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Thread: iPhone 3G

  1. #1
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    iPhone 3G

    Anyone get one yet? Opinions?
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    I haven't upgraded from my first-gen iPhone, but I'm enjoying the heck out of the new APP store. It's like having a new phone again...only more and better.

    A coworker did get the new iPhone, and I was able to hold it. Lighter, and slightly wider. Looks good.

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    Thanks Squidly. Now that my travels are over - I can get to important matters like what my next cell phone will be .

    My Sprint contract has expired and I'm seriously thinking of switching to AT&T for this phone. It's a tough call, because the 3G network is not available in my area, whereas I think Sprint's high speed network is. The 2 yr cost when you add up contract and capital is about the same for the iPhone and Sprint's me-too version, with AT&T being a bit higher. I get the impression that the iPhone is the better phone, but that AT&T is the lesser network.

    One thing that I don't get: why did Apple switch from metal and hardened glass to plastic? Is this cost savings, or is this a product improvement? Glass tends to not scratch, but I'm neverous about this plastic screen. Any data/reviews on the screen resilience?
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    Front is the same - hardened glass. back was changed to all-plastic for reasons of improved reception for the 3G and GPS. Signals don't penetrate metal as well, etc.

    The software store (many FREE apps!) and the user interface make the iPhone a clear win over anything Sprint is offering. 3G coverage is one thing, WIFI is another option in many places (including, for most people, their own home and place of work.)

    That said, I've downloaded and installed new apps over Edge and it was fine.

    I think PC world did a series of drop-tests/scratch tests on the 3G iPhone.

    http://www.pcworld.com/video/id,852-...d,0/video.html

  5. #5
    Loved By All [AK]Choozoo's Avatar
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    you could probably pick up an EDGE iPhone pretty cheap right now (eBay), then upgrade to the 3G when you're area is upgraded.

    I might get one just for everything but calls, as my iPod is on the way out...
    good development testbed too
    **I just have nothing cool enough to put here**

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    I looked into doing just that Chooz. My thought was to pick up a Gen1 iPhone on the cheap and jailbreak it for use on my Sprint network. But the eBay prices on Gen 1 phones are obscenely high right now, so decided to pass.
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    Well I pulled the trigger and ordered a 16GB 3G this week. It should be here in 10 to 20 days (which means a month I assume).

    It was an interesting shopping excersize - apparently I'm the only guy in the history of that store to have prepared a comparison chart showing the 2 year cost of the different options (and the different providers). I had 3 store employees ignoring their other duties for 20 minutes to study this. What? Do most people just buy stuff based on color? The 2 year cost is the only valid comparison, since the contract lasts 2 years on most of the plans.

    Anyway, I'm pretty stoked! The more I think about it, the more amazing this little doo-dad seems to me. It's a GPS/HighRez Media Player/Wi-Fi/programable palmtop computer/Camera/bluetooth/4-band Phone all in the palm of your hand.

    The Apps opens so many doors it's amazing. There's one where you can hold it up to a radio, and it'll listen to the song, cross check some on-line database, and tell you the song/author/etc.

    For hunters, you can take a picture of your favorite spot, it'll date it and GPS log the coordinates you were standing on for finding it again (supposedly at least - for me this was a big deal, and why I didn't want one that just works on cell-tower triangluation but has an actual GPS chip in it).

    There's a voice-to-text feature (called Jott) in there that syncs with your calander, so supposedly you can just say reminders into it, and you're done, it'll put them on your calander. (We'll see how well that actually works).

    With the GPS you can download an App (called Box Office) that will tell you the local movie times wherever you are - along with directs on how to get to that theater.
    Etc, etc, etc. The posibilities with this thing are amazing.

    I'm an engineer, and so love RPN calculators. Those are hard to find, and usually cost $60 minimum (for a cheapy). Or, turn my iPhone into one w/ an app.

    Through your wifi, there's an app (Called Apple Remote) that lets you access your PC's HDD in such a way that rather than being 16 GB MP3 player, it's a 250 GB MP3 player (if you have that much on your desktop that is).

    From a hardware standpoint, I wonder if I can make it into a modem and so use my home computer or laptop access through the 3G network? (probably not on a non-jailbroken phone I bet, but would be interesting to explore).

    I'd like to put a simple spreadsheet and workprocessor on it - maybe an OpenOffice Lite or something, and plug in an external keyboard. Wallah, who needs a laptop anymore? (Doubt you can do this yet though). I'd like to be able to sync w/ my home PC's Calander program (e.g. Outlook).


    I can't wait to see what they replace this thing with in 2 years - it just doesn't seem you can get any more amazing. And then they surprise you yet again. Stay tuned for my upcomeing "duuuude, I just dropped my iPhone " thread!
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    My favorite apps so far are:

    Pandora - Fantastic free music application.

