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10 things to love the iPhone

10 things to love the iPhone

I took delivery of my iPhone at the beginning September, the beginning of a month that has seen personally, I endeavor Me Out of the Office for very long periods and only in contact with the world through to my phone. It was a baptism of fire for me and for the device.

You seen the ads, played with her on the phone the store looked over the shoulders of fellow travelers, "from his friend … not much? Or is it?

In this article, I touch one the best things about the device that completely seduced me. Or even a little bit. And to keep the karmic balance I an accompanying document some of the heavenly things that make me crazy. There is enough material for two articles, I promise!

So here we, in reverse order, the 10 things you should love the iPhone!

10. organizing voicemail

One of the nicest features the device is how to organize your voicemail for you. More by calling the voicemail, music all messages in your mailbox in order arrival for those who want to hear. They were in a list, the actual names rather than numbers when the number is on your contact list. You can go directly to the message you want and avoid unwanted calls.

You are not limited to the terms of recorded your phone service provider required – will remain on the device as long as you need. There were even messages to retrieve files deleted, deleted remain in the trash until you confirm the deletion.

9. Organization SMS

If you like the way the iPhone handles your messages, love, even the organization of SMS. SMS messages are organized by name of others, as before, but descends even better when third of the messages themselves are displayed in the order as a series of appointments, such as instant messaging dialogue, so you can see all conversation. So good, so obvious, why has not been done before?

8. screen keyboard

One thing that strikes you the absence of the iPhone with a keyboard or stylus. In fact, it is nearly devoid of buttons at all, which is one of the criticisms launched the iPhone.

Lack of a keyboard has been one of the reasons for delaying the introduction of the iPhone in the first place. I work in the office, perhaps by 60%, and my PDA is often my only connection with my business while I am out of office. Sending e-mails via the T9 keyboard is not ideal, Most keyboards and sweet I see so far has been slow and frustrating. I had a couple of PDA with sliding keyboard and can be satisfactory, but are heavier, thicker and less attractive as a telephone handset.

The keyboard is surprisingly good iPhone application. I have seen demos on YouTube before I ordered the iPhone still had doubts as to how they were realistic. Me do not need to worry, however: It is really as good as the demos suggest. Auto-correction of work, comparing what you type by pressing the button click, if you receive an "h" instead of "g" to pick up and correct their error.

It is not perfect, however. I have problems with consistency for reach the space bar and seem to hit the letter "b" instead. The correction is defective keys but will not necessarily correct a spelling error if you put too many or too few letters in the word. They should also be 60-70% accuracy with keystrokes or algorithm gives up. Rejecting a proposal for self-correction requires that you press the small X at the end of the suggestion rather than a button dedicated or back as in most Windows applications, and it can be really difficult.

But across the keyboard works well and I must admit that it is more useful than the keyboards on most Windows Mobile PDAs had. Do not know yet if I prefer recognition Writing with a stylus, but I can live with it.

7. iPod Phone

Although that does not intuitive touch interface of the wheel home and the iPod, iPhone, iTouch, and iPod interface is full screen which gives you easier access fast and direct media stored on the device. I prefer the iPod wheel but I confess that one and six half-dozen of the other.

Although memory 8GB or 16GB iPhone has been shared between the characteristics of the iPod and other applications that rely on storage, you can store more 3000 songs, which is more or less my CD collection. I can play movies too many, and the screen is more than enough to do, but typical movie takes up 2 GB storage So of course I do "budget" it.

All of the iPhone acts as my media player, especially with my BMW has been integrated directly into the iPod iDrive, so I can access my music collection through the car steering wheel and screen navigation.

6. Motion detectors and landscape mode (one point)

The iPhone is full of sensors. Proximity to know that you are using as a phone. light sensors to adjust brightness. Motion sensor moves the thing around (much effect on "Lightsaber Unleashed – a demo for free on iTunes).

Motion detectors are used to greater effect in Safari and the document detection the inclination of the screen to display in landscape mode. Too laterally readable document on the screen? Only you have the camera and will change the screen orientation. Cute!

The only problem is that the application of the function seems to depend on demand and not always the case in all applications on the device. Therefore, playback and capture of electrons do not benefit from the function, for example, while the accessories (see below) does.

5. Web browser on a phone

Safari I am not a big fan in general, prefer Firefox IE Mac and PC. However, the implementation of Safari on the iPhone is probably the best mobile browser I've seen so far.

It supports CSS and Javascript and Silverlight support in the future, but does not support Flash at this present time. To rotate the screen in landscape mode, you can read most websites usually directly on the screen of the iPhone, while placing the "pinch" metaphor (two fingers on the screen and move all) zoom to allow small text or fine details to consider. The touch controls on the screen as text boxes and zoom through menus on the control that allows you to fill out forms based on the browser. The browsing experience is any smoothly attractive and intuitive.

4. Native support for PDF and Office

In colored "in wool" Users of Microsoft, this feature attracted more than me more than anything else on the device.

IPhone, all "standard" standard Office formats (Word, Excel and Powerpoint) and, without any plug-ins. And not only Office 2003 – Office 2007 formats are also supported extensible! The iPhone is compatible with the rotation of view documents in landscape format, with a little zoom.

Unfortunately, you can not edit Office documents as standard, although a number of publishers are preparing to offer publishers of documents and the future of spreadsheets. However, 80% of workplaces distance I can find the device combination is perfect for me.

3. WiFi and 3G cellular

Interested parents IPhone appetite for mobile computing, but quickly became disillusioned Europeans because of its lack of support for 3G. It is of course a thing of the past with the Mark II device.

I was very impressed by the Wi-Fi capabilities of the device, however. Although the battery consumption is far from ideal, Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi battery works very well, especially in large offices and public places in which they move in and out of range or between access points, sometimes using different protocols, consistently. Is necessary to support a number of security protocols, including WPA TKIP based on Certificates 2 and can interact with Microsoft focused on implementations of enterprise security.

You can configure the device to join new networks automatically and, of course, once you have configured access to a network, it reconnects automatically A next time you're in range. It works very very well – frankly if you can afford to forget all that. It is as it should, frankly.

2. Easy to add applications

IPhone Basic provides basic email, calendar management and contacts as well as Safari Web browser, camera and iPod application. It also has excellent aGPS and Google Maps is surprisingly good, although the battery consumption to enable Camera location services, it is virtually unusable in my opinion. In other words, iPhone applications offers a very reasonable basis for productivity Mobile.

If What if you need more? The answer is iTunes AppStore, an online service accessible from the iPhone that allows you to search and download applications that load your iTunes account. So far I have mostly free applications and sample download articles of utility, which is enough to get an idea of what exists and to appreciate the simplicity of installation and upgrade. I just buy the implementation to date – iBlogger a generic blogger to connect to my blog and CMS. The process is simple and transparent, from the perspective of the user, and that is exactly what the user needs.

The idea of extensibility is a good thing. This is where the intersection computer and PDA in the world of mobile telephony has really benefited the consumer. But for consumers make full use should be an appropriate choice.

To date, Apple has managed to attract software companies to play with a development kit Easy and powerful distribution model. I understand the concern that some publishers are more the stranglehold Apple has on the distribution channel, as the PlayStation Sony, and time will tell if Apple Developer engagement model continues to attract the best developers.

Currently, the iPhone is not a standard tool for managing tasks with Microsoft Exchange and interfaces for more advanced editing tools that offer functions basic as cut and paste (which is true, the iPhone does not let you cut and paste text when editing). I do not know if these claims are in the AppStore and I have not seen it yet, because frankly, I hope that these are supplied by Apple in standard and we hope that a firmware update permits.

If I exceed my impatience, I am drawn to the AppStore and I'll probably find what you are looking for.

1. Great design (one point)

Apple has done a phenomenal job with the iPhone. It's beautiful! My iPhone is probably the most elegant and emblematic objects had. It is true, not only the most stylish phone or PDA or laptop – as an exercise of pure physical design is excellent.

The shiny surface is difficult to keep clean and in a few minutes is covered with fingerprints, but I think cleaning with a damp cloth lightly enough to restore glory.

The difficulties in maintaining the cleanliness is also very robust and usable from day to day. I dropped several times on hard ground without apparent sequelae feels very solid in your hands. I do not worry about a case and just put in my jeans pocket (front or rear) and most often forgotten there.

The user interface is remarkable – most often. The pinch zoom and quick scrolling list are excellent. Add, delete and move the application icons on the main screen is intuitive and can be mastered in minutes.

But the good parts of the user interface are so good that the guardians of the design – the inability of many fallen trees directory files messaging, file manager is missing, the absence of a cut and paste – stand out even more clearly and to highlight the genesis device.

The fact is that the iPhone is the product of a prolific group but very introspective and brilliant engineers. It is bounded by a conception of reality or in practice, especially in the context of society. In many ways, and I mean probably 80% of GDP in cases, the result is wonderful. 80% is so good that I can almost forgive Apple for 20% of vital elements missing. For now!

About the Author

Stephen Oliver is Director of Expraxis Limited (http://www.expraxis.com), a consulting company that works with academics, entrepreneurs and inventors who need help bringing new ideas to market. We help people set their priorities, plan for their business, build relationships with partners that can help them, and work with them to help turn those ideas into reality.

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