For all you technology geeks (or just Jon Jolly mainly), I have an announcement; I’ve spent 20 minutes playing with the coveted iPhone. Or, to be more accurately; Rosie and I spent 20 minutes playing with some iPhones. In Worthing. On launch day. On the way back to Littlehampton we took a de-tour to o2’s shop in Worthing and were given a guided tour round all it’s features.
And what’s to report? Well, it’s a lot sleeker than you could possibly imagine. It’s also fair to say that it looks a lot better in the flesh (hmm….perhaps the wrong word) than it does in photos. Who, however, cares about aesthetics? It’s the insides that make this phone special. Is it as a good as Apple make out? No.
Google maps doesn’t support the ‘Hybrid’ mode.It’s only a small thing, but really useful for navigation
The sensors worked (at least on the demonstration model) in geographical time
Safari gets confused by any embedded YouTube video (thank you to www.jonjolly.com who I used as the test sight and who’s owner will be looking through his stats to see if he can find the iPhone visit)
The screen required a firmer touch than you’d think.
EDGE data transfer is slooooooooooow and is made worse by multiple iPhone’s trying to reach it at the same time. D’oh!
However, it’s not all bad. As with any Apple product the integration is nothing short of amazing. It gets particular kudos for it’s iPod functionality (not surprising). It also gets kudos for the way it deals with email, with a special mention to attachments; On the demo iPod i could open an industry standard word document (that included pictures) with no problems. Though by far and away the most amazing thing is simple multi-touch. Being able to ‘expand’ and ‘pinch’ is astonishing.
So, where do I sit now on the iPhone debate? I have to admit I was a little underwhelmed by the device. The inner cynic in me spent a while going through the devices that Apple + o2 had put in place in order to generate a buzz. It, after all, was a very slick and planned launch using every tactic possible to get people to part with their cash. Not me though. Not yet. Using one slightly put me off the idea of buying. Compared to the other touch phones it’s leagues (we also tried an LG Viewty today) ahead but I can’t get over the one big issue:
Before anything else a phone needs to be a phone and, sadly, the iPhone isn’t that. It’s iPod, then PDA, then internet communicator and then phone.