    Shazam - Works flawlessly, every time. Then when you have a song, you can hit one button to buy it from iTunes, or another to play a related video from Youtube.

    Texas Holdem - GREAT game. Fantastic production values. The best poker game on any platform, based solely on playability.

    MLB At Bat. Get live results and video clips (new ones uploaded as they happen, and great performance even on Edge.)

    Twitteriffic/Twinkle - Front ends for Twitter. They work great.

    Jott - Works almost like magic. Your recording is sent to a team in India that transcribes it. Seriously.

    ToDo - By http://www.appigo.com. Todo list that interfaces with a web component. Built your list online with a real keyboard, then sync it with your iPhone. Or add items on your iPhone and sync it back. Works with Toodledo, which made it an auto-buy for me.

  9. #9
    Lurking Moar Slaughter's Avatar
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    White or Black 16gb?

    Your "I just dropped my iPhone" thread will consist of "and the plastic got gouged something awful". <3 Metal casing on EDGE iPhone (of course they say that the plastic casing on the 3g is better for reception).
    lol, <3

    Retired EQ, WoW Player.

  10. #10
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    Scratches, like wrinkles are inevitable. If it bothers you, buy one of they myriad cases available.

    More good Apps:

    "Crosswords" - By 'Standalone Inc.' Great crossword game.

    "Units" - FANTASTIC, must have utility. Convert any measure. Time, volume, currency, area, length, speed, energy...wow...

    "Wordpress" - For bloggers

    "Evernote" - Save (and have transcribed) audio, text, or photos. Take a picture of a whiteboard and it'll be transcribed for you.

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    "Units" Good catch - I'll be sure to add that one to my list. Evernote sounds interesting - So with this, do you just write something by hand on paper and take a picture w/ the camera and it'll automatically convert that to text?? Wow. I've attached a simple PC version I use at work - love it. (rename it to .exe to run it. It's self contained, so no installation)

    How reliable is Jott btw? Is there a "training" period for it to learn your voice? I assume you were joking about it going to India!

    For phone protection, the film you put over the front of the glass works great. It prevents scratches nicely and the optical clarity is perfect - Beaker has one on her iTouch. I'll be getting a 3 pack of those babys. As to the case - normally I'm not a fan of those leather/plastic cases that people put their phones in as it just makes stuff bulky. But I may get one anyway - that big piece of glass just seems fragile. I plan on carrying this thing with me everywhere, and I do drop things.
    Attached Files Attached Files
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  12. #12
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    The idea behind Evernote is...you're in a meeting. You're writing tons of stuff on a whiteboard. You take a picture of it, and it not only transcribes the words, but converts them into tags for searching later on.

    Also your notes, or if you're on the road, street signs, etc.

    Jott really does send your message to India to be transcribed. It is very reliable and almost always correct. If something is unintelligable, they put [..] around that spot. You also get a copy of the audio file so you never lose your note.

    Go to the website and read up on it... there is a regular phone number you can call to Jott, as well. You can set up email addresses. Then you can call the number, say a code name of the person you want to mail, then start talking. when you're done, an email is sent with the audio file and the transcript. Rocks.

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    Well it’s in – I love it! Just the way it fits in your hand, and up against your ear when talking just exudes perfect fit and comfort – and quality. As a basic phone, it’s quite good. Sound quality is there, reception blows away what I was getting with Sprint. This phone gets signal in my basement, which just amazes me.

    The philosophy of design on thing is so cutting edge ahead of the game it’s incredible. Attention to the little things is so well thought out – for example, when you dial a number, it starts calling of course, and you see the screen. Put the phone up to your ear, and the accelerometer knows it, so it turns off the screen, move the phone off your ear to look at the screen mid-conversation, and the accelerometer knows it and turns the screen back on. Saves power (and heat) and works beautifully. The whole design is full of little things like that – very well thought out phone. If you’re an engineer, check out the built-in calculator. Just a basic calculator, until you turn the phone sidewise, and with the wider view automatically turns into a scientific calculator. Just neat.

    The part iPod works well, music sound is excellent. Apparently the first generation iPhone had issues here – this one is flawless. The interface is great as well.

    I love the way it sync’s up to iTunes. On the computer it’s mostly Beakers music, but very easy to dump only what I want into my iPhone, and leave the rest. The way it sync’s up w/ my contacts and schedule in Outlook is very handy.

    A lot of people gripe about the camera – I think it works great. Certainly the best cell phone camera I’ve ever had.

    The built in GPS coupled with Google maps is crazy. I was watching my blip overlayed on the satellite image on the highway system