3 posts tagged “iphone”
No, I didn’t buy one. I did play with one for about 10 minutes yesterday at the Apple store, and a few things jumped out at me:
- Size: It’s slimmer than I expected for some reason. And though it’s wider/taller than other devices, the tradeoff of having a larger screen is worth it and it feels comfortable to hold.
- Interface: The word that comes to mind is futuristic. It works just like the commercials we’ve all seen, so in that sense it merely meets expectations. But when you compare it to your old, boring phone you see it’s a huge leap forward.
- Screen: Big and beautiful…no two ways about it. The graphics are lovely, but the mere fact that the screen is twice the size of a Treo’s or BlackBerry’s is the biggest game changer. It opens up a lot of possibilities and it would be hard to give that up if you switched to another kind of phone.
- Keyboard: The compromise regarding the screen is that you don’t get a “regular” keyboard. However, I found the keyboard workable, and I was using two thumbs right off the bat. I would gladly make this compromise to get a huge screen in return.
- Browser “tabs”: The web browser has a feature almost like tabs that allows you to keep multiple browser windows open…I thought this was really cool. This is one of many features about the device that pushes it beyond the category of “phone” and into “handheld computer.”
Those are the highlights in the first 10 minutes…the Chat-style SMS was nice, Google Maps looks good, yadda yadda. On the minus side, I couldn’t figure out how to “zoom in” on specific parts of a page in the web browser. Seeing the full page is a neat trick, but without the ability to zoom in the text is unreadable. I kept clicking on the links instead, which would open the next page.
I’m sure I’d get past that eventually, but the missing “line item features” like 3G and ActiveSync are really what’s standing in my way. At this point the iPhone is a 7 or 8 out of 10 in my book, and I can wait until it gets to be a 9. If these “line items” don’t matter to you, though, I say buy it.
I happened to be near an Apple store at 6pm yesterday when the iPhone went on sale...I'd say there were between 250-300 people in line. Below are some pics.
It was kinda cool that the people in line clapped as shoppers exited the store with their iPhones. I saw one guy take his out of the box and it was smaller than I thought it would be, and it comes with a dock.
And no, I didn't get one...if it wasn't for the lack of Exchange integration I'd be on it like a hobo on a ham sammich.
iPhone. Yes, that’s right. Give me a freakin’ iPhone already. You just know Apple’s got one floating around in the lab somewhere.
OK…maybe I should back up a second. I left off last week talking about how the Treo 650 and I said I’d follow up on Friday. Well, long story short, I was a bit overserved on Thursday and in no shape to post Friday. So that brings us to today.
ANyway, the fictitous iPhone is a device that has the functionality of both an iPod and a cell phone in one slick, iPod-styled package. If the theory is that Apple won’t give us an iPhone because they don’t feel they can make an Insanely Great™ device that is both a phone and a music player, then I have a possible, if semi-lame, solution.
First, imagine a small flip phone like the RAZR. It has a screen on the outside and a click wheel underneath. At first glance it looks basically like an iPod nano, and after a second you figure out you can flip it open and there’s a phone inside! As Peter Griffin would say, Freakin’ Sweet! Like any flip phone, it’s got a larger screen on the top half, and a keyboard on the bottom half. I’m convinced that such a device is technically possible given how small the iPod nano is.
Here’s the catch: you can only do “iPod stuff” when it’s closed, and you can only do “phone stuff” when it’s open. This is essentially an arbitrary limitation put in place for simplicity reasons. I could find a way to deal with this, and I bet a lot of other people could too.
This is at least a halfway decent solution, and I pretty much came up with it walking around the building avoiding work. And if I can come up with that, I’m positive that Jonathan and his buddies can whip up something awesome that Steve-o will sign off on.
So, let’s just hope that’s what we’re going to see this Wednesday.
