The iPhone Revolution has begun

Wow. No other words seem to be able to accurately capture this device better than ... Wow. Apple has done it again. Regardless of your opinions of Apple you have to give them credit, they know how to launch a product.

The Skinny
I'll admit my bias up front. I use Apple products. I haven't always. But as with many I started with an iPod. In March of 2006 I picked up a Macbook Pro (which I reviewed on epinions) so I could dual boot between OSX and Windows. I've since grown to love my Macbook Pro and a number of my family members and friends who rely on me for computer advice have since purchased Macbooks (and love them too). The last cell phone I got was also a few years back; A Motorola v551. I've been dying to upgrade it and have been waiting for the release of the Moto RIZR; a sleek slider phone from Motorola. I had held off buying something else since many of the sleek Samsung phone wouldn't sync with my Macbook Pro.

When Steve Jobs held his keynote at Macworld earlier this year, I was slightly wow'ed then. There had been rumors about an "iPhone" circulating so I wasn't shocked at the announcement. The iPhone seemed to have some nice features. My wife called me up from work later than day after hearing about the announcement and was surprised at my reaction.

I didn't want one. She was shocked that I wasn't already drinking the proverbial Apple Koolade.

Really. I wasn't blown away. It was a smallish iPod (only 4 or 8GB), had a non-removeable battery, would likely have a screen that would constantly looked smudged & could easily crack and was likely going to be tied to a data plan which I'd never use now anyway. I saw the potential, but I was willing to wait until the product was released before going ga-ga over it.

The Goods
Leave it to Apple though, they kept the hype going for 6 solid months. And as more details were released, I started to drool. The early reports from the Wall St. Journal, NY Times, Newsweek and USA Today journalists were positive (as expected). But what surprised me were the reports of the battery life. It was actually quite good. Then the data plans were released. As an existing Cingular customer (now AT&T) I could keep my existing plan and only add a $20 premium for unlimited data, visual voicemail and 200 SMS messages? Sounds good. And then there's that bit about the new glass screen. Still somewhat smudgy but incredibly impervious to scratches (such that happen when spending time in your pocket with your keys). Of course the hard drive was still rather smallish. But come to think about it... I have a 40GB iPod now. I also have a 512MB iPod shuffle. I actually use my shuffle more day-in and day-out for listening. There's no need to keep my entire MP3 collection of music & podcasts on the device. That's what Smart Playlists are for.

Hmmm. The tide is turning. Ok, maybe I took a small sip of the Apple Koolade.

In my younger days I likely would have joined the crowds and waited in line for the iPhone. Not necessarily because I like waiting in lines, but it was more of an event. But with 3 kids of my own, a job and a wife who's managing our store I couldn't take the time to do that. Ordering one online was the best choice if you could wait the 2-4 weeks the Apple Store online was displaying. Luckily there were many Apple stores that still had them in stock the following day.

First impressions
Did I say WOW yet?

You can watch all the video reviews and walk-throughs online but nothing can compare you to the feeling of the iPhone in your hands. It just feels right. It's not bulky like a Palm Treo or Blackberry. It just fits perfectly in your hand. Its absolutely a work of art.

Its sleek, its slim, its sexy.

Its also slick and not a device that you'll want to drop so be careful when you hold it. I'd strongly recommend getting a non-slip case or a cover for it to help protect it.

And then you turn it on. The colors are absolutely stunning. What a visual display. Like all of Apple's products, it just seems to work. There have been many reports of activation problems, but those have subsided. I hadn't experienced any. Perhaps because I'm an existing AT&T customer? Who knows.

Usability
Ok. So enough of the drooling. Time to wipe my chin clean and start using the iPhone. Apple did a very good job at laying out user interface. Everything is pretty much where you'd expect it. Even the settings are layed out in a way that make it easy to get to and configure everything from the wallpaper to the ringtones to the WiFi settings. Very simple.

Synching with iTunes was as easy as synching with an iPod. Was that because I was doing it with my Macbook Pro and not my Windows machine? I'm not sure, but it was easy. All my contacts from the Address Book and all my appoinments from iCal came right over. As did the few playlists, podcasts and a movie that I selected to sync.

Coverflow is visual eye candy. Its nice. I was never impressed with it in iTunes, although I can see it having a purpose here on the iPhone in landscape mode. The earphones are pretty much your standard "run of the mill" iPod earbuds but there is a little device (like a bump) embedded on the chord that allows you to either answer an incoming call or pause/fast forward music. Nicely thought out.

