shutterbugISm

I guess it's about time I blog about the iPhone since I have been playing with it for about over a month now (of coz' before it became a phone 9 days ago, it was an expensive iPod Touch running ver 1.1.3)

I am not going to go into the technicalities coz it is still very mind-boggling to me as well (what baseband, what version of bootloader..etc) but I will concentrate more into its functionalities as well as other bits I have discovered about it.

the iPhone, for one, is a class of its own. If you compare it to the HTC touch or the LG Prada phone or any of the touchscreen mobiles in Singapore market, you will agree that iPhone's sleek exterior, smooth chromed bevels and the bright beautiful screen wins hands-down. Not forgetting also that it's considered an exclusive mobile since Apple is not planning to launch an Asian version for the next x months coz of business interest conflicts. I wonder which Comms company (except US's AT&T) is willing to include additional profit to be accorded to Apple whenever an iPhone is being sold.

The iPhone is not really revolutionary (contrary to what the advert on the Apple site is exhorting) coz the basic touchscreen function has been around for sometime (remember the PALM devices?) Apple engineers just cleaned up the internals and made it more humanly possible to point finger tips (literally) and tell the iPhone what to do (fat fingers like mine do have a problem with the keyboard initially but I have overcometh without much difficulty). The marvels of technology has kinda benefited this generation ya...

okie okie, the 2 fingers multi-touch that allows you enlarge or shrink the displayed content is very darn cool as well as the smart interface that interacts with your desired content like easy-addon to the homescreen, Maps and the ohh-so-amazing accelerator module that pretty much made the iPhone so 'revolutionary'.

So what's good about the iPhone then?

The iPhone is a very functional communication device to own. I bolded the 'fun' coz it is really fun to have one. With the standard 8gb of internal HDD (the latest development with the v1.1.3 *OOB has the optional 16gb of storage), the amount of photos, music, documents, applications, SMSs, emails that can be stored on this palm-sized device is amazing plus it's an APPLE.... in other words, it's really a very mini Mac computer in the palm of your hands or in the pockets of your jeans.

Not that Nokia is bad. I feel that in terms of business functionality, the Business edition (E series) from Nokia is fantastic and I'm still advocating the E65. What I don't like is that I can't see nuts on that small screen compared to the iPhone, the screen on the E61 is nice but the body too bulky, you have to do a lot of stuff on your normal phone to enable smooth online surfing like activeX and flash content.

The thing lacking the official-released iPhone is the ability to use 3rd party softwares where many talented and entrepreneurial developers have already been hard at work in making very useful stuff for the iPhone. Yes, Apple are in talks to include 3rd party apps but development wise, is slower than the next available update from your friendly neighbourhood techie, which is one of the contributing factors to the increasing amount of illegally unlocked iPhones all over the world (25% of the total iPhones sold is a huge percentage in terms of sales and profit). They made it too exclusive for profit and now it's costing them exactly that.

With so many talented SMEs and the wonderful age of the information superhighway we all know as the Internet out there, finding resources and FAQs is a breeze. Anything wrong or anything new, just google away and you will eventually find an answer to whatever query you have, the thing is that there's no 1 way to a solution also so you just have to read up as much as possible and cypher out the important stuff that applies to your situation and then cross your fingers that it works.

iPhone's easy to use. Just touch and go. The thing about modern technology is that you have to be constantly connected to the Internet to get most of your stuff going and it's true in the case of the iPhone. You want to see videos on Youtube via the Youtube button, you have to 1st get connected to a WIFI network... downloading of emails - the same. Surfing the web - same. So if you are not in the WIFI zone, most the stuff don't really work unless you are prepared to pay your mobile company for the data charges to use their network instead.

Setting the iPhone up is also made easy with simple-to-understand input columns so that you just need to add the essentials and the program does the rest for you. No need to configure much like having to add a static IP address or those networking stuff which I, like most non-tech peeps, haven't a slightest idea what the heck does those things mean.

A drawback of the iPhone is the design.

a) My friend was telling me that you can't really sms or type without using both thumbs/ fingers. Well, in a way I disagree coz I can but it's slower and be coz' the width of the iPhone is wider than your average slim tall phones, it's really much more comfortable to type holding it with 2 hands. Again, it's the comfort level.

b) Battery is inbuilt. Yupz, the design of the whole iPhone is so sleek and nearly seamless, the battery has to be built into the motherboard so that means, if your battery is dying or spoilt, it means you have to either get a new iPhone or send your iPhone in for repairs (and becoz some of us have the friendly version, I doubt Apple will be so kind to fix it for you with a smile on their face)

It also means that if you are on the road with no supplied electricity, no computers and your iPhone's battery is minimal, you don't have the option of keeping your iPhone aka your only communication link to the world, alive till you can find a place to charge your phone up. The average standby time for the iPhone is about 4 days plus; with heavy usage (like SMSs, emails, Calls, WIFI signal acquisitions) you are looking at 2 days tops.


Some of the useful 3rd party apps which I would recommend (these are all found in the Installer.app):

1) MobileFinder (basically a 'Window Explorer' app that lets you access the inside of the iPhone)
2) Installer app (that's where all the magic is from)
3) PDF viewer (to view PDF documents)
4) SMSd (a 3rd party app that allows you to be more in control of your SMSs and allows forwardings)
5) AFP (a server program that allows you to access your iPhone's root directory from your Mac computer)
6) Bookmarklets (a program that allows you to add Find, Open in Tabs, view Flash in the Safari app
7) Books (a simple eBook reader)
8) weDict (Dictionary app that supports concurrent definitions from Star Dictionarys)
9) Navizon GPS (a plugin to the iPhone's native app. MAPS)

So far, I have found some lousy programs also that made the iPhone or Installer.app crash:

1) iSolitaire
2) PocketGuitar (it worked before then an update kinda screwed the app up)
3) Certain community sources updates

Okie, so the conclusion about the iPhone? I simply love it coz it served most of my needs on the road and the entertainment value I get from the iPhone is enuf to get one for Ms Clover as well.

Have you iPhoned yet? :p

Labels: Ranting, Thoughts

Posted by ShutterBug on Monday, February 11, 2008 at 18:50 | Permalink