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Back in October 2007 I wrote about the trouble I had in buying a new mobile phone from an O2 shop. The phone I was trying to buy at that time was the Sony Ericsson W810i which, for it's time, I thought was a pretty good phone - at least for my needs it was. 18 months later and my needs have changed and the W810i is no longer really up to the task and the screen is heavily scratched.
Like everybody I had seen the adverts for the iPhone and wanted one from thee day they were released. When the 3G version came out it just sounded even better but still I resisted....until last weekend.
Yep I now own a 16GB iPhone 3G and the following is really just my first impressions of it.
First things first, why did I buy the iPhone? Good question. I commute 5hrs a day to and from work and to say the journey is dull is an understatement. Therefore I have always carried with me a Sony PSP to watch films and play games on, an iPod for music (I didn't want to put music on the PSP because as I can easily watch 2 films a day I needed all the space on the PSP for video files), and my mobile phone. In terms of storage space my iPod was a 4GB Nano and my PSP had a 4GB Memory Stick Pro. The 4GB for my iPod was just about okay as that's enough for a few thousand songs at 256kbps but 4GB of available video storage only really gave me enough for 2 days.
On top of that I frequently found the need to access the Internet and my e-mails on my way home. Although the W810i does have an e-mail option it could only be configured for an O2 e-mail account not my home e-mails and it's web browser was purely WAP which was incredibly limiting and frustrating. The iPhone 3G therefore seemed to fit the bill perfectly in that it is a phone, e-mail client, web browser, iPod and video player and games machine all in one. So having used it for less than a week what do I think of it?
Let me first talk about the style and ergonomics of the iPhone 3G. Let's be honest, the iPhone is a thing of beauty and yet another design classic from Apple, I defy anyone to look at it and say that it's ugly. Now to some people the iPhone may seem too large for a mobile phone especially considering the fact that for the last 20 years manufacturers have been making their mobile phones smaller and smaller. Apple have been rumoured to be releasing a smaller and cheaper iPhone since August last year but despite numerous wild stories and supposed leaked photos on the Internet, Apple themselves are saying nothing. I did seriously consider holding off buying the iPhone 3G to see if anything did come of these rumours but ultimately I wanted a larger screen for watching films on as personally I've never liked the idea of watching videos on the small screens like the iPod Nano and Classic. Therefore, for me, the size of the iPhone was actually a plus point before I even bought the phone and having now used the phone I think the size also makes typing on the touch screen far easier than it would be on a smaller screen. With that in mind then, the iPhone 3G is actually very comfortable to hold in your hand when making a call but of course the majority of the time you aren't talking on the phone you simply have it in your pocket and that is where it's size might be more of an issue for some. Whilst it does fit in a trouser pocket, this is how I carry mine, it does pretty much fill the pocket but I wouldn't say that it was ever uncomfortable.
Now onto the main features of the phone itself.
As you would expect, making a phone call is simplicity in itself. You can either enter a new phone number via an onscreen number pad that resembles a large calculator or by browsing your contacts. Your contact list is possibly more important on the iPhone than on many other phones because it is used not only for making phone calls, sending text messages but also for sending e-mails. When it comes to updating your contact list you can of course add new names and numbers on the phone itself but it also synchronises with your Address Book via iTunes. If you, as most people do, make a phone call to someone who is already in your contacts than you it's simply a case of selecting their name from a scrollable alphabetic list and then once their 'record' is open, choosing which number you have for them that you wish to call.
Something that is all too often over looked in mobile phone 'reviews' is the clarity of the call, i.e. what it sounds like, and I'm pleased to say that the clarity of phone calls on the iPhone 3G is superb and noticeably better than I have experienced on other phones.
Sending text messages is different in many ways compared to every other phone I have ever used. Unlike other phones where you receive each text message appears as a separate message in your inbox, SMS messages on the iPhone are displayed as an ongoing conversation. This means that if you only ever text 5 people you will only ever have 5 'threads' in your inbox but each one of these threads can list every single message you've sent and received from that person. Potentially then SMS 'conversations' could end up being incredibly long but navigating them is simply a case of flicking your finger over the screen to scroll up and down which is strangely addictive and massively satisfying.
The biggest omission from text messaging on the iPhone 3G is that there isn't a character count and nor does it notify when you have exceeded the character limit for a single text message. Whilst this isn't much of a problem for people on a contract that usually include hundreds of free texts a month, it might be more of an issue for people on Pay & Go who have to pay for each text message and might need to watch their credit. This leads me on to the iPhones predictive text. On any new phone the first thing I do is to turn off the predictive text because in my experience it never works and just gets in the way. The iPhones predictive text is actually incredibly good which is just as well as using the on screen keyboard invariably does lead to spelling mistakes but this does raise a bit of a dilemma. If you enable predictive text then the iPhone will correct your spelling as you type but if you want to use 'text speak' as in gr8 instead of great you'll need to turn predictive text off but then you will have to be even more careful about how you type. Another issue with leaving predictive text on is that it adds punctuation which then uses up more characters and so can cost you more. I'm a little divided on this because on the one hand I'd like to have more control over my costs but on the other hand I really like the fact that messages are actually in English with punctuation as I hate the fact that 'text speak' has already found it's way into peoples e-mails and even forum posts.
