My iPhone

I never wanted an iPod.  I had a Palm Tungsten E2 that the University had bought me that held a 1 gig SD card that held all the podcasts I needed.  I loved my Palm, for the first time, I found myself ORGANIZED!  I forgot less appointments and could keep important work reference material with me wherever I went!  It was a tech support guy's dream!

After a while, the Palm's 32 meg of onboard ram was full and I had to swap between 3 SD cards of data.  I had outgrown it.  Enter the Blackberry 7230.  It had all the same tools as my palm, but with a phone!  Unfortunately, the carrier, Nextel, sucked balls and I was back to using the reliable old Palm.  My next Blackberry was a massive improvement and the Palm became my mp3 player.  Unfortunately, everywhere I went I carried a personal cell phone, a work cell phone, and my Palm.

Last month my pockets were freed of their burdens when I purchased a 16 gigabyte iPhone!  FINALLY, I had consolidated all 3 into one package.  I could transfer my Outlook mail, calendar, and tasks to it, all my technical documentation, keep track of random data, AND I could still have 14 gig left over for music and podcasts!  Still, I felt foolish.  I've never been the bandwagon type, and it makes me ill to hear the fanatic Mac people rave about every single Apple product like it was the greatest product ever. 

Even buying the phone I was skeptical.  I couldn't get anyone to confirm that it could read .pdf files (it can, but you have to put them on the web first,)  Without flash, could I access every site that I needed (most of the better ones have non-flash versions,) but most of all, could I get onto my campus network to control my conferencing equipment(no yet.)
Well, I've got to tell you that a month later, I think the iPhone is the best gadget I've ever purchased.

The Good Stuff

People that know me, know the significance of that statement.  I'm the local John C. Dvorak, I take nothing and face value and declare most new technology "a fad" unless I can see a practical application.  The iPhone is LOADED with practical applications and enough cutsy other things to make it a tool that actually has the potential to IMPROVE my life.

First, there's the standard PDA fare mentioned earlier,  sync email, calendar, and tasks with Outlook automatically.  In fact, if you need to reinstall, the outlook backup will keep any photos you've assigned to contacts even if you've lost the images on the phone. 

The ipod function, of course is, incredible!  A nice big screen, intuitive interface, and a storage capacity large enough for me to store 5 TV shows from TIVO,  2 feature length movies, 7.6 gig of heavy metal music, and 156 audio and video podcasts see to it that I'm entertained everywhere I go, be it in line at the bank or walking across campus.

The phone quality is excellent.  You can use your earbuds with the phone to talk, and there's no need to stop the music since if fades out, pauses, then restarts once you hang up.  The bluetooth works well, in fact, it seems to me that I get a clearer connection between headset and phone than I did with the same headset and my old Blackberry.

Then there is the best feature - The Internet.  THIS is what the iPhone does best (and, I suspect will do better as time goes on.)  Since apps are not currently available, there are dozens of online apps that let you do anything from play games to watch YouTube videos (normally unviewable because of the Flash.)  The phone gives you an always-on internet connection on a nice big screen wherever you go.  I created my own web page to store my work materials alongside my favorite sites and online tools!  The Edge network has performed reliably everywhere I've taken the phone so far, coverage, at least in my area is pretty even and once you augment that with built-in wifi (at the expense of a bit of battery life, imo) you have the entire internet in your palm!

The Bad Stuff

However, I did not come here to praise iPhone, but to review it and it does have some problems, some being significant. 

The most obvious problem is the total lack of applications!  I can hear Mac fanboys now, "Ah HA! They have released the SDK and we are three short months from Apple nirvanna!"  That's great, fanboy, but there are no applications NOW!  Not one from the company.  I'll review it again in June.  The work around has been to create lots of web apps that mimic the function of a native application, but those can only go so far.

I have a common problem of it crashing while playing video.  I'll be watching a podcast with maybe a single glitch that a computer would play over and the audio will stop then the video stops and returns me to the video menu.  I know, Apple Fanboy, it's a glitch in the podcast, but it happens so often that I can't help but wonder if the software couldn't be made to handle it better.

It's slippery.  A hard to hold on to rectangle with no textured service is slippery!  However, I bought a great rubber case that gives it some friction and finger purchases!

You can't listen to music or voicemail through bluetooth.  There's a workaround that I've heard about, but I've not tried it, and it may have been fixed in the latest patch. 

The volume is too low!  I don't mean, "it's not loud enough," because that implies that it's loud at all.  Turning the ringer up all the way will make it just about as loud as a motorola phone on it's lowest setting before "vibrate."  There is a jailbreak app that boosts the volume nicely claiming that the software limit is set to an obscure 6.9999 setting while the max is 9.9999.   Why can't we get max volume?

Another biggie:  there's no support for a LEAP or PEAP network connection.  LEAP/PEAP is a type of encryption used in the corporate world.  It requires a network login and a secure connection and the iPhone just can't do it.  I've had no problem with the standard WEP/WPA consumer encryption logons, but PEAP is out of the question.  That is really one of the big limiting factors since that makes it next to useless for many corporate applications.  I KNOW, Apple Fanboy, the Enterprise patch is coming, but what if my university doesn't pay the money to add it to our network?  Plus, yet again, it's not working now.

"Coming Soon!"
As Apple Fanboy pointed out, there is a massive improvement to the iphone on the horizon.  The Enterprise ability includes Microsoft Exchange support, VPN, and will support applications.  If the ITunes store goes to a flat rate, and the applications are included, it could be a massive improvement!  But right now, there's none of that.

I like my iPhone.  I wouldn't trade it.  It helps me do my job better and enjoy my alone time more.  I heartily recommend it to anyone that can scrape together the $500 pricetag, but remember, it's not the perfect computer!  It's got some problems, but with some ingenuity and patience, most can be worked out without too much trouble.