After two months of intensive use of an iPhone, it's time to take stock.
My iPhone is used with the Orange standard subscription (49 € 2h +2 h internet "unlimited" and 10 hours of Wi-Fi HotSpot Ornager). It has not been "jailbroken" and there is no third party application was installed. I moved from early January to 1.1.3 firmware and mid March on version 1.1.4.
I'll rely on my ticket Should I buy an iphone? A review for this first alternative feedback.
What the Iphone?
Judging by my use, my equation iPhone = Mobile + Video + MP3 + PDA + Internet + Email
My average daily iPhone:
- 1h MP3 (music and audio podcast)
- 20 minutes Video: video podcast of the newspaper ABC
- 1h Internet in which half the Edge and other Wi-Fi on my Freebox. Daily
- in PDA for appointments and my contacts. I also used to keep notes
- Everyday I go two or three times a day my personal emails. I'm not a big consumer of this feature
Almost two hours of phones per month (which is huge in light of my previous consumption).
My daily consumption of the iPhone is close to 3 hours, which forces me to reload every two days.
I find the size of the iPhone remarkable, lightweight and its size makes it possible to forget it in a shirt pocket. I was previously a Palm m505 and I find them as light as the other one, instead of printing that left me with the BlackBerry, Nokia N95 or Sony Ericson upscale.
Part MP3 Iphone
My iPhone serves almost exclusively to store music: it contains nearly 1,200 pieces of music or a little less than 7 GB of music.
I do not change songs. I have a list in iTunes iPhone that would allow me to update the songs on my iPhone.
I also use iTunes and the iPhone for podcasts.
I have no problem to access various pieces of my club, the interface is intuitive, fast and efficient. The interface of the Iphone is a tool to exploit no problem twenty GB
Personally, I would probably have opted for the 16 GB if it had been available at the time: I have over 20 GB of music on my PC.
The audio quality of the iPhone is superior to my old Archos 400 and my Nokia 3250.
Warning! the ecosystem of the iPod is not fully available for the iPhone: the majority of the docks for the iPod are not compatible with the iPhone, a message warns you of incompatiilité and offers to spend the iPhone in audio mode. you can listen to music but I'm not sure it is very good for your iPhone.
The telephony part of the Iphone
I'm not a very big consumer of mobile but I must admit that the possibility of having all of my contacts in my iPhone has greatly increased my use of the iPhone.
I had no reception problems in the Paris region but also in small remote villages.
The sound is good, it sizzles up and break the ears, so it must be down with the same buttons to lower the sound of the MP3 party. This medium, listening is comfortable. U.S. on iPhones to version 1.1.1 it seems that there were people who found the sound volume of the telephone insufficient. In version 1.1.2 and later, this is no longer a problem: it must not be even better at most.
The grip of the iPhone to use as a phone by referring to the ear is natural: we did not feel like putting your ear to a PDA like the Palm, its width less (6.1 cm to 7.5 cm iPhone cons of the Palms) makes it feel similar to traditional telephones. The helmet provides
allows hands-free phone and take calls or reject them by pressing the little microphone. I find Very comfortable and convenient.
The iPhone is the first notebook in which I use the speakerphone function. It is intuitive. And this is the first phone (mobile and traditional) on which I can leave the headset. The famous
Visual Messaging is a real plus: you know that you left a message, you can go directly to the message of your choice without having to listen to all messages, if you misunderstood a phone number you can go slightly back (such as when listening to an MP3) to just listen to the song you want without having to undergo a lengthy replay message.
For SMS, I love the opportunity to follow a conversation with someone like SMS and IM software. I use very little text but I find the touch screen of the iPhone a boon to their writing. Since the firmware 1.1.3, you can send an SMS to multiple recipients.
I recall that the iPhone does not allow sending MMS (multimedia message).
In short, the phone function of iPhone may not be revolutionary (though the visual messaging is) but it provides ease of use well above the vast majority of other phones.
Part Video of Iphone
The iPhone screen is remarkable. The 480x320 of iPhone and its 3.5 inches diagonal can enjoy comfort for viewing video.