Internet access is probably one of the iPhones biggest selling points as unlike most other mobile phones you don't access WAP sites but access the real Internet which you do via Apple's Safari browser. But can you really surf the web on a phone? The answer is yes it's just that it is a little different to surfing the web on a computer. Most websites function perfectly on the iPhone but there may be reduced functionality on some sites. For example embedded video files may not work unless they are in Quicktime H.264 format along with other website features that may require an additional plug-in on a desktop computers browser.
Whilst Safari on the iPhone does allow you to access the 'real' Internet the browser itself is not so much a stripped down version of their desktop browser but an adapted one. You can enter in a web address, bookmark new pages or view a bookmarked page which you have imported via iTunes from your desktop computer or from your browsing history. One useful feature is the ability to add a shortcut to a webpage from your home page (where all the icons are displayed) allowing you to go immediately to that page without first having to launch Safari. When it comes to importing bookmarks there is one annoying issue. On the Mac you can only import bookmarks from Safari and on the PC you can only import bookmarks from Internet Explorer. Quite why Apple haven't added support for other browsers like Firefox is a mystery especially as even though Safari is now available for the PC they still let you import from Internet Explorer. If, like me, you do use another browser than you can import your bookmarks into Safari or Internet Explorer on your computer and then sync them to the iPhone via iTunes.
As for browsing the web, clearly the small screen of the iPhone isn't going to be able to display the whole page at a size you can read so instead you only see a part of the page at a time and scroll down as you read an you can also zoom in on any section to make it easier to read. I suppose the main difference between browsing the Internet on an iPhone compared to a PC is that on the iPhone it's slightly more of a passive experience. By this I mean that on a computer you might copy pieces of text, download images etc none of which you can do on the iPhone which considering that the iPhone isn't meant as a replacement for a computer is understandable although it would be nice to be able to save images from websites to the iPhones photo library.
The iPhone 3G supports a wide range of e-mail systems such as Microsoft Exchange, MobileMe, Google Mail, Yahoo Mail & AOL. However because it also supports IMAP and POP it means that you can set up just about any e-mail account with ease. All you need to know are your username, password and server details which means you can have your e-mail up and running in seconds, it really is that simple.
Navigating your e-mails isn't too different from how you would navigate any e-mail client except that rather than there being a separate preview window displaying your e-mail message you instead get a short preview of the first couple of lines of any e-mail message and then clicking on the message opens up the full message. Again, like in Safari, tapping the screen zooms you in to make it easier to read and scrolling is performed simply by moving your finger across the screen.
The iPod is one of the star features of the iPhone as here you have access to your music, podcasts, videos and audio books. Like the iPod Touch you can access the cover flow method of navigation by simply turning the iPhone on it's side where you are then presented with images of all the album covers which you can flick through with your finger. To view the tracks on any album simply tap the album cover and it turns over to show you what tracks you have from it. Unlike 'old' iPods you don't have a central jog wheel to adjust volume and fast forward and instead you have two separate touch screen controls along with the usual skip, pause and play buttons.
Again something that is often overlooked when commenting on iPods is the sound quality. I've always found the sound quality on all iPods to be very good but each model does have a characteristic sound. The Nano's are quite bright sounding whereas the iPhone has a much warmer and rounded sound to it which, to me at least, sounds a lot nicer. That said, like all iPods, the headphones that come with the iPhone are truly awful. Not only are they uncomfortable to wear they also do no justice whatsoever to the sound. When it comes to headphones the ones that come with the iPhone do also have a built in microphone so that you can still use the phone with the headphones plugged in. If you do replace the headphones with a better pair that don't have a built in microphone all is not lost because you can still use the mouthpiece at the bottom of the phone. If you have earphones this means you can hold and use the phone in the normal way but if you use headphones you may have to hold the bottom of the phone up to your mouth (like you always see them doing on The Apprentice) or unplug the headphones when you receive a call.
