Friday, February 22, 2008

Bleg: Iphone reviews?

CC's phone has been getting increasingly wonky, and she is campaigning for an Iphone.

Do any of y'all have one?

Is it awesome?

Have you ever dropped it?

Do you have a good protective case that you like that doesn't inhibit use of the phone?

Please share.

CC

7 comments:

Joseph Santos-Lyons said...

I don't have one, but I've played with several. They are very sweet, and if you love music, and are thinking of getting an ipod anyway, it is really well worth it financially I think.

AT&T plans are pretty competitive, we have it for our family plan. When our plans expire we're looking at getting the iphone. They have a good camera as well.

Overall the interface is just lovely, and it is a nice luxury toy.

I think if you do a lot of "business" like emailing and texting, then it isn't quite as good. There is a touch keyboard, but not as good as a full qwerty keyboard.

Anonymous said...

In regards to the keyboard, my wife went with a Blackberry Curve because it has a qwerty keyboard, as well as an mp3 player.

If you like Mac-style UI, you'll probably like the iPhone. If there's a Mac Store nearby, you can go in and play with one.

Gus said...

My sister got me an iPhone for my birthday. Wow! It's only 4 GB (this was one of the very first ones), but it suits.

I love having a real browser, and wifi, and real email. I love watching movies and listening to music on it. I love carrying only one device instead of three (phone, PDA, iPod). I love texting my sister any time I feel like it, and hearing from her, too (like the time tornatoes were touching down a few blocks away from her house - yikes! - we texted for half an hour). I adore my iPhone!

That said, I think this device, while totally awesome, is still kind of a draft of what it could be. The browser inexplicably doesn't have Flash, so some web stuff doesn't render. The mail application doesn't have the ability to add folders, so the Inbox can get to be quite a mess. I've gotten used to the keyboard now, but it took a lot of swearing to get to this point.

I loved Cingular, but I find AT&T has more places with fewer bars. This is baffling to me. I must say, though, that the iPhone can get more out of one bar than any phone I've ever seen. AT&T's Edge network is painfully slow, and I think it's really cheesy of them to consign iPhone users to second-class citizen status by relegating us to such a poorly performing network, especially for $20 a month. But one soon learns which pages one should steer clear of until there's a wifi signal around, and it's usually not too bad, and it really is nice to have even that much.

The camera takes really good pictures for a cell phone - good enough to be used as a desktop picture. And you can email them right from the camera program!

My contacts and calendar sync beautifully, and it's wonderful to have this.

The Clock has a timer, a stopwatch, an alarm and a world clock. The alarm is very handy, and you can have several different ones going all at once, if you like.

And it has Google Maps! My parents and I were stuck one evening, and I found us a car rental place with Google Maps on my iPhone. Sweet.

YouTube and iTunes Music Store only work if there's a wifi signal nearby. Understandable.

You can put a link to websites you visit often onto the Home Screen, and rearrange them so they make sense. This is very useful, because the stuff you don't care about can be stuck on another page where it's not in the way. Oh, and you can have all your bookmarks on the iPhone just the way you have them in your browser.

The iPod works fabulously. Videos are very sharp and clear, and music sounds great.

The earbuds that come with it are the standard uncomfortable ones everyone hates, but I find that putting those little foam covers on them makes them feel and fit much better. They transmit sound very nicely, and there's a little squeezy button on them with which to control your phone calls: when it rings, you squeeze the button, and you've answered the phone. When you're through talking, squeeze it again, and the call ends and it gives you your music back. So handy!

I miss having a flip phone, and I miss being able to dial by feel. But I think the benefits outweigh that. All in all, I think the iPhone is awesome, and I absolutely love it!!!!!

ABT said...

Gus was very thorough, so let me just add that I love mine. I love the texting interface, I love the ipod, I love that it "picks up" signal much better than any other phone I've had. We used it at Xmas to find out which store locally had an xbox 360 in stock, saving us much time.
I totally recommend it.

Anonymous said...

The LH has one and loves it. We use it all the time when we are on the road - we can check traffic very easily, and look up wikipedia and imdb info at the drop of a hat. Their latest feature is in lieu of GPS - they have a system that allows them to triangulate your location based on cell phone tower signals - and then you can look for the nearest restaurant or coffee shop or bookstore, etc.

Their google maps feature is awesome. Facebook also has a specific "face" for use on the iPhone. (But you can't play scrabulous on it.)

Anonymous said...

And now for a completely different viewpoint:
I have a friend who has no email because she repeatedly kills email programs and computers. She just can't get it.
She has an iPhone and loves it. She keeps volunteering to find us places with the GPS. I don't think she's figured out the email, but that was a given...
I love the slide unlock. So does she.

Anonymous said...

It's the best iPod I've ever used.

It's the best phone I've ever used.

Google Maps is amazing.

The SMS/email is fine. Email is a little wonky with large mailboxes, but you get used to it.