A week ago iPhone iMania swept the Free World. Yesterday my iPhone arrived from Shenzhen, China and my iLove was born. I’ve been reading a lot of iPhone coverage over the last week waiting for my slice of the American Dream to arrive, and I am still astonished by the online complaining and crybabyism in the official Apple iPhone Discussion Group and how that environment is so disconnected from the reality of the device.

After living with my iPhone for 20 hours — and setting up two of them — here is my quick review.

Activation was immediate and seamless for both phones. I am a current AT&T customer on a BlackBerry internet plan and I was able to update my service to the iPhone via iTunes without a hitch or a delay. It took less than three minutes from start to finish to begin using my iPhone as a phone and incredible media player.

The sound is outstanding. I can clearly hear everyone while making a phone call and they can hear me. Volume is strong and loud.

I have much better reception in all conditions compared to my BlackBerry 8700c on the same AT&T network — so that makes me believe the rumors that Apple tweaked the iPhone to work especially well on that network alone are true.

The seamless transfer between my superfast home WiFi connection and the AT&T EDGE internet service is quick and invisible. It is quite an experience to blaze through the internet at home on the iPhone as fast as I can on my Mac Book Pro.

The iPhone plays music and music videos with great panache and ease.

The iPhone keyboard is great. I have no trouble typing with two thumbs instead of a single finger.

The SMS interface is delightful and informative; Maps are a wonderment; Email is a breeze; even the Calculator shines.

What would I change about the iPhone? I can’t think of anything offered that isn’t delivered. There are future features I’d love to seen added, but is that a fair criticism of the phone now — to bang the iPhone by wishing for things it does not have?

I’ll pass on smacking on the iPhone and keep macking on it.

The iPhone has already changed how we will communicate with each other and it has set the new standard for personalized online computing forever.

When you’re dealing with a tool of the future in your hand today, it’s pretty hard to put it down — or even remove it from your hand.

43 Comments

  1. Hi David,
    Ize jealous. Think I’ll host a blog and call it “I Can Has iPhone?”
    Donna

  2. Love it, Donna! And people can send in images of the iPhones with silly messages:
    “I can has emails now?”
    “Google maps has a flavor!”
    “Invisible SMS message…”
    It’ll be the Biggest Blog Ever! :mrgreen:

  3. Yes, David! The blog can capture all the new iphone parents first experiences with their newborns.
    I think it has great potential. I might really do it, but I don’t have the tech savvy. Maybe Chris? He’s looking for a new angle since he ditched his entertainment blog.
    Chris could take pictures of iphones while he’s doing his travels. Pictures of iphones at the water cooler. Pictures of iphones in the car. Pictures of iphones at business lunches. Pictures of iphones in the park. You get the picture! 😀
    Donna

  4. Ha!
    It’s an iPhone world, Donna! What great silliness! And to make it even more wacky, we could have images of cats using iPhones and images of cats captured on iPhone cameras with captions written by cats eating cheeseburgers!

  5. Hi David and Donna,
    I heard someone complaining about iPhone batteries on the radio last night as I was doing some painting touch up around the house. (I hope I wasn’t hallucinating from the paint fumes).
    I don’t have an iPhone, so I don’t know if this is true or not, but the complainer said that the iPhone battery can’t be easily replaced because it is soldered onto the phone’s circuit board. If something goes wrong with the battery, the whole phone needs to be sent back to Apple to be served. (And, remember that Apple had problems with batteries in other devices).
    Can you get to the battery on your iPhone?
    Hi Donna — I wonder if someone will make a website showing the travels of their iPhone to various destinations. 🙂

  6. Hi David,
    Great ideas! I can envision a picture of kitty with an iPhone and a cheeseburger in front of him and he has to choose. Caption: “I Can Has iPhone or Cheezeburger?” I’m betting he would pick the iPhone! 😀
    Donna

  8. Mr. Chris!
    Right! The battery is embedded in the phone. You cannot replace it on your own. You have 300-400 charge cycles and then you buy a new phone or ship it back to Apple to replace the battery:
    http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=4865477&#4865477
    My feeling is the sort of people who buy an iPhone aren’t going to wait around longer than a year or two to buy the next generation. G3 is on the way and at those speeds the current iPhones will feel like molasses!

