riding on the train. Stuff is fast and makes sense. Everything "just works." And the more I play with it, the more useful features I discover.The screen really is awesome in both full sunlight and darkness.Sound quality is excellent. Aside from typical cellular latency, the quality of my voice and that of the people I'm listening to is streets ahead of any other mobile phone I've had.Even the notepad is cool. Even though it looks like a simple jotter, it's actually very powerful once you learn how to use it. And I expect that on Friday it will become even more so. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Subdude Posted October 21, 2007 Share Posted October 21, 2007 [*]Even the notepad is cool. Even though it looks like a simple jotter, it's actually very powerful once you learn how to use it. And I expect that on Friday it will become even more so.What happens on Friday? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
editor Posted October 21, 2007 Author Share Posted October 21, 2007 What happens on Friday?The new version of OS X ("Leopard") comes out. It includes support for syncing iPhone note pads to the Apple Mail program. There are rumors that some other iPhone features will also be unlocked for people who use Leopard. We'll see. It kind of makes sense since there are a ton of new features available in Leopard, and Apple is already on record as saying that the iPhone runs a version of Leopard. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark F. Barnes Posted October 21, 2007 Share Posted October 21, 2007 I have seen a few people with the iPhone, 2 that I personally know and boy do I want one bad. But I know I will be depressed as hell the first time it drops. Tal, buy you one of these covers from Speck and kiss your worries goodbye. It is the armour for the iPhone and it works. It also gives it a better grip, whether in your hand or sitting on the dash of your car or console. I doesn't slide around, and it comes with a belt holster it snaps into, ( I never use it) it really is a good 19 bucks spent. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
editor Posted October 21, 2007 Author Share Posted October 21, 2007 Tal, buy you one of these covers from Speck and kiss your worries goodbye. It is the armour for the iPhone and it works. It also gives it a better grip, whether in your hand or sitting on the dash of your car or console. I doesn't slide around, and it comes with a belt holster it snaps into, ( I never use it) it really is a good 19 bucks spent. My wife got one of those. From what I can tell it would do a good job if she ever used it. But since the phone is, in part, a fashion statement she took it off because it's fugly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Talbot Posted November 24, 2007 Share Posted November 24, 2007 Yeah I was looking at some of those. i figure if I am going to spend that much on a phone, I might as well pay a good price on something that will decently protect it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
editor Posted November 24, 2007 Author Share Posted November 24, 2007 Yeah I was looking at some of those. i figure if I am going to spend that much on a phone, I might as well pay a good price on something that will decently protect it.My wife finally got a cover that she likes -- by Louis Vuitton. Now before everyone hits the rolleyes icon, it's actually pretty good. It looks like a leather pouch, but it's actually hard sided and holds the phone VERY snugly. There's a cutout for your fingers to pull the phone out. The only downside is that about 10% of the phone's surface area is exposed (the top), so if you manage to actually drop it exactly on the top you could still damage the phone. But I don't think the top is the phone's most vulnerable point.Do I recommend it? It's not for everyone. But if you see a knock-off that works as well, get it. It's a style of phone case I haven't seen before, so maybe someone will copy it and sell it for 25% of the LVMH price. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark F. Barnes Posted January 17, 2008 Share Posted January 17, 2008 Pretty cool new updates yesterday. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pumapayam Posted January 17, 2008 Share Posted January 17, 2008 Pretty cool new updates yesterday.You got rid of you Blackjack I assume.I am ticked that Apple decide to charge $20 for the same applications on the iPod Touch. I guess, I will stick with the jailbreak. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark F. Barnes Posted January 17, 2008 Share Posted January 17, 2008 I still have it in a drawer, Love the iPhone, does great, figure a 16 gig to hit the US market any day with the 3G upgraded chipset. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pumapayam Posted January 17, 2008 Share Posted January 17, 2008 I still have it in a drawer, Love the iPhone, does great, figure a 16 gig to hit the US market any day with the 3G upgraded chipset.Yeah, I was actually hoping they would have announced something like that on Tuesday, I guess they are going to hold out until the next big Apple event, maybe this summer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
houstonmacbro Posted January 17, 2008 Share Posted January 17, 2008 I was also sure they were gonna announce larger drives on the iPod Touch and iPhones ... maybe those memory prices haven't dropped enough? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark F. Barnes Posted January 17, 2008 Share Posted January 17, 2008 The current rumors for Macworld 2008 announcements are: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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