Full Review

By now, you’ve probably heard or read all the rave reviews that would be necessary to sway you into buying an iPhone. But who really needs the reviews anyway?
Once you’ve witnessed the device in person, it becomes a “must buy” luxury device which you’ll obsess over up until / and after you’ve purchased one.

The iPhone is the slimmest, fanciest cellular phone, PDA on the American market with features and presentation that make it appear as futuristic and innovative as the Sony PSP was when you first glanced at its 16:9 Widescreen playing crystal clear DVD’s or PS2 quality graphics.

As a long-time PC user and Windows Mobile fan, I never anticipated that I’d be drawn into an Apple iPhone for many reasons (some of which I will list), but, I was recently able to get one on my business plan which allows me unlimited calling, unlimited data for a cool $0.00 a month. If it wasn’t completely free for me, I probably wouldn’t have it
Since cellular data plans can easy cost a user upwards of $2500 over a two year contract.

I will simply give you my impressions of the phone, its weaknesses and its strengths.

Inside the iPhone

The Apple iPhone is essentially an iPod with a cellular phone built into it. More to the point, the Apple iPhone is the latest generation of the iPod (iPod Touch) which uses a capacitive touch screen to allow a user to simply tap the screen with a finger in resemblance to the way you’d normally point and click icons and HTML links on a regular computer.

The Graphical user interface that accomplishes this is simply sharp, bright icons and text, atop a black background which perfectly blends into the phone’s Black glossy LCD panel. The hardware here is a 620 MHz ARM processor besides a 412 MHzGPU PowerVR MBX 3. This is running a basic version of Apple’s proprietary iPhone Operating System which is derived from the Mac OS X operating system.

The iPhone also includes built in Bluetooth and built in WiFi as well as the standard iPod docking connection. Its defining feature is a GSM SIM card access port on its top which requires an AT&T SIM card specifically running EDGE and coded to the phone.
(more on this later). There is a backside digital camera for point and shoot pictures.

There are just two buttons on the phone, “sleep” and “home”. The sleep button turns the screen off and the Home button takes the system from any application running back to the main Home screen. When used together, these buttons can hard reboot the phone or put it in restore mode in order to resolve hardware/software issues and allow it to connect to iTunes.





USING THE iPHONE


Firstly, the iPhone has a space age, innovative touch screen design which makes it appear luxurious and justifies its $300+ price tag. Unfortunately the technology required to have a touchscreen made of transparent glass, that responds to touch is obviously premature because of numerous factors.

#1, the screen is susceptible to breaking when dropped.
#2, the screen is susceptible to scratching by foreign objects.
[ unfortunately, covering the screen will nullify the capacitive touch feature which means you can’t put plastic overlays on it unless you are prepare to remove them before use.]
#3 the screen cannot be used by hands that aren’t baring skin. Gloves must come off.

These problems can be overlooked but, unless you are ultra-careful with your belongings, or have an excellent warranty, a broken screen is in your indeterminate future.


The Phone feature of the iphone is the only thing that separates an iPhone from an iPod Touch. Both devices run the same OS but, the iPhone includes the “Phone” icon and the “SMS” icon which open up the phone and SMS text features.
The phone features a display that allows you to quickly dial in numbers and then choose audio sources such as a paired Bluetooth headset, the iPhone’s built in speakers or the iPhones built in speakphone.

Dialing and calling your friends is easy, but talking to them isn’t so great. First of all, AT&T’s service isn’t as clear or as wide in coverage as Verizon’s. Call quality can range from poor to decent, but, the phone itself features a speakerphone that isn’t loud enough to be heard unless the phone is held up to your face – a far cry from older Nextel handsets.

What I like about the iPhone is that your picture phonebook can store pictures and various data fields about individual contacts. When it rings, their picture pops up across the entire screen – making the device look very technological advanced.

Unfortunately, the phone feature is actually where the iPhone is the dullest. It doesn’t break any new ground at all. Things might have been different if the phone came with a built in Skype or VoiP client which allowed you to make calls anywhere a Wifi signal was present but, your legally stuck with AT&T unless you choose to hack your phone’s OS and move to a different GSM carrier unbeknownst to Apple/AT&T.


DATA DELIVERY

The iPhone is similar to a high speed computer which has been forced to connect to the internet via 56K modem.

The Phone’s main data applications include: an iPhone version of Safari (Internet Browser), Stocks, the iCal (calendar ) application, Maps, Weather and an iTunes client.

Youtube is accessible from the phone via a Youtube client only because the phone lacks a Java/ Flash plugin system as robust as the ones you would be used to using to watch Youtube, or Flash images on a regular laptop/desktop computer.

It’s a good thing that the iPhone comes with a built in WiFi adapter because otherwise, you’d be limited entirely to the slothful EDGE connection that AT&T provides with the phone. At a maximum 236 kbps, you are really unlikely to see even half that speed in real world use. Wifi enables me to connect to my home FIOS – where I see around 2 Mbps downloads or, my buildings Wifi where I get steady 1 Mbps downloads.

Over EDGE, updates for iCal, Maps, Stocks, Weather and SMS/ Email come fairly quickly, but downloading from Youtube or iTunes can be painfully slow.
Also, unlike a Blackberry (like my 7290), iPhone’s do not feature “Email push” which allows the phone to receive emails in real time, rather than being forced to refresh the browser to search for them.

Similar to the design and style of the Apple OS X on a computer, the browsers and editing is very simple for any of these applications. Adding your favorite stock symbols; your locations you’d like to see the daily weather for; or locations on the map interface; is a snap. In fact, the Apple OS system in play here is incredibly simplified to the point where a few points and taps get you just about whatever your looking for.


Connecting to WiFi is very simple. You open the iPhones “settings” icon, and the Wifi tab will begin searching for useable Wifi access points. Connecting to the points is as simple as picking an available SSID and entering the necessary password Key.
Once connected to the access point, the phone will opt for Wifi over EDGE.

If you buy this phone and have not subscribed to Edge, you will be locked out of the Youtube client, and the other data delivery apps. This was a move made by Apple to secure its hardware to AT&T. Fortunately, unlocking the phone with available software, can work around this and allow full data delivery via Wifi…but, you will not be able to download Data over your EDGE-less SIM card.

The YouTube application streams videos over Wi-Fi and/or EDGE after encoding them using QuickTime's H.264 codec. Youtube has converted countless files to this codec while many remain waiting to be converted. I have yet to run into a video I couldn’t view on the iphone so I can easily say that the Youtube client is working perfectly for viewing video, even though you can’t add/delete comments due to the lack of full Java/Flash support. Youtube, is probably the main reason I bought the phone.



TYPING

Regardless, the optimism you may hear, texting and typing on the iPhone is by no means easy, unless all of your fingers have very small cross sections. The thicker your fingers are, the more likely you will mistype keys on the LCD screen. There is no tactile feedback – such as you get from depressing a key or button on a traditional spring loaded button – but the phone attempts to make up for this by sounding a * click * to let you know you just pressed a key. The speakerphone’s soft volume exacerbates the difficulty of recognizing you’ve pressed a button.

Its too bad that typing isn’t so easy because the phone includes very smart key designs which allow you to search for buttons and symbols quicker than most other cellphones (and many full sized keyboards).

Holding the phone is another issue. The back of the phone is aluminum metal while the front is glossy black glass. Holding the phone is difficult because there isn’t enough friction to secure it in the hand especially if you have sweaty palms. Since smudges of fingerprints make it look bad, you try to not touch it unless you have to. The backing is as bad as the glass because even though the glass is marginally scratch-resistant, the back is not and can easily be scratched or have the paint chip off – especially if dropped.



Safari, Photos and Itunes both make use of the iPhone’s multitouch interface which allows more than one finger to be placed on the screen in order to allow for gestures such as “pinching” or “sliding”.

Sliding your finger allows pictures or album slides to slide left or right (like a jukebox)

Pinching, or un-pinching your fingertips causes pictures, or webpages opened in Safari, to scale larger or smaller respectively.

Typing in Safari’s search/ address bars is handled the exact same way you’d normally text with this phone. So long as you enter URL’s absolutely correct, you should have no trouble surfing the web. Unfortunately, Safari, as I mentioned, doesn’t feature Flash and Java. This means that if you want to view Youtube.com (or Pornotube.com) you won’t be able to see the movies play on the page itself. It’s a major bummer because this phone would easily score big if you could go to any webpage and view its contents like you could on even an older, slower laptop.

Other than the crippled viewer, Safari performs just as you’d expect it to if you were a desktop Safari browser user.



ITUNES features a client application that allows you to go to Itunes and download songs directly to the phone over Wifi. There is a browser that allows you to enter the information from your iTunes gift cards in order to add money to your account. Quickly, and safely, you can browse the market and download songs to your iPhone.
Songs come complete with album/title and author info as well as a picture for your slideshow of the albums which can be reached by rotating the iPhone horizontally. Into “landscape mode”

Many people who own 30GB iPods scoff at the measly 4GB of storage (8GB and 16GB for the larger versions) but, I personally wouldn’t have used this as a massive media storage unit anyway and I am perfectly happy with 4GB. If the iPhone had the ability to use P2P software like Limewire, for free downloads, I’d be bothered by the Hard Drive size but, as it does not, I don’t have any major quarrel with Apple – except that Video’s can use that 4GB up in a flash.

Where the iPhone truly fails is in having a recessed 3.5mm headphone jack which is incompatible with most headphones on the market. The iPhone’s headset included with the phone includes a minimalist styling that resembles the traditional white iPod headphones and a small microphone box in-line. Buying brand named iPhone headphones or a headset means a trip to the Apple store and what really disappoints is that the brand named Apple Headset designed for the phone is lackluster in both audio quality/Bass performance and sound clarity on the other end.
The speakerphone is no better because it is much too low to use unless you are in a quiet bedroom with the speaker near your face.

Connecting to iTunes for updates can be quite annoying because iTunes limits data transfer to/from the iPhone unless it is paired (like it treats iPods). There are other softwares available online that allow communication with iPhones and Ipods but it’s a shame Apple’s own software is so restrictive and annoying.
The only bright spot is that itunes can be made to sync Contacs and Calendar info with Yahoo.com ( my favorite Contact storing receptacle).

UNLOCK AT YOUR OWN RISK

Unlocking your iPhone can be done easily with available software online.
The only problem however is that if you update your phone on iTunes, you risk “bricking” the phone and making it unusable.

As I mentioned, the data-delivery services will not work unless the phone detects EDGE so unlocking your iPhone and using a T-Mobile, Cingular or Roger Wireless chip for example, will allow you to use the cell phone but disable your regular internet services. You’ll need an available WiFi to get access to the internet, Itunes, or the other apps.

The beauty however of unlocking, is that you can unlock both the iphone or ipod touch and get the INSTALLER. The Installer is an application which browses the internet for ALL other iPhone applications and downloads them neatly into your phone for use. I was able to get WALLPAPER for example, which allows you to browse available wallpaper and easily download them for free.
Games like CHESS and PAC MAN can be downloaded, as well as Sega Genesis and NES emulators (which use touchscreen buttons as a control pad).
The Installer alone makes hacking an iPod touch worth the trouble, but, for the iPhone, you have to decide whether or not you can deal without having on-the go data delivery.



OVERALL

There are a lot of features to review here because the iPhone is probably the most sophisticated PDA to ever be mass produced on the US market.

I am proud, as an American that Apple computers has taken the time to release a phenomenal product for America’s markets. Typically, America’s cellular tech has lagged far behind Japan and Korea, who had color lcd screens with built in cameras in their $80 cellphones while America was still using black & white monochrome displays with camera attachments. Koreans and Japanese could watch live digital television on their cell phones while Americans were still fighting to get downloadable videos.
My only disappointment is that Apple contracted iPhones to be built in ShenZhen China rather than creating American factory jobs here.

I found the iPhone to be a very sophisticated device with loads of internet possibilities but where it was supposed to excel was in being a cell phone and an iPod.
It’s a cellphone which is hard to hold and requires a Bluetooth headset to get the most of it while it offers a smaller than average iPod with an inaccessible headphone jack and a pitiful speaker.




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