  10. Chris!
    Your links are right. AppleCare for the iPhone is also coming before the end of the month where you can extend your warranty for $69 and that will include battery care. I’m not a big fan of extended warranties, but in Apple’s case, I always buy AppleCare because it comes from Apple and if you have any trouble at all they take care of you with zero hassle.

  11. Hi David,
    Right! You can has wish for high-tech kitty! 😀
    Donna

  17. Show us the astrounding quality of a picture taken with your iPhone of Jack the Cat!

  18. Hi David,
    I should have kept my old avatar up — I was going for the crescent look with my “C” in that particular font. (I can’t remember which font I used — I should start writing those details down). This morning I changed my avatar to the ruins of the Standard Liquors Building in downtown Gary.
    I heard Rush talking about giving away iPhones on his program this afternoon. You and Rush are in agreement on something, David. Rush loves the iPhone so much he’s giving them away. 😉

  20. Emily!
    You have, once again, confirmed you are a dog person and not a Cat Person. I am unable to do anything with Jack unless he comes to me and requests a portrait. Now, it’s true he spends much of his day preening and posing, but that does not mean one is allowed to photograph that parade without proper permission!

  21. Chris!
    I love your Avatar surprises! The building is loading for me today. Yay! LOVE IT!
    If Rush is an iPhone person then I will have to reconsider my condemnation of everything he touches. MAYBE! 😆

  23. Hi David,
    I’m a cat person and I know that your cat will be using the iPhone when you are in REM sleep. 🙂 He’ll just never let you see him using the iPhone.
    Rush has declared that iPhones are the only cell phones suitable for his audience.

    El Rushbo has obtained ten — that’s right, ten (10) — new iPhones, and he’s giving them away, one a day (except Independence Day) until they’re all gone. These are the super-swank, ultra-deluxe, 8 Gig iPhones, the best available anywhere, and the only ones suitable for the EIB audience. One of them is yours, if your name is selected.

    Emphasis added.
    I wonder if there will be websites of people using their iPhones and people will have to choose if the users are just iPhone aficionados or Dittoheads. 🙂

  24. Chris!
    We are thrilled to hear you are a Cat Person and not a dog person like Ms. McRae. Jack has relented in the past to allow image taking so we are hopeful the purring iPhone will be his new catnip!
    Okay, I held my nose and visited the site you link. I get no feeling that the man himself is an iPhone fan. His giveaway reads to me like he’s trying to raise his popularity by associating himself with the effervescence of an astounding phone without actually using the phone. Have you entered his contest?

  25. Hi David,
    I did enter. Tomorrow is 7-7-07 as all of the local casinos are reminding everyone around here in huge newspaper ads. I feel lucky! (Maybe someone will make an offer on our house tomorrow or I’ll win an iPhone).
    Rush mentioned that the iPhone works well for him and that it’s one of the best phones he has ever had.

    I finally got a chance to play with mine a little bit yesterday afternoon and last night, and everything I had heard about this — well, I’d heard all the hype, and it is worth all the hype.
    But the one thing I heard bad about it was the phone aspect, “Ah, it’s a lousy phone. It’s not as good as other phones out there,” and of course it’s got AT&T service, which is not the best.
    I have to tell you, now, this is just me, and just where I live, this is the best sounding phone I have. Now, I’m deaf, and I wear a cochlear implant, but this phone, and I don’t know why, but just the speaker in this phone, people sound clearer on this phone to me than any land line phone I’ve got or any other kind of phone. …
    But for me it’s been a delight, it’s been fun to learn to use. We think that you will like it, too, if you happen to win one of these ten.

    http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_070307/content/01125107.guest.html
    I still distrust Apple products because of their closed architecture. One of the other phone companies will steal their interface and make it available in version that will work with VZW where my wife has a cell phone contract that lasts for the next 999 years or so. 😉

