My Coolest Possession So Far:

As most of you must have guessed it already, its the one and only .... iPHONE 3G!! After waiting for like close to 4 hours in line on saturday, the next day after the iPhone release on July 11th, outside apple store, there I was holding it and beaming with joy !! I tell you even waiting in the line was soo much fun. Everyone was upbeat and we all were discussing its GUI, the apple store with plenty of applications already out etc etc. Seemed like everyone thought this was the coolest thing ever (including me..and I still think that way :) ).

After that, I have been playing with the device ever since. Have hardly used my laptop for web surfing, emailing, watching videos and the all the stuff I used to do at home. After testing the device for what its built for, I thought I should make a note of the plusses and minuses.

Thumbs Up:

GUI : Obviously its got the best GUI i have seen on any phone till now. Its so cool and user friendly. Touch screen is very responsive thereby making the navigation fast. I think only Cupertino (read Apple) can built something like this.

Web Surfing: Apple has done a great job here. The web layout on the iphone is great with all the content displayed as if it were on any home PC. So browsing on iphone is fun and more importanly without stress on eyes. The layout changes as you tilt the iphone making it even more adaptive.

Maps along with GPS: This is where the 3G iphone betters 2G one. With the inbuilt GPS, it easy to find the current location. Even if there is no in-building coverage, it uses WiFi to locate you correctly. Also the satellite and the hybrid modes along with the real time traffic conditions makes it overall a cool and usable feature. Also with AT&T navigator, you can subscribe to unlimited turn by turn voice directions for $10/month.

Calculator: For geeks, there is scientific calculator build in. When you open the app, its a normal layout, but parallel to the ground, it turns into a geeky layout with all the sines and cosines :). But i think its a very useful tool for engineers like us.

Call quality: The speaker voice quality is good. Also iphone picks up the signal decently, I wouldnt say its the best in this as other 3G phones have better signal reception.

Battery Life: Apple has done a very good job with this one. With the normal claims of about 6.30 hrs on 3G (voice + data), which I couldnt try as network near my area is 2G :(:( , even on WiFi its lasts about 3-4 hrs, which I think is very good considering 802.11 hogs the battery.

iPhone Applications: I am amazed to see soo many applications already out on the apple store, with not even a week since it released last friday. Some of the applications like Jots, AOL radio are good. Also Monkey ball by Sega is very good if you want to test the 3D graphics and motion sensors. I am sure there are going to be many more of such applications in the future. The GOOGLE TALK app is also very good and works just fine on this little genius.

(Email)PUSH/POP/IMAP/CALENDER:Its a much needed and very good upgrade. The Push/Pop and IMAP app works absolutely fine and there is not much hassle synching your outlook and contacts with the iphone. Also you can sync as my accounts you want on your iphone. Also its very easy to sync your outlook calender with your iphone. The changes you make on your iphone are also easily reflected on your PC.

MS Office Documents: Viewing attachments, be it a word doc or a PPT, is really easy so I am sure many enterprise users will be happy with this.

Thumbs Down:

AT&T Network: Though AT&T has rolled out 3G in most of the metropolitan cities, there are many coverage holes still. I am really disappointed with the AT&T coverage. They also charge $10 more just claiming that its 3G. Just hoping that they will upgrade their entire network to 3G (HSPA preferably...or am I asking too much on this one :) ). One suggestion Mr Ralph de la Vega, roll out 3G FEMTOS fast !!!!


VoFi App: There is not a single Voice over Wifi app out there on the store. Actually thts not true, there is Truephone but its paid. I would like something like skype for iPhone. Fring is a good app, but just that its in pre-beta and I do not want to possibly risk damaging my new iphone by installing it yet. But if Apple can get Fring on their store, it would be the best possible thing. But I hear the rumors that AT&T wont allow such a thing as it will harm their revenue stream.

Video Recording: I soo wish Apple provides an upgrade for video recording capability. I will not blame them as they always mentioned they will not provide this functionality in near future.

No Camera Zoom: This is one thing that 2.0MP camera lacks. Though the picture quality is good normally, you cannot zoom and take the picture. There is an application that one can download in order to zoom while wanting to take a snap (not sure if its official on the apple store) but still I thought this should have been already integrated. Little disappointed in this :(

Edit Documents: One cannot edit the MS office documents still, but I hope there are apps that allow you to do so. This mebbe a hassle for enterprise users.

Bugs: There are some bugs in the software when it come to Qwerty keyboard and searching through contact lists. Apple should provide and fix these bugs in their next upgrade.

Overall I think this little Boy Genius is a masterpiece from Apple and now I understand the importance and the hype about Steve Jobs keynote every year.