iPhone questions

Every once in a while I get infected with the desire–the urgent NEED–for an iPhone. So far, I haven’t succumed to the urge because it will be so expensive to get out of the contract I have with my current phone company. I need your advice.

Every once in a while I get infected with the desire–no the urgent NEED–for an iPhone. So far, I haven’t given in to the urge because it will be so expensive to get out of the contract I have with my current phone company.

But the other day I was using a friend’s iPod touch. Good grief, she could use a browser, get her mail, log in at Pay Pal, write a blog post, Tweet, and heaven knows what else. It struck me that traveling with one of those would be a whole lot easier than lugging a computer and a camera around.

But if I use it to photograph and blog an event like Web Directions North or SXSWi, will I be happy with the photos? And would I find the blogging tedious with one finger typing? I’m particularly concerned about the photos. I have a nice camera with a 12X zoom, which is wonderful at events where I may be sitting 30 rows back. And live blogging with one finger–can I keep up?

Have you used an iPhone or Blackberry Storm or other similar phone instead of a computer when traveling? What are the advantages and disadvantages? Do you save enough in hassle to justify the cost (especially when you have to buy out of an existing contract first)?

Can you show me photos on Flickr or some easily accessible place that were taken with an iPhone?

I’d really appreciate hearing about your experiences using one in the way I’m thinking about.

10 thoughts on “iPhone questions”

  1. Hi Virginia

    I recommended my wife to get an iPhone for her work, and obviously I have not kept my hands from it…

    I guess you’ve heard the praises by now, so I’ll concentrate on the drawbacks.

    The camera is really awful compared to recent SE or Nokia phones. No autofocus, no flash and only 2 M pixels. I find it clunky to use as well.

    The touch keyboard offers little or no speed boost to T9, but is perhaps more intuitive. I find the lack of a “real” keyboard a drawback. The fact that it frees up real estate for the screen is its main advantage.

    The mail app is very good. But I really miss copy and paste! IMAP means that one does not really need to sync – but if you’re on a POP account and uses Thunderbird you’re out of luck.

    Yes, the UI is really great, but you are stuck in Apples universe. You can’t integrate Google calendar into the iPhone calendar – only contacts. Funambol can’t do more either. Etc.

    And one can’t use voice to dial up with a Bluetooth headset. That’s really ridiculous! (The whole Bluetooth stack is totally abysmal, a joke!)

    The GPS and the phone drains battery really quickly. I got my wife a car charger… The map is based on Google maps, but does not contain any extras, like images or Wikipedia links.

    Personally I think I’ll buy a nice (Linux based of course) netbook and use my 3G dongle. Or wait for Nokia N97. Or do both (drooling…)

    Seriously, I think the main reason why Americans are singing iPhones praises is that you as a country are 5 years behind us Swedes. We have been browsing the web on our phones using 3G for quite some time now. And mobile broadband will probably surpass wired broadband in usage this year.

    Lars Gunthers last blog post.. itpastorn.nu smyglanseras

  2. Thanks for pointing out the drawbacks, Lars. The mobile networks in the U.S. are just starting to get spotty 3G service; we are very far behind. I’ll check out what SE and Nokia have to offer.

  3. I love my iPhone, but the camera is not the reason why.

    I personally much prefer the iPhone touch keyboard to the physical keyboard I had on my Treo. I have slightly long nails and am really not that dextrous, so I had a hard time with the Treo. Also, once you get used to the auto-correcting (despite the occasional annoyingly incorrect auto-correcting) it’s actually a huge time saver, because most of the time it’s pretty spot on.

    I would not want to live-blog via iPhone, I have to admit. I’ve traveled with it and no laptop, but not when I had a lot of typing to do. It’s perfect for email, but I wouldn’t want to write an essay via iPhone.

    But, it truly is a wonderful device…the interface and screen, and now all the apps you can get…i’ve played with lots of other devices, but this one I just want to do things with all the time 🙂

  4. Thanks for the info, Elisa. It’s really about the apps, isn’t it? There are so many things you can do; an app for everything. But maybe it isn’t yet the complete replacement for a computer at a conference.

    I know you are a Mac person like me. I looked at some of Lars suggestions, which were Windows oriented. Nothing against Windows, but I’d rather stick with something friendly to Mac, even if it isn’t an iPhone. Maybe I should be looking at the Google phone.

  5. Lars, thanks for the clarification. I think I’m being swayed by iPhone apps in that direction. I looked at a Blackberry Storm and thought it was really nice, too.

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