Before my purchase I was a little skeptical but it is a feature I use a lot: I find the comfort of the screen very good. I recall that when viewing comfort depends on the angle of view (the ratio between screen size and distance) that offered by the iPhone looked at half a meter is identical to that of a 32-inch viewed at 3 meters. I watch only
podcasts video information. The couple iPhone + iTunes is very convenient: iTunes automatically download podcasts and transfer them to iPhone. No conversion is necessary for that.
However, it seems necessary to convert DivX others before their transfer to iPhone.
Part PDA the Iphone
The PDA function of the iPhone is not revolutionary but a great quality: the synchronization does not pose a problem (my post on the subject: http://jl2tho .blogspot.com/2008/01/se-prparer-pour-l-et-la-synchronisation.html ). It is possible to make an appointment or change a contact on the iPhone and sync with Outlook.
The quality of the screen of the iPhone can offer great comfort in consulting contacts or appointments.
Its touch screen (like the Palm) allows browsing of appointments or contact very effective (much more than the solutions to dial some smartphones).
Taking notes on the touch screen of the iPhone is a level equivalent to that of the Palm with the stylus. The touch screen of the iPhone is quite specific and suggestions that appear during the seizure can save valuable time.
Surprisingly, entering new contact or appointment through the interface "touch" the iPhone is much more enjoyable and effective than the already very accomplished Palm: Apple promotes choice among several options by pressing or selection by turning a wheel. At first glance, it seems that it is heavier than the seizure by the keyboard or the stylus to these data: in practice the opposite.
I take a lot more easily an appointment or contact directly on the iPhone than I did with the Palm. I met people who when they had never entered a contact on their Windows Mobile SmartPhone, had added fifty contacts on their iPhones in two months.
Find a contact or appointment with the iPhone is very effective (much more than a Palm). The only limitation of the iPhone is that it is not possible to investigate a string of arbitrary characters (first name, nickname, phone number ...).
UPDATE August 2008: Version 2.0 adds the search strings in the Contacts application.
I used on my Palm applications include:
- agenda
- Contacts
- Go Before I could afford to retrieve items from several newspapers during a connection quietly and read offline in the subway.
- A mapping application MapViewer: I do not use GPS. But the fact is that the GPS functionality seems to be very popular on PDAs.
- An application to determine a route by metro
- application notes.
It is clear that each has its own list of applications with those that are essential and which are not. Listed
iPhone Calendar and Contacts functions are largely at the level of those of Palm and other smartphones.
GoogleMap and the possibility of using the Internet (including www.viamichelin.fr ) largely replaces the mapping application MapViewer. I constantly throughout France on me which was not previously the case. Since 1.1.3, it can even be localized (rather loosely) by GSM geolocation. GoogleMap provides a list function that gives clear instructions to follow a route. On the other hand, the integration between the contacts and I can not GoogleMap before determining a route between the addresses of two contacts (copy / paste is unnecessary).
Recall that geolocation is not a GPS (much less precise and does not allow continuous monitoring): GPS addicts have to wait or go their way. Today there is no application and plug-in GPS to the iPhone even though many solutions seem prepared. It will probably be summer 2008 to see the first solutions. Note that the following item http://www.businessmobile.fr/actualites/chiffres/0, 39044300,39380224,00. Htm indicates that only 2% of owners of smartphones using GPS (its usefulness is therefore perhaps not so important).
For metro, I use the mobile site ratp (wap.ratp.fr), as a bonus it provides hours of real time passes coming into the RER station of my choice.
Edge coverage is enough to almost always be connected even in the subway. The online mode was not a concern for me but instead a gain with respect to previous applications.
To Go Before It's the same, I use the Internet to connect me directly to websites. I must wait in the RER a minute before seeing my article but I have receive the latest information. Again, the gain of the online mode over its inconvenience.
UPDATE August 2008: Applying New York Times is a very good substitute for AvantGo for the NYT. Release has an equivalent Web version (without installation).
The Notes application on the Iphone can be synchronized with a PC or Mac. This bothered me because it allowed me to store multiple types of information. I bypassed the problem by creating contacts for a particular type (see my post on the subject: http://jl2tho.blogspot.com/2008/01/se-prparer-pour-l-et-la- synchronisation.html )
The bet that Apple seems to want to force developers to produce web applications, in hindsight seems to me reasonable. Apple provides an SDK for developing applications dedicated not connected to the Iphone that will increase the interest of the iPhone as a mobile office.
