Apple iPhone (8 GB) Smartphone

The 3G iPhone I purchased was a replacement for a Palm Treo 650, I had been using for over three years. I fell in love with the original iPhone, but the price was too prohibitive, considering it was an EDGE phone. My Palm already had EDGE. In fact, the only true advantage the iPhone offered was WiFi.

Enter the iPhone 3G. It had 3G speed (Duh!), WiFi, and was touted as Enterprise ready. It was MUCH lighter than my Treo, and had scads more memory (8GB vs 23MB). It is true that I could increase my Treo's memory with a SD card. However, there are very few Treo apps out there that will actually let you install them on the SD card. I always wanted an iPod, but couldn't stand the idea of attaching two devices to my hip. As the IT manager for my company, I have to be available 24 hours, so not having the phone was not an option. It looked like the iPhone 3G was the answer to my prayers.

It was...sort of. As mentioned above, the iPhone is much lighter than the Treo. I could not wear the Treo on my hip without a belt for fear of the weight causing me to expose myself in public. Not so, with the iPhone. It is super light. The key lock (or screen lock in this case) also works much better with the iPhone. Often, just moving around in the case would be enough to deactivate the key lock on the Treo, and cause me to either unintentionally call someone, or connect to the internet, which drained the battery.

What I like about the iPhone 3G

1. The iPhone 3G, like most Apple produced products, is sleek and stylish. It definitely gets the attention of the room when you whip it out.

2. Having used the Treo 650 for three years, I was familiar with touch screens. Since this screen takes up the entire front of the phone (Save the space required for the home button) Apple has been able to make many things considerably larger. This makes the lack of a stylus easy to get past. Even with a screen protector on the front of the iPhone, I find the touch screen to be superbly responsive. If there is anywhere it is not very responsive, it would be around the edge of the screen. However, I find this to be a fault with all touch screens.

3. I love the onscreen keyboard. I am a man, and I don't find typing with my big fingers to be a problem. At least, no more so than it was on the Treo 650. Sure, I fat finger some. I still do that with the full size keyboard on my PC. It is not hard to correct fat fingers though, since pressing and holding on the screen brings up a magnifier that allows me to place the cursor where I need it to make all corrections. Some apps even allow you to have the keyboard in landscape, making the keys even bigger. It would be nice if more apps did that.

4. Accelerometer. Even the name sounds cool. Turning the iPhone horizontally makes the screen go horizontal. Great for viewing web pages. I love how may Apps in the iTunes AppStore are taking advantage of the Accelerometer...and with great success.

5. GoogleMaps with location services. The iPhone uses 3G, WiFi, or a combination of the two when available, to place a strobing blue dot on a Google Map showing right where you are. You can then type something like pizza in the search box, and the iPhone displays restaurants in your vicinity that serve pizza. As you drive along, you can even watch your blue dot move with you. So far this has proven to be very accurate for me. If there is a negative with the location services, it is that it doesn't work well with following a set of directions from GoogleMaps. The problem is that when you move from Step 1 to Step 2 and so on, the blue dot stops updating your location. You have to reactivate location services with each screen change. I could be wrong, but this seems like poor planning on both Apple's and Google's parts.

6. Tons of apps available to make your iPhone 3G even fancier. The Apple AppStore has hundreds of apps to choose from, including many that are free. Upset about the lack of voice dial on the iPhone. Download the free Voice Dialer app. Upset because your friend can subscribe to a service from Verizon that will identify a song for them. You can one up them. Install Shazam! or Midomi. Both give the iPhone user the same capabilities...FREE!!!! Midomi will even record you humming the song, and identify the tune...assuming you can carry a tune. Want to know what movies are showing near you? Showtime uses location services to give you the current movie listings for all theaters in your area. Waiting on someone and have nothing to do? There are tons of high quality games - many free - you can obtain thru the AppStore to keep you(or your child) entertained. When I say high quality, I mean games like Super Monkey Ball and Krash Bandikoot.

7. EDGE. Wait a minute! Why are you touting EDGE?!? This is a 3G phone! I know it is, but as I mentioned above, 3G will quickly render your battery completely drained. I had an AT&T salesman once tell me that the iPhone uses EDGE much more effectively than other phones. At first, I thought this was just a sales pitch. However, I can say that it definitely uses EDGE more efficiently than any other phone I have played with. Web browsing on the iPhone with EDGE is not a problem at all. Neither is reading email. In fact, I only turn 3G on when I need to stream video, or download a file, and I don't have WiFi access.

8. Over the air sync for Microsoft Exchange. If you work for a company with a Microsoft Exchange server you can get true push email. You also get instant access to your contacts and calendar. Unfortunately, this doesn't work with public calendars or contact lists hosted by the exchange server. For public calendars, there is a pretty effective workaround...if you own a Mac and have a MobileMe account.

What could be better

1. I can't fully agree with Apple that the iPhone 3G is truly enterprise ready. I don't think BlackBerry has too much to fear...yet. While you do have true push email with over the air Microsoft Exchange sync, I do think that the fact you can't see a public calendar or contact list, is a flaw that needs to be fixed ASAP. Many companies utilize these items extensively.

2. VPN. The iPhone 3G comes with a Cisco VPN client. This is great...if your company has a firewall that is actually compatible with this particular client. However, since the Cisco client gives you next to nothing as far as configuration, you are pretty much SOL if your corporate firewall can't support it.

3. The iPhone 3G allows you to have multiple email accounts. Great! The only customization you have for new mail notification is on and off. Not so great. You can't adjust the volume. You can't change the notification. You can't set a separate notification for each individual account. Blackberry has been able to do this for quite some time. I find this to be the most glaring omission on Apple's part.

4. No Multimedia texting or video. Neither of these is a deal breaker for me. However, if the Treo 650 could do both three years ago, there is no reason the iPhone should not be able to do both now.

How to save your battery
There are some things you can do to extend your battery life.
A. Only turn 3G on when you need it. If you have WiFi, or are just going to be browsing the web, keep it off.

B. If you are playing a game, or traveling down the road, turn off WiFi. There is no need to waste battery life, searching for a WiFi signal, if you aren't going to use it.

C. Turn off location services if you don't need it.

Are you getting the picture? Just turn these fancy extras on when you need them.

I'm sure you're wondering if there is an end to this review. There is, and this is it. The iPhone 3G is a great phone, and I am thoroughly enjoying using it. However, there is definitely room for improvement, especially in the enterprise features. Still...I have no regrets replacing the Treo 650 with this phone.

Update
I have been using the iPhone now for seven months. I am still thoroughly enjoying it. While the enterprise features are still not all there, they have certainly improved. The exchange email has been refined and works wondrously. Software updates has led to significant improvement in battery life. The areas I feel still need major improvement are in allowing other non-apple apps to utilize push technology & user customizable email notifications.

From an IT Manager perspective, the iPhone is the easiest mobile device I have ever found for setting up with an exchange environment (even easier than WinMo itself). That is why I am now supporting five iPhones, 1 Blackberry, 1 Android, and NO WinMo devices. I can have an iPhone up and running on our Exchange  environment in less than five minutes.