The browser is all that its cracked up to be. But its much better when on Wifi than out and about using the EDGE network. EDGE is good in a pinch, but I wouldn't want to have to rely on it. Of course your mileage may vary depending on where you are. You can likely read hundreds of reviews and get an equal number of different answers depending on where the reviewer lives. So I won't get into that. Suffice it to say that Apple SHOULD have gone with a 3G implementation. My personal guess is that a 3G solution would have 1) been more expensive and 2) would have cut into the battery life. I won't complain about that. I have Wifi at my home and don't travel too often. Since I've never used internet access on a phone before... any access to me is a bonus. Besides its not going to be a replacement to a laptop, but just when a quick lookup is needed. Such as when using Google Maps.

Ooh. Google Maps is amazing. What a fantastic implementation. The only thing that could improve upon this is GPS. If the device knew where it was, then it would be easier to find the nearest location for Pizza or Fish Tacos or even the closes gas station if you need it. Perhaps in version 2.0.

YouTube is a "nice to have" item. Not necessarily a killer app. The novelty wears off quickly.

The User Interface is just amazing. Remember that everything is virtual. When you go to the iPod function the buttons across the bottom change. One thing that I did notice is that the default buttons can be rearranged and changed. For example I like to listen to podcasts, but there isn't a podcast button at the bottom. No big deal. Just click and drag it to the bottom row instead of Albums (for example) and tada... now I have quick and easy access to podcasts.

And speaking of widgets... I won't go into all of them, but they all have their niceties. The one thing I would point out is that if you look at some of them you'll notice they were developed by Yahoo!. This means that they're the same widgets found on OSX. I would tend to think that at some point, widgets will be opened on the iPhone and you'll be able to download new ones from Apple soon. There's three rows containing four widgets each. There's easily room for another row of widgets. I'm sure that was done for a reason.

I don't want to talk too much about the virtual keyboard as it is a very subjective topic. People either love it or hate it depending on THEIR experiences with it. What I can say is that my opinion of it after using it for a few days changed from my initial opinion. It does take some getting used to. I'm usually a fairly fast typist, but I've never been quick on a Blackberry with my thumbs. However I've been able to do pretty well with one finger on this iPhone keyboard. One tip I can offer is to aim towards the top of the key rather than the bottom (as many people tend to do). Also, to borrow a famous Star Wars quote... "Let go. Use the force". Err.. I mean let the error correcting software do its thing. Fight the habit of going back and correcting your typos as you make them.

A second tip I can pass on has to do with punctuation: instead of tapping the “.?123” key and then going to add a period or comma or whatever and then having to go back to the "ABC" key again to return to the alphabet keyboard... just press and hold the “.?123” key, slide your finger to the appropriate punctiation key and let go when over the one you want. It apparently registers punctiation on the release of the punctiation key. It'll save some extra keystrokes and hopefully increase your typing speed.

Complaints
What the iPhone does it does very well. What its missing, for the most part, it can easily add.
For example its missing a few things that I find to be odd:

MP3's as Ringtones - Very odd that this was omitted since nearly all other cell phones available today have them. However I'd bet that this will be made available soon. Its easy to add via a software update. At worst I would imagine that Apple would sell ringtones through the iTunes Store. That's certainly an avenue for revenue for them. I won't have a problem with that as long as they still allow those of us who create our own custom ringtones from our own purchased music to use them too.
Can't Sync Notes - The iPhone comes with a Notes app, however there's no way to save that or synch it back to the computer. You can email it to yourself though. Not very handy. My guess here though is that this will change when Leopard is released as a preview of the new Mail App in Leopard did show a "Notes" section. Just a guess on my part.
Copy/Paste - Huh? There's no way to copy/paste. I'm not sure what the logic is here, however I find it odd that you can't copy text from a note, a contact, a web page, etc and paste it anywhere. Again this can probably be added via software update.
No MMS - While this isn't a big deal to me, I find it odd that you can't send a multimedia message (essentially a text message w/ a photo attached) to another phone. You can email it to someone, but that's not the same.
Can't Sync via Bluetooth - Bluetooth on this phone is only for using an external headset. You can't use it to sync contacts/calendar entries with your computer. This means that if I'm on the go I HAVE to bring my iphone cradle with me to sync. I can't update the calendar on the fly. I do this with my Motorola using iSync.
No Disk Mode - Granted the drive capacity of the iPhone is fairlyl small, but it would be nice if I could plug it into a computer to carry/transfer files too.
No Chat Client - Even my miserable little Motorola V551 has an AIM client. I'm surprised that there's no iChat app for the iPhone. Yes there's SMS, but again that's NOT the same.
Landscape Keyboard - The virtual keyboard works so much better in Landscape mode, however the only time that's available is when in the Safari web browser. It would be nice to have that option in Mail or SMS too.
Better Camera Correction - the camera is actually quite nice. I never put much stock into cell phone cameras as far as quality goes. To me they're more of a "nice to have" item for those "gotta have" shots. If you're planning on taking pictures, you're always better off with a higher quality digital camera (I prefer my Nikon D70). But that being said, the iPhone and its 2mp camera does a nice job with when you have proper lighting.

These are all things that can conceivably be added via a software update. I would imagine that some of these were left out due to time constraints, some were left out due to not wanting to "clutter" the user interface and some where left out because Apple couldn't come up with a way to seamlessly integrate it.

Then there's the things that are missing which will require a hardware refresh (aka version 2.0):

No GPS - adding a GPS device to the iPhone will add cost and possibly a little more bulk to the thin design.
No Flash for the Camera - While the camera is quite nice, its missing a flash for those low light situations. Flashes on cell phone cameras aren't necessarily that good anyway, but something would be better than nothing.
Removeable battery - While this is bad with the iPod its even worse with the iPhone. When on long trips you're going to want to bring along a spare batter just in case. You can't do that with this design. And when the battery eventually stops holding charge, you're going to have to send it back to Apple to repair. That's just not right.
3G Support - EDGE is slow. To really use this when not at a Wifi hotspot you'll need 3G support. Now while it had been said that AT&T doesn't have 3G as widespread as EDGE, if you're using a 3G device in an area that doesn't have 3G it will use the EDGE network too. So what's the problem?

Conclusion
This is a first gen device from Apple. As with most of their first generation devices its to be considered a "Work in progress". That being said, what an AMAZING showing from Apple right out the door. Even with its flaws, Apple has raised the bar for cell phones. What the iPhone is missing can mostly be added through a software update (by way of iTunes) and the rest will come out in the next hardware update which I would hope we'd see by end of year or shortly after Macworld 2008.

I'm sold. This is an absolutely fantastic phone.

UPDATE (October '07)
I've held off updating this for a while, but I wanted to give an update. This is STILL absolutely the best phone I've ever owned. The ability to have my phone, easy access to my contacts & calendar (which is much better than my previous Motorola phones), my music AND MOVIES, as well as being able to surf the web and check email just blows me away. I've stayed away from the Blackberry/Palm Treos in the past, but it didn't take me very long to adapt to this keypad.

With the recent release of firmware 1.1.1, Apple has corrected a few minor issues and added the WiFi iTunes store. They have not addressed nearly any of the features that I listed as complaints. That being said I'm one of those users who wanted 3rd Party applications on my iPhone and haven't upgraded to 1.1.1. With the short list of additions, I wasn't compelled to do so and risk my 3rd party apps.

NOTE - There is a big difference between "unlocking" an iPhone to be used on another carrier and "jailbreaking" an iPhone to install 3rd party apps. I have an account with AT&T and will continue to stay with them.

UPDATE (January '08)
Firware 1.1.3 was just released and with it the inclusion of some very nice features. Since my previous update there had also been a 1.1.2 upgrade. At that point I restored my "jailbroken" iPhone and fell back in line. The upgrade to 1.1.3 was uncomplicated and went through smoothly. As of 1.1.2, you can now use your own custom ringtones (ie. buy them from Apple or make them yourself by renaming the .m4a file to .m4r and dropping it back into your Ringtones Library in iTunes). New features in 1.1.3 worth mentioning include the ability to manage icons on your home screen, manage multiple screens, save "Web Clippings" right to your home screen (ie. a bookmarked web site) and there have been some enhancements to Google Maps. No version 2.0 was announced at Macworld 2008 and since a new device w/ GPS (for example) would have to go through the FCC first, it doesn't appear that there will be such a device anytime soon.