For my personal use, the iPhone is superior to the Palm as a PDA: my only regret is having to use Outlook instead of Palm Desktop application.
More generally, I think that apart from large users of embedded applications such as Excel or Word, all other users will find their account largely in PDA features of the iPhone.
The PDA is the email
I'm not addicted to email and email functionality of the iPhone satisfies me especially since version 1.1.3: it improves the functioning GMail (IMAP mechanism). Thanks to this, if an email is read / deleted on the Web in Gmail, it appears as read / deleted on the iPhone and vice versa.
The push is not available on the iPhone (unlike the BlackBerry): you will not be immediately notified of the arrival of a new email. You will need to manually refresh your inbox or even configure it so that it periodically or automatically (eg every hour). Personally I am so far remained in manual mode.
UPDATE August 2008: Version 2.0 of the OS can make a push to BlackBerry Exchange.
link to the email application with the Contacts application is very convenient.
The link to the Microsoft Exchange e-mail is not possible but should become so in July. Personally I have not managed to use the Webmail Exchange server (on my iPhone, it asks me my login information, then the page will not load: he works in a vacuum). Therefore, if your interest email based on the connection to your corporate server Microsoft Exchange, you must wait until the new feature is available. If you are interested in access to your personal email, I think the iPhone is remarkable.
UPDATE August 2008: Synchronizing with an Exchange server became possible with version 2.0. On the other hand, the 2.0 has solved my problem connecting to the Webmail Server Exchange.
The Web is the Apple Iphone
much news around the functionality of its Web browser: The couple
- size / resolution of the screen make comfortable reading.
- The ergonomics of the Safari browser used to move and read it properly any webpage.
- The processor power of the iPhone and the Edge allows a display in a timely acceptable web pages
In practice I use a lot of functionality to view Web sites such as World News. In the case of the World, there is no mobile site for iPhone, displaying a webpage Edge Standard mode requires a full minute. In WiFi mode, consultation on the same site is much faster (about ten seconds). Mobile sites like the New York Times appears in about twenty seconds in Edge.
Package € 49 Orange iPhone is very convenient because it allows the use of WiFi hotspots Orange or those of partners (this includes almost all the public hotspots).
Reading sites is very easy thanks to:
- the screen size
- the screen resolution
- the mechanism by tapping twice on a column of a web page to zoom in adapting to the relevant column the width of the iPhone.
The iPhone does not support Adobe Flash or Java. Adobe seems to want to add flash support to the iPhone through the new SDK. Steve Jobs says that Flash technology is not compatible with a machine like the iPhone because of limitations of power and memory. Personally, the statement of Steve Jobs leaves me incredulous : Flash should be more efficient than the JavaScript that is supported by the iPhone. I suspect that Apple is using the notoriety of the iPhone to increase the share of QuickTime for distributing video (its main competitor is coincidentally the flash).
In my case, this limitation does not bother me.
Conclusion As you guessed, I'm perfectly happy with my iPhone as 84.8% of these users (see the NYT article: http://mobile.nytimes.com/article?a = 149198 & f = 24 ) and I do not regret any of the features of my Palm m505.
Although my equation the iPhone is first and foremost: iPhone = Mobile + Video + MP3 + PDA + Internet + Email, its superiority is obvious for Video and Internet with the quality and size of its screen. The same section of the NYT says that for these two uses of the percentage of iPhone users is double that of other smartphones.
So even though the iPhone lacks 3G, various studies show that the smartphone is the most used to go on the Internet (million iPhone arrives in absolute value almost the same level as the millions of Nokia smartphone ).
What I find unique in this phone is the integration work between different applications:
- can spend Contacts GoogleMap
- can press a number appearing in an email or web page (Pagesjaunes kind) to call the phone number
- link Contact and messaging
This integration gives a great comfort and great peace.
Today I do not regret any compromise of the iPhone:
- life between charges of two days at the expense of 3G
- no Flash or Java in the browser
- absence Push-in emails to the benefit of a highly efficient integration of GMail or Yahoo Mail.
UPDATE August 2008: The Push is available during the update of the OS to version 2.0.
The iPhone is therefore a wonderful device: it is specifically designed for people who want to view video and internet access.
To get a feedback on version 2.0 of the OS (while using an iPhone 1st generation) see my post: Experience installing iPhone 2.0.0 or 2.0.1
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