One week done and it’s time to share some thoughts. In no particular order:
- The iPhone 3G uses a lot of battery. For the first few days I had to recharge daily. However with some careful management that seems to be stretching to two days now. The biggest difference for me was made by managing 3G and wi-fi networks. At home I use wi-fi, elsewhere I use 3G/Edge. So at home i switch off 3G, outside home I switch off wi-fi and only switch on 3G when I actually want to use faster access. Management of these settings has made the biggest difference to the battery life.
- The on screen keyboard is really good. Much faster than I imagined and great for texts, e-mails, tweets although I’m sure a long blog post/document creation would be pretty painful.
- iPod is great. Coverflow really works well on a screen this size. Music sounds much better than my old iPod.
- Some of the AppStore app’s have been pretty buggy. I guess that’s to be expected but it’s still annoying when you launch an app and it either repeatedly crashes or, worse, requires an iPhone reset.
- Call quality is excellent and taking phone calls while listening to iPod works well.
- Twinkle appeared on the app store yesterday and is a great Twitter client. Looks good and has a nice location based feature where people in 10, 25 mile radius to you can see your tweets and easily respond. For me it’s work so much better than Twitterrific which is buggy and allow in comparison.
- App’s launch quickly and it’s easy to move between sending a text, getting mail, browsing and then back to some video’s or music.
- When I’ve been typing I occasionally notice some lag. It’s like the key’s are taking a half second or so to register and then appear. Nothing to bad but there are reports on the net than some people are seeing scary 20 second delays in typing. Hopefully these issues are firmware fixable.
- Love the text’s layout. Just makes so much sense when you see then laid out as an iChat sesion.
Great phone and despite it’s shortcomings it’s the best I’ve owned. It’s easy to do and does so much more than other phone’s despite it having inferior hardware.
What should have been a post saying ‘woo - iPhone rulez’ has turned into a sorry saga. No iPhone for me today and at the moment, no date from Apple on when I’m likely to get one either.
I didn’t fancy queueing much this morning and driving by the local O2 store I was surprised to see around 40 people in the queue. That sealed the deal and I headed into town. The Apple store queue was quite light and they were obviously expecting more as they had lots of crash barriers out…and one security guy for every four customers! Looking down to O2 the queue was also big so I stuck with the Apple store. Some folk were already inside when I joined and within 15 mins we were all inside…but no phones had been sold. Roll on to 09:00 and one hour after opening still no orders had been processed.
The 02 site that Apple had to use was constantly crashing. They had no idea when it would be back up but annoyingly we couldn’t leave our names and come back later. If you want a phone you have to stay in the queue. Some folk left as they had to get to work. Free drinks from Starbucks were provided but even at 10:00 there were still no orders processed. This wasn’t looking good. By this time I knew that a couple of friends had failed at O2 and Carphone Warehouse stores due to limited stock so there didn’t seem much option. Again people asked to leave there names before leaving the queue and they were knocked back by Apple.
Finally at 10:20 a loud cheer - first phone sold.
Then a shriek at 10:21 as the system crashed…again.
Common sense kicked in at 10:30 and those that wanted to go could leave their details and Apple would keep the phone for you, phoning you back when things started to work so you weren’t hanging around anymore. I left and as far as I know my iPhone is still at the store with lot’s of others as I don’t think they sold any/many at the Glasgow store today. Shame others that walked out earlier didn’t get that option. On the way back to the car park I passed a couple of O2’s and Carphones - lot’s of 8GB, no 16’s. So Apple have lot’s of stock they can’t sell…stores within a couple of hundred yards can sell them but don’t have any. Where’s the logic in that?
They’ve now pinged out an e-mail asking for patience and they hope to get things sorted quickly. I do hope quickly means tomorrow but I have zero expectation now and don’t expect to grease up an iPhone until well into next week. I hope someone at O2 and Apple is getting roasted for this mess. While some of the people in the queue feel it’s solely O2 to blame I disagree. Stock management could have been so much better and both companies have had weeks to prepare for this. I guess for both of them the hype and news stories from this launch is priceless no matter if it’s good or bad.
