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I helped someone with an iPhone the other day, and it was interesting seeing how it worked. There were some things about it I really liked, and others I wasn't so keen on - at least, based on my shortish experience with the device. (So if I'm wrong about anything, let me know).
I liked the screen; though it's the same resolution as my Blackberry Bold, it's physically large, which helps a bit. The touch interface is really good; I didn't find myself mistyping things much, or having problems touching parts of the interface accurately. Best thing about it, I think, is the whole interface to the App Store and iTunes. It's so easy to download/buy apps either on PC or from the iPhone, and sync to the PC completely seamlessly. In this case, one app had been purchased on the PC, and the others on the iPhone; once I set up iTunes and synced them, all apps were available. I absolutely loved that; it's no wonder the iPhone is market leader in that arena. Obviously the iTunes music sync was good too, and the chap I was helping was delighted by the whole concept - he was happily ripping CDs when I left; not too many options for those who don't like iTunes though.
On the downside: most irksome thing for me was constantly wanting additional options, and looking for an options button. No such thing; if it's not on screen, you don't seem to have any additional choices. Despite the reputation, I found parts of the interface somewhat unintuitive; I suppose that gets better with practice. The touch-keyboard, though good, is no replacement for a real qwerty keyboard, and obviously there's no capability for one-key shortcuts to apps. No automatic correction of apostrophes/capitals that I saw - maybe it's a setting somewhere? The inability to multitask is a bit of a killer, but it does seem that the apps at least suspend and resume again at the same place. Though I've heard how fast the iPhone is, on this one (iPhone 3GS 32GB) there were some significant delays (several seconds, in some cases) when doing things. Maybe just the particular apps? This one (I don't know if it's the case with other service providers) had no built-in free turn-by-turn GPS software, and the owner was going to buy something for $70.
Apple have done a really decent job (especially when it comes to booting the whole smartphone and smartphone apps market).
I liked the screen; though it's the same resolution as my Blackberry Bold, it's physically large, which helps a bit. The touch interface is really good; I didn't find myself mistyping things much, or having problems touching parts of the interface accurately. Best thing about it, I think, is the whole interface to the App Store and iTunes. It's so easy to download/buy apps either on PC or from the iPhone, and sync to the PC completely seamlessly. In this case, one app had been purchased on the PC, and the others on the iPhone; once I set up iTunes and synced them, all apps were available. I absolutely loved that; it's no wonder the iPhone is market leader in that arena. Obviously the iTunes music sync was good too, and the chap I was helping was delighted by the whole concept - he was happily ripping CDs when I left; not too many options for those who don't like iTunes though.
On the downside: most irksome thing for me was constantly wanting additional options, and looking for an options button. No such thing; if it's not on screen, you don't seem to have any additional choices. Despite the reputation, I found parts of the interface somewhat unintuitive; I suppose that gets better with practice. The touch-keyboard, though good, is no replacement for a real qwerty keyboard, and obviously there's no capability for one-key shortcuts to apps. No automatic correction of apostrophes/capitals that I saw - maybe it's a setting somewhere? The inability to multitask is a bit of a killer, but it does seem that the apps at least suspend and resume again at the same place. Though I've heard how fast the iPhone is, on this one (iPhone 3GS 32GB) there were some significant delays (several seconds, in some cases) when doing things. Maybe just the particular apps? This one (I don't know if it's the case with other service providers) had no built-in free turn-by-turn GPS software, and the owner was going to buy something for $70.
Apple have done a really decent job (especially when it comes to booting the whole smartphone and smartphone apps market).