Two days with the iPhone

It’s a great phone, but with many flaws, so if you want to own one wait for a better price and 3G
The iPhone is finally here, and it is not making waves except in Page 3 circles. I know you want the phone, I want it too, but is it worth the money you have to dish out— as a friend used to say, “now we need to take housing loans to buy gadgets”. Anyway, I got a chance to live with the Jesus phone for two days, and this is what I felt.
Though I have never seen a better phone for business use, it has a whole lot of shortcomings. But still, if I were to buy a phone, it would be an iPhone, but only if the price was right.

The biggest complaint would be that the battery dies out too quickly. Though I was not using Wi-Fi or 3G, or any of the connectivity features, I had to recharge the phone and pray it would last. Since the phone was on loan, I did not have the car recharge kit. I could always recharge it using the USB port on a laptop, but the other end of the phone requires a proprietory connector—why can’t all companies stick to USBs so that it can be recharged anywhere? The phone has a string of features like Bluetooth, Automatic Screen Brightness, Edge, 3G and Wi-Fi; to make sure you get good battery life, turn these off, but then that would make it just another phone.

I did not try out Edge, as I think no one should buy this phone to use it on Edge, it will have to be used as a 3G phone. Luckily both my house and office, and most of the places I work out of—friends’ homes, cafes etc—have wireless. Connecting on Wi-Fi was not bad, though pulling email every time I went into a Wi-Fi zone was rather tiresome. I’d rather stick to a Blackberry for now.

the phone. I also loved the ease with which conference calls can be made. In a usual business day I end up doing about two to three conferences with my team and my customers, and it’s a painful experience with most phones. With the iPhone, all you have to do is press the Add button, call the person, and then press Join. I managed a three-party conference call, even going into private mode with one.

I also managed to crash the phone quite a few times, very unlike other Apple products. I then realised that the phone had over a 100 apps installed in it. Once I removed some of these Apps, the phone was easy to work with. I felt the typing was a bit slow, but then I am used to a regular keypad.

People have complained that it does not have a flash and can’t do picture messaging, but these were not big issues with me. Usually, I do not send MMSes and don’t really know a lot of people who do. The missing flash, though, can be a bit of a problem if you use your phone camera too much.
The interface is brilliantly done. However, getting the search in contacts took some getting used to. But the way the phone asked me each time if I would like to take the call on the speakerphone, the regular iPhone or my bluetooth headset was something I liked. Connecting to the bluetooth headset was also a breeze.

I loved the fact that Apple has given a standard headphone jack on...the phone. I also loved the ease with which conference calls can be made. In a usual business day I end up doing about two to three conferences with my team and my customers, and it’s a painful experience with most phones. With the iPhone, all you have to do is press the Add button, call the person, and then press Join. I managed a three-party conference call, even going into private mode with one.

I also managed to crash the phone quite a few times, very unlike other Apple products. I then realised that the phone had over a 100 apps installed in it. Once I removed some of these Apps, the phone was easy to work with. I felt the typing was a bit slow, but then I am used to a regular keypad.

People have complained that it does not have a flash and can’t do picture messaging, but these were not big issues with me. Usually, I do not send MMSes and don’t really know a lot of people who do. The missing flash, though, can be a bit of a problem if you use your phone camera too much.

Another little problem is that you need a pin which comes with the phone to take the SIM card out. Though no one needs to swap SIMs regularly, if you lose the pin, you are in trouble.

The capability of the iPhone to sync with my Mac or Windows PC is great. The way contacts are stored is also awesome, but sadly I could not search the contacts by first name, maybe I was doing something wrong. The switch to turn the phone from ring mode to vibrate is reminiscent of the Palm. The volume keys felt sturdy, and added to the solid feel Apple has built into the product.

So, do I want one? Yes. Why don’t I have one right now? One the cost is too high, and 3G is still not here. But there is no other phone that offers the same experience, and no one, yes no one, beats the touch interface.

For now, I am going to buy the new iPod Touch, as it can do email on Wi-Fi, along with music, video and even the apps, only the phone is missing.

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The Above Article appeared in the Indian Express, Dated 14th September 2008