Using the iPhone

I got the income tax refund this last Friday and I went and bought myself a new iPhone 3G. I already have At&T service and was up for a phone upgrade, but it was expensive nonetheless. I've been getting to know it since then and have the following observations.

Things I Dislike:

1) The battery charge does not last very long. This is well-known, but it is surprizing how quickly it depletes. I've discovered that if I turn off the 3G, GPS, and other bells and whistles when I am not using them, the battery does quite well. Since it is pretty easy to turn these on when I need them, I expect the battery life to be adequate. The phone came with a car charger and that may help.

2) The phone will not take videos. It takes decent still shots for a camera phone, but won't do video. There are some 3rd party apps that will allow you to shoot video, but they require "jailbreaking" the iPhone and most likely void the warranty. This seems a very odd omission.

3) It does not come with multimedia messaging. That is, you cannot send photos or other such things to other people's phones. Fortunately, there are free apps available that allow you to do this, you just need to download them from the iTunes store.

4) The phone uses alot more data than a regular 3G phone, so the coverage is $30 per month for unlimited data, as opposed to the $15 per month with my old phone. This seems a bit steep to me, but I did agree to pay for it, so it must be worth it.

Things I Like:

1) I love the seemless integration of my email through BYU's MS Exchange Server. It took a little while figuring out how to configure it. I'm sure BYU's tech guys could've told me how to do it in a few minutes, but it was the weekend and I didn't want to wait. You have the option of syncing your contacts and calendars when you sync the iPhone over its USB connection or wirelessly the same way you sync your email. Beware if you switch from one method to the other all the old contacts are erased and rewritten. You won't lose any information, but all your custom ringtones will need to be reset.

2) I love the photo storage. In fact I will probably use it as much or more than I will the music player. Uploading is simple and the screen size is big enough to see things very clearly.

3) I like all the extra apps. I am hoping to try out some of the GPS apps on my next hike or campout just to see how much it helps. The free apps only give your coordinates, but if you have a good topographic map of the area that helps a ton.

4) I like all the internet specific apps that are available. I've already installed the ones for Facebook, Google, Amazon, and Pandora Radio. They speed things up greatly over using the standard Safari browser that comes with the phone.

Overall I am very glad I bought the phone and think it will turn out to be a good purchase.