It's been a few weeks since my 8GB iPhone was activated after a bit of an issue. (I should note that AT&T contacted me regarding my activation issues and has credited my account) I've put the phone thru its paces and compared it to my two previous devices: a Blackberry Pearl and a Helio Ocean. I've been using the phone as a single-source device, i.e. it's replaced my existing Blackberry Pearl, 30 GB Video iPod and my iPod Shuffle on long trips.
Here are my thoughts arranged in a number of subcategories:
Form Factor
The phone is a bit larger than the Blackberry Pearl that I'd been using for the past 6 months. If you remember I debated about buying the Pearl since I knew that as soon as I did Apple would announce the iPhone...and they did. Previous to the Pearl I used a Blackberry 7290 so I was used to carrying a larger device. Going from the svelte Pearl to the iPhone was a change. However, even though the iPhone is larger than the Helio Ocean I used, it feels smaller. I chalk this up to Apple's industrial design. The phone just feels good in your hands. (Compare the three devices below)
My one fear is dropping the thing. After all, you are carrying around a $600 device. While my Pearl has survived a number of drops I don't look forward to testing this out with the iPhone. To offer some level of protection I purchased the snug-fitting Incase in dashing red. Some folks have said that the case is scratching their device but I have not seen this yet. Like any case though, it causes the dust and other 'stuff' to pile up. Be sure to take your case off often to clean it up.
User Interface
This is where the phone really shines. Browsing from one app to another is quick and easy and the animations/transitions to other apps isn't overdone, it's quick and simple. In almost three weeks of use I have had no lock-ups or had to reset the phone. Keeping my fingers crossed on that one.
One simple little UI thing is the wallpaper. Sure other phones allow you to select a wallpaper, but it's always covered with icons or other text. On the iPhone it's the first thing you see and in my case it's one of my favorite photos of my son (below). I took it at SeaWorld last year. The quality of the screen really shows the definition and detail of the photo. That's something I really appreciate.
Screen
The touchscreen is great but it does draw the fingerprints. I'm constantly cleaning it. If you don't clean it the 'junk' that builds up will impair the sensitivity of the screen. The auto-tilt-rotate thing doesn't always respond that quickly and I've noticed that you have to hold the device vertical or near vertical to get it to work. For example, if I have the device flat on a table and I rotate it around it won't switch.
In some ways the honeymoon is over since I'm carrying the phone around in a pocket with coins and keys a few times. I've even put it in my back pocket and sat down on it a few times. So far there have been no scratches or problems with this.
Phone
Tied with the user-interface, the phone operation is a snap. I quickly created my favorites list and the majority of calls are made from that screen. I especially like that you can toggle between interfaces during a call. As for call quality, it's a cell phone. I've yet to own a phone that made me say, "Wow, that's some great call quality." The visual voicemail works well, however I have had a few delayed voicemails, which used to happen on my old phone as well.
SMS
I was never a big SMS user since I got stung my a rather large SMS bill due to Twitter earlier this year. When I activated the iPhone though I bought the unlimited SMS package and I've been texting away ever since. I use iChat on my desktop so the threaded conversations within SMS are nice. Now if we could only get a real version of iChat :-)
Wireless
One of the beefs about the phone was the use of AT&T's EDGE network. For me this wasn't a huge issue since that's all I've used for the past few years. With the iPhone it's the same. However, since I can't surf mobile-specific sites (see Browser) it does slow things down a bit. Recently though I've been using a Sprint EVDO card on my laptop and can see that there are much faster wireless networks out there.
The real hidden gem on the phone is the wifi. If a public network is available the phone will join it and use that for all access. I find myself using this more and more at home and local coffee-shops.
Keyboard
The keyboard works fine and is comparable to my Blackberry's of the past. I had switched from the single-key layout of the 7290 to the Pearl's double letter layout so that took some adjustment, moving back to the single letter-key format of the iPhone was a welcome return. So far the auto-complete function has been working great, not quite as good as the Blackberry's though. This was a major factor with the Helio Ocean, the auto-complete was non-existent. With the iPhone and Blackberry it always seems to know when to capitalize and punctuate properly.
Browser
The browser works great but since it is a version of Safari a number of mobile sites I used to visit won't work. The sites were mobile-specific versions of CNN, BBC, Facebook, etc. They treat the Mobile Safari just like a normal browser so I can't get the stripped down version of those sites. The mobile version of Twitter works perfectly and I actually prefer it to PocketTweets since the load time is much faster.
Mail
The mail client also works as advertised and looks slick. However looking slick and doing what I need it to do are two different things. The biggest issue so far with the phone has been with the mail app. There is no way to 'mark all as read' or 'delete all' in mail. When the phone downloads 30 messages I've already read it's a real pain to delete each of them one-by-one. The Blackberry has always had these functions and I really miss them. Also since there is no copy/paste or undo it can sometimes be frustrating. I once typed out an e-mail then accidently deleted a key sentence....no undo, I had to retype it.
iPod
Did you know it's an iPod :-) On the recent trips I've been taking I've loaded up about 1-2 GB of songs and the rest are movies. I haven't fretted to much about creating special playlists for the iPod, I just copied over some of my favorite albums. While I don't have my entire collection (like my 30GB) I don't really miss it. Second to the wifi, my favorite aspect of the phone is the widescreen video playback. I've watched a total of six movies on the phone during flights (Team America, The Manchurian Candidate, The Limey, The Italian Job, The Royal Tenenbaums and the classic The Life Aquatic). I need to get the DVD to iTunes hack worked out before I end up buying too many movies on iTunes.
YouTube
It's more like YouTube light. You don't have access to all of YouTube's videos. I found this out the hard way a few weeks ago when showing the phone to my son. He loves to watch coaster videos on YouTube. If you do a search for 'coasters' on the iPhone YouTube you get nada. I had a hard time explaining that to my son..."Dad, it's YouTube, how come they aren't on there...." Video playback on wifi is nice, on EDGE it's a bit of a patience test.
Camera
The camera is your standard cameraphone. I've said before that since I use a Nikon D80 for most of my shots anything else is just awful. The quality of the iPhone shots are almost always poor. I've never used the Nokia uber-camerphone so I can't really say that any cameraphone is great. Others have said that the shutter is very sensitive and I've found this to be true, accidently taking a number of photos I didn't mean to take. Like Travis, I also get annoyed when the phone launches iPhoto whenever I connect it to my Mac.
Photo Gallery
I love this for two reasons: 1. I'm a dad so I can show off pictures of my son. 2. I have a number of galleries of some of my best photography which I also love to show off. The flick-scroll functions works great and the large screen really shows off good photography. When I demo the phone to somebody the gallery is the first thing I show.
Other Apps
I really haven't used the Stocks and Weather apps that much, nor the Notes. Right now the Notes just stores information I need all the time like account numbers, etc. Why the Notes doesn't sync with Stickies I don't know. On the Blackberry that was the default set-up.
Battery
This is the unknown. When I use all aspects of the phone on a daily basis, that is: phone, wifi, ipod, video, etc the battery is just about done at the end of the day. However my Pearl also had this issue, mostly because the battery in it was so small. I need to charge the device every night. During a recent road-trip I learned this the hard way and was forced to buy the car charger to get back up and running. Who knows what the battery life will be like in 6 months after a significant series of charging/use cycles.
Sync
At last a phone that natively syncs with the Mac OS Address Book and iCal. While the PocketMac client worked well with the Blackberry, I have been waiting for a truly native solution. The syncing with iTunes works flawlessly. The only issue is managing the memory, as in which songs, pictures and movies will I put on the device.
Cost
Yes the device cost $600 but it's replacing a traditional smartphone and a video iPod. If I bought the Pearl or other similar Blackberry it would be around $200-$300, a 30GB Video iPod now costs $250. That's a total range of $450-$550. Yes you're paying a premium, but that's always been Apple :-)
The other major cost factor is monthly service. If you previously had a Blackberry it's actually cheaper. The 'unlimited' data plan for a Blackberry is $45/month. Compare that to $20/month for the iPhone. That's a savings of $300/year. Yes you do lose the push e-mail of a Blackberry, but it you were using the web-client rather than the Enterprise Server it wasn't really instant push, it was push after the web-client would check your POP3 account every 10 minutes.
Conclusion
I held on to my Blackberry Pearl just in case I wanted to switch back, but after a few weeks I really don't see myself going back. That may change after I drop the phone though.
The major annoyances are all software related and we're (we being the Apple faithful) hope that some of these issues can be fixed via software updates.
If you're an existing Blackberry user with AT&T the temptation might be strong, but if you're currently using Enterprise Server I wouldn't make the switch. If you're with another provider and can easily get out of your contract then it might also be tempting.
The other factor is the 'wow' one, as in "wow, is that an iPhone?" How long will that last? We'll see. For the time being I'm happy with my purchase.