When it comes to video you can rotate the iPhone onto either of it's sides and the image will flip accordingly and the picture quality is excellent. The iPhone has a screen resolution of 480x320 which when compared to the Sony PSP's resolution of 480x272 sounds as though the picture quality should be identical. However in reality the iPhone is better, at least it is if you convert your own video files. The reason for this is because although the PSP has a resolution of 480x272 this is only accessible from UMD video discs, if you convert your own films to MP4 they have to be at 368x208. Clearly there is quite a difference between 368x208 and 480x320 which explains why videos on the iPhone are very bright, colourful and packed full of detail. The other good thing about the video capabilities of the iPhone is that you can rent or buy films from the iTunes store and watch them on your phone which means you should never run out of something to watch. There is however one issue about watching films on your iPhone and that is in regards to comfort. Even though the iPhone is very tactile and light you don't really want to hold it in your hand whilst you watch an entire film and being that it has a rounded back you can't even stand it up on it's own, so what do you do? Well there are a number of cases for the iPhone 3G that incorporate a stand but I personally think that these make the iPhone to bulky to carry around comfortably so instead I bought a Crabble. At just £3.49 it's very cheap and just folds up and slips into your wallet when you don't need it. It is an incredibly simple design yet very effective and supports the iPhone without any possibility of scratching it even over prolonged use.
The camera on the iPhone is arguably it's weakest feature as the camera itself is only 2MP, incapable of shooting video and you can't even zoom in. In comparison to most other mobile phones this is pretty poor specifications and also Apple have, in my opinion, got the controls for the camera completely wrong too. On many mobile phones you usually have three buttons on the side, one is the 'shutter release' and the other two are to zoom in and out and with the buttons on the side means that you can hold the phone on it's side and operate it much like a compact camera. Often these buttons also have dual functionality like adjusting the volume level and accessing the Internet when the camera isn't enabled. Apple have included three buttons on the side of the iPhone as well two of which do adjust the volume but do not zoom the lens of the camera and the third simply is a mute button and not a 'shutter release'. In order to take a photo with the iPhone you have to press an on screen button at the bottom of the display. The trouble is that it's actually quite fiddly to do. If you want to hold the iPhone on it's side then as well as holding the edge of the phone with the fingers of both hands you then need to move one of those fingers to the middle of the screen which then makes holding the phone steady difficult and because it's an on screen button and not a physical button you can't feel it and so have to look at where you have your finger and thus take your eyes off what you are actually trying to photograph. Things are slightly better in portrait orientation except that you really need to hold the body of the phone in the palm of your hand and then press the 'shutter release' button with your thumb.
On the plus side though the camera on the iPhone supports Geotagging meaning that whenever you take a photo it can record the GPS co-ordinates for where you were standing which can then be read by certain programs and allow family and friends to see where you were if you share your photos online for example.
Ever wanted Sat Nav? The iPhone also has it's own version of this. Whilst it won't really replace a good sat nav device for the car like a Tom Tom it is a useful way to find your place on a map or to plan a route when walking or when travelling by car (but because you don't get spoken directions it's not really suitable for driving). Because it works out your position by triangulation using GPS, Wi-Fi and mobile phone transmitters it is actually surprisingly accurate and you can not only view your location on a traditional map but also as a satellite image from Google Earth or a Hybrid of the two. Not only that but you can also display traffic information albeit in a basic way i.e. a road is coloured green if the traffic is flowing well, yellow if it's a bit slow and red if there are lots of traffic jams. Whilst this is not something you will need everyday it is a useful thing to have especially if you travel around a lot and are in unfamiliar places.
There are several other features of the iPhone that I won't really go into such as the Calendar which you can synchronise with the one of your computer, the photo viewer which allows you to view either as single images or a slideshow of any photo taken with the iPhones camera or photos that you have copied onto the iPhone, YouTube which takes you directly to the YouTube website, Stocks which keeps you up to date with how your shares may be doing, weather which will give you the weather forcast, clock, calculator, notes and settings. There are also two other applications that come as standard and they are iTunes and the App Store. Both of these are simply links to allow you to buy and download music, video and applications whilst you are away from your computer.
A lot has been made about the App Store but how good are the applications you can buy and how much do they cost? Well many of them are free with the paid applications typically costing between 59p and £5.99 and as in all things like this, there are good apps, bad apps, silly apps and plain bizarre apps, the choice is yours. There is an app for just about everything from games, to business, education to entertainment, finance to fitness and productivity to social networking. My personal favourites at the moment are HoldEm which is a good Poker game, Ebay which lets me check my Ebay account, Remote which allows me to remotely control my iTunes library on my iMac at home and Tioti TV+ which not only gives me the latest TV listings from Sky, Freeview etc but also lets me set my Sky+ box to record remotely.
So to summarise the iPhone 3G, in my opinion, is a stunning piece of kit with loads of features some of which you know you already want and need and others you don't but once you have them you'll wonder how you ever did without them. In all honesty the only bad things I can say about the iPhone is the way it handles text messages in that it doesn't tell you how many messages you are using up and the camera which really should be better on a phone costing this much. Like all Apple products, using the iPhone is a pure pleasure every single time and not something you'll ever tire of from unlocking the phone with a swipe of your finger to scrolling through e-mails and lists. As you would expect from Apple, just about everything is well thought out and it's built in accelerometer which detects the orientation of the phone just adds more possibilities to what can be done with the phone as well as giving a fun way to play many games.
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