Rich Sharples' Blog

I finally succumbed to Apple’s advances and bought an iPhone. I was holding out for one of two things to happen and neither did (completely) – but I found myself in an Apple store and my resolve quickly faded. First – I was waiting for my current (and 3rd) Treo to show some signs of dying – trouble is – they’re tough little bastards; repeated drop-kicks or immersing in boiling oil are about the only ways to terminate a Treo (the former has worked a coupe of times for me). Secondly – I was waiting for the appearance of a decent application market for the iPhone. Apple just announced that they are encouraging a developer ecosystem – so the apps. will no doubt start appearing this summer. Also, if you can’t wait – you can a “Jailbreak” your shiny new iPhone today to accept third-party apps. – though I’m sure Apple would rather you didn’t. More on my “Jailbreaking” experience later probably.

It’s hard not to like the iPhone and even though it has its flaws and shortcomings – it’s easy to forgive them; because the iPhone is so nice. IMO, Apple have completely nailed the consumer user experience – this was always a core competence and they’ve really grown it into a sustained advantage. I think the iPhone has really set a new bar for consumer usability (and eye-candy).

OK, with the caveat that I’m only a couple of hours into dedicated bonding with my iPhone – here are the limitations I’ve noticed :

• Poor integration between mail and calendar – I can’t click on a date / time in a mail and create a calendar entry like I can in OS/X Mail.app. Can’t link a calendar entry with an email. I think the assumption is that you use your {desk | lap}top for heavy-duty mail / calendar management.
• I can’t cut and paste between Apps. (surely their must be a way). This really hurts because there seems to be little integration between apps. right now.
• The Google Maps location awareness is interesting but not really practical – knowing where you are (broadly) is only useful if you’re really lost / drunk. If you are reliant on a GPS unit (I use TomTom on my Treo) – you still will be. I’m going to strip-down my deactivated Treo and continue to use it as a GPS until I manage to drop-kick it / boil it to death or until TomTom / Magellan / Someone ports their app to the iPhone (first decent attempt gets my money).
• Battery life – while the eye-candy is nice; you have to pay the piper. Just cary a charger with you. Electricity is everywhere.
• The notes app on the iPhone doesn’t have an OS/X counterpart to synch with – so (unless you’re a really fast iPhone typist) – it’s less useful than it could be. If you store your OS/X Mail.app notes on an IMAP server – you’ll be able to access the notes on your iPhone as they are just stored as plain old mails. This isn’t ideal but it’s better than a poke in the eye.
• A PDF viewer would be nice – given the IPhone’s support for WiFi and WiFi’s near ubiquity – I’d be a lot more inclined to download and view large email attachments.

Here’s what’s right :

• Overall ease of use / user experience modulo the “no cut and paste” bug mentioned above.
• Size and wight – it’s still pretty heavy but it’s slim and sleek design makes it much easier to pocket then the Treo.
• It uses the same adapter / cables / charger as your iPod so you can re-use them. I used to despise Palm for changing the adapters with every minor release.
• The image quality is impressive – most noticeable when you’re watching a movie. If the battery would hold out – I could actually imagine this being a better movie-viewing option than a laptop – especially when you’re wedged into seat 54F for 9 hours.
• Handling the network (eg. switching between WiFi and Edge just works and is largely invisible. Just like it should be.
• Reliability – so far I haven’t had to reboot – with my Treo it was a weekly occurrence. Let’s see if the iPhone suffers the same problem as the Treo when we start running poorly behaved third party apps.

Here’s where I’m as yet undecided :

• Keyboard – I think the virtual keyboard is nicely done and I’ll always give up a lot for a decent sized screen – but my poor fingers need retraining.
• No video camera – seems an odd omission; though I’ll probably only miss it once or twice a year.
• I’m worried that the iPhone won’t take a beating (like a Treo can) and I don’t want to compromise the slick design with a protective case. Only time will tell if my worries are well founded.

I’m sure I’ll post more as I discover more.

Tags: apple, gps, iphone, OS/X, treo, WiFi