Of course, in the grand scheme of things it’s not a big issue. It’s only a phone and I’ll get one soon enough. Feel better for that little rant though.
Three days from now I hope to have me greasy paws on an iPhone. I decided against v1.0 due to lack of 3G but as time went on I think the bigger reason, and certainly the most exciting thing about Friday, is the applications that will launch in the Appstore alongside the new phone and the v2.0 software. The iPhone is a new platform and from that point of view I can’t wait to see what app’s are available.
What I’m not looking forward to is re-joining O2. When I was previously with them I was never entirely happy with contract or upgrades. The deal looks good though and I think they’ve been pretty fair with existing iPhone owners so clean slate time.
Biggest issue on Friday will be limiting the spending on the Appstore. And finding an iPhone if O2 is to be believed. Happy days. Exposure, Twitterrific Touch and Super Monkey Ball will be 1st day purchases hopefully.
Another day, another keynote. Some thoughts…
- iPhone 3G. Roll on July 11th. An iPhone with 3G, GPS, better battery life, no recessed headphone socket, an App’s store full of software and all for…something less than today’s price. O2 are promising more information tomorrow. Hurry up please. Cheaper American prices come with a 2 year contract.
- No upgraded camera, no video chat, 16GB max. Nice to see there’s a reason to buy a new iPhone every so often.
- The updated design looks good. I like the thin edge’s and don’t mind the plastic back. Still undecided though - black or white? Black = better looking but more obvious scuff’s and scratches?
- MobileMe. Nice upgrade to .Mac which is no more. Option to use me.com e-mail address. The push updates from the cloud look excellent. Not so sure on the web app’s which look slick but how do they perform?
- With the GPS will locational app’s really take off? If only the camera res was upgraded as taking geo tagged photo’s is a really nice feature. Missed opportunity?
- Nothing much on Snow Leopard, the next version of OS-X. Quality upgrade and not a feature upgrade. Mmmm. Ok. Surely that’s a service pack?
- Can’t wait to play Super Monkey Ball. For all the people that say iPhone is meh….show me software on your phone that look, runs and plays like that. Thought so. Band looked pretty cool too. $9.99 for Monkey Ball too. Sounds like a bargain.
I think that it for now. Great announcement, a new phone for me soon. Can’t wait…unless O2 tamper too much with pricing. Surely not.
Another year, another phone. This is the 3G follow up to the k750i, my current phone. Although it’s been out for a couple of months I wanted to get the phone on T-Mobile’s Web ‘n’ Walk deal and take advantage of all that 3G speed online. So after a few days how has it faired?
What do you get?
In the box you get the phone plus USB cables and also headphones that double as an aerial for the radio. The k800i uses a new memory stick format, the M2. This really grinds with me - just how many different formats do manufacturers think we need? Also it means my previous cards wouldn’t work with the phone - more expense. However the T-Mobile deal included a 256Meg card which is more than adequate.
The Phone
The phone itself is heavier, taller and slightly more bulky than the k750i although it’s a great size for a 3G phone and the build quality is excellent. The back of the phone is rubberized and the only issue I have is with the lens cover - I’m sure that will break off over time. The back of the phone is also difficult to open which I guess is good in the long term - wouldn’t want it to easily slip off. The screen is excellent - more readable than the k750i, photo’s and in particular small text is clear and sharp. The software built into the phone is almost identical to the k750i except additions for RSS and Video calling. Voice quality has been excellent and on a par with the k750i which was one of the best phones I had used. Signal strength has also been excellent over the last few days.
The software on the phone also supports apps working in the background. You can be on a call or listening to music and at same time surf or get/receive e-mail. You can swap to apps running in the background via one of the keys on the front of the phone - very swish.
I was disappointed though with the software for synchronizing with Outlook. It is buggy and will only sometimes detect that the phone is connected. When this happens the launcher for file transfers also doesn’t work. Although it’s easy to connect in file mode so that transfers from the memory card can be made I recommend you download MyPhoneExplorer which has worked 100% for me. You can transfer files, sync calendars and get some other info like firmware version, battery life and temperatures. Another disappointment’s is lack of Mac support from Sony.
The big new feature of this phone though is the 3 Megapixel camera. (more…)