  26. Chris!
    I’m so glad you entered! I see the first winner was from North Platte, Nebraska. Janna and I met in that town during a play contest and the rest is history! 😀
    I read there are 31,000 marriages scheduled for tomorrow. I guess they’re all hoping to luck out, too, and win the jackpot of a long life together.
    That’s a rave from Rush! Wowser! He’s right, too. The phone sounds incredibly great. The tone is wonderful and clear. It lives up to the hype and then some — how many products surpass that kind of pre-fever pressure?
    The reason you should love Apple is because they’re closed. They make everything and control everything and that’s why everything works so well. You don’t have to worry about compatibility problems at all. If something doesn’t work there’s only one place to point your finger: At Apple. They are required to make everything work.
    There’s a new “Prada” phone out that looks a lot like iPhone and it’s even smaller, I think. It should be interesting to watch the other carriers play catch up to AT&T — especially since Steve Jobs’ first choice for the iPhone was Verizon!

  27. Hi David,
    I think Verizon — this is just me — has the best coverage everywhere I’ve taken my phone. Other carriers — Nextel especially — seem to be limited to major highways once outside of dense urban areas or have to switch to their analog service to be able to make calls.
    It’ll be interesting to see what phone company tries to knock off the iPhone design. Will we see a product offering from Microsoft in the near future?

  28. Chris —
    I agree Verizon is very good everywhere. AT&T is especially good in big cities and their G3 service will beat anything else out there when it goes live.
    Here’s a link on the Prada phone:
    http://www.dialaphone.co.uk/blog/?p=49
    Microsoft is wedded to their Windows Mobile interface. It will never have the snap and ring of an Apple phone. MSFT always tries to do too much.

  30. Hi David,
    The more I hear about the iPhone, the more it sounds absolutely fab!
    I hate and despise Rush and I think he is a conceited narrow-minded jerk and a bug that I would like to stomp off the face of the universe and I don’t give one whit what he says about the iPhone or anything else and I don’t have an opinion, mind you. Chris– I hope you win! 😀
    Donna

  31. Katha! Love your new Avatar! You are so incredibly gorgeous!
    I was with Verizon back when they were Bell Atlantic and then NYNEX and then Verizon. They have a very solid, but old, infrastructure. I left them for Sprint because the newer Sprint network had better building penetration in Jersey City.

  33. Hi David,
    Wat a jerk! He’s such a cra-reep.
    Yes, I have listened to his show, only because it pays to know your enemy! He screens his callers so that only those that bolster his opinion get air time.
    Okay, Rush. You have an iPhone. You’re still an iJerk.
    Donna

  34. Hi Donna!
    I’ve never been able to listen to him for more than 60 seconds. I admire your ability to watch him so you can beat down his hate speech.

  35. Hi David,
    Yes, it’s a real trick to listen to Rush.
    I like to listen to all voices. Sometimes I tune in to religious right radio when I’m driving to hear the right-wing fundamentalist argument. It’s dirty business. Tantamount to a papa-rotzie. Get the story. Get the angle. If you get run over in the process, well, just make sure you’re up-to-date on your insurance! 😀
    Donna

  37. You better not become a Dittohead, Donna! We already have one of them around these here parts and that’s one too many anyway! :mrgreen:
    I enjoy watching religious TV. I’m working on a future article about one particular personality. I’m fascinated by the whole process.

  38. Katha!
    You are ever so welcome! 😀
    Verizon does have a live TV phone now. Pretty sweet!
    The YouTube videos on iPhone are good too, though.

  39. Hi David,
    Here’s a video showing the way to remove an iPhone SIM chip:


    Writes the Washington Post’s Rob Pegoraro:

    While your iPhone’s in the shop to get a new battery, you should be able to pop its SIM card into any other AT&T phone; the review iPhone’s SIM card functioned properly inside an AT&T BlackBerry. (Trying a T-Mobile SIM in the iPhone only yielded an “Incorrect SIM” error message.)

    I expect that people will figure out all of the secrets of the iPhone during the next couple of weeks. People are already tearing their iPhones apart to discover Apple’s secrets.

  42. I am jealous since Canada will be at least a year before even seeing it! Crazy stuff and a great article!
    Trent

  43. Hi Trent!
    You’ll love one when you get one! I wonder why you have to wait a whole year?
    Thanks for the kind words. I appreciate ’em! 😉

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