iPhone Review

On Friday 9th I joined a queue of about 20 other Apple geeks at the O2 store in the Galleries, Bristol to get my hands on the iPhone which was launching at 6:02pm, by 6:10 I had my brand new iPhone.

I’ve waited since the US launch to get hold of an iPhone, I’ve even manage to resist the temptation of all the new iPods. My main reason for wanting the iPhone is so that I have my music, phone and calendars all in one device that works well. I’ve also been waiting to ditch my previous phone the Samsung U600 which was useless and seemed to have a mind of it’s own so I was very pleased to get rid of it.

This is a quite a long post so I’ve broken it down into sections for those of you who want to read about specific features:

• Activation / Setup
• Phone
• Mail
• Safari
• iPod
• SMS / Text Messaging
• Maps / Photos
• Wrap-Up

Activation / Setup

I was already an existing O2 customer when I purchased the iPhone so activation was very painless and quick, I connected the iPhone to my MacBook, iTunes popped up with the activation process, all I had to do was select ‘I’d like to replace my existing phone with this iPhone’, enter a few personal details and finally select the tariff I wanted to change to. Within a couple of minutes my number was transfered and my iPhone was activated and syncing all my music, videos, contacts, bookmarks, calendars, email accounts and photos.

Phone

Making and receiving calls on the iPhone is very simple. To make a call you just press the phone icon and flick through your contacts and tap their number to call them. When you receive an incoming call all you need to do is swipe the slider or tap the screen to answer.

There are quite a few in call options which are shown on the screen while you are in a call such as mute, keypad, speaker, add call, hold and view contacts.

Whenever I have made a call or received a call on my iPhone the quality has always been very clear, no strange kettle noises like my old phone used to make. I always seem to get a good signal with O2 as well, even when I’ve been to places where friends on other networks get no signal I always seem to have a reasonable amount.

Mail

I’ve setup my iPhone to work with my personal POP3 mail account, this was a easy process, all I had to do is tick a checkbox under the info tab of the iPhones settings in iTunes and the settings for my Mail accounts on my mac were sent to the iPhone.

So far I really like mail on the iPhone, it’s simple and easy to use and no screens with complicated options like on other phones. Typing emails with the qwerty keyboard is very reliable.

Safari

I wasn’t too sure what to expect from Safari on the iPhone, Apple keep making the point that it’s the ‘real’ and not the ‘mobile’ internet on the iPhone and I didn’t really think that it would work that well but as soon as I got my iPhone I could see what Apple were saying.

You actually do get the proper, full on, nothing taken out version of the internet. Pages load quickly and display all their content (minus flash at the moment) and the fantastic thing about it that it’s really intuitive and easy to use especially with the multi-touch technology.

There are some big websites customized for the iPhone, Facebook, Meebo and PocketTweets are three of my favourite websites optimized for the iPhone they all take advantage of multi-touch and look great on the iPhone display, and If you don’t like the iPhone versions of the websites you can always just use the standard version.

If you’re looking for some iPhone optimized websites and webapps take a look at Apples own Web apps directory, all the apps and websites listed in the directory can be used with both the iPhone and iPod touch.

iPod

If you were to buy a standard iPod such as the iPod Classic or iPod Nano from Apple you would expect it to be beautiful and easy to use, now Apple have taken the iPod a step further and made it amazing by creating a whole new interface, adding coverflow, widescreen video and multi-touch.

The iPhone includes all the features you would see from a normal iPod plus some neat added features, If you tilt your iPhone sideways you get to flick through your albums with coverflow which looks beautiful and is very smooth to use, when you find the album you are looking for you tap on it to show a list of tracks to play.

Watching video on the iPhone is simple, from the iPod you simply select the ‘Videos’ button, TV Shows, Movies and Music Videos are shown in a list view, to view a video all you have to do is tap it, all videos load in landscape view and you can choose between widescreen and full screen views by double tapping on the screen. All the video controls such as video timeline, volume and pause / play, forwards and backwards buttons are shown by single tapping on the screen. Using the controls is very easy and playback on the iPhone’s screen is very clear.

I’ve only owned two iPods, a mini and a nano both were amazing, however I think all the new features and eye candy make the iPod on the iPhone the best i’ve ever used.

For those of you not interested in the phone features but like the sound of flicking through your music and browsing the internet on your iPod you might want to consider the iPod touch which is essentially the iPhone without the phone features.

SMS / Text Messaging

SMS messages are stored in ‘conversations’ with contacts so it’s just like viewing an instant messaging conversation where you are able to see anything that was previously said, making it easy to reply to a message. Sending a SMS message is simple, you select the contact and type your message into the text area and press the send button.

At the moment the iPhone doesn’t support picture messages or multiple recipients but hopefully this is something Apple can easily add in the future with a firmware upgrade.

Maps / Photos

The iPhone also has a maps application powered by google which is realy very handy. You can search maps using a postcode, address or business name, the iPhone shows the results by dropping ‘pins’ onto the map, you can view the maps in either ‘map’ or ’satellite’ view. You can even get directions from one location to another or directly call a business through the results.

Photos from my iPhoto albums are synced with the phone, viewing photos is really cool, you can either view them as a slideshow or flick through them with your finger, just like you would do with a photo album.

You can move maps and photos with your finger and you can also zoom in a a specific area by either double tapping on the area you want to zoom to or by ‘pinching’ which is really cool to use.

Wrap-Up

Flicking through albums and scrolling through photos and pages with your finger seemed a bit strange at first but it didn’t take long before it seemed perfectly natural, after you’ve used the iPhone once or twice you don’t even need to think about how to use it.

The keyboard is really quite intelligent, it’s as if it knows what you are about to type. The magnafying glass is a really useful tool you can use when trying, if you hold your finger over a text area it magnifies the text so you can go back and edit / amend right down to a single letter, a lot more efficient than using arrow keys or the backspace button.

I know a lot of people will probably disagree with me but I think the iPhone is worth it’s price. You won’t find another phone that combines the features of an iPod, a great mobile phone and a full web-browser into one small smart looking device for £269, I do however agree that the price of the contracts could be cheaper or include more texts/minutes.

It’s easy to see a lot of work and effort has gone into the iPhone, this device really is fantastic. Apple certainly know how to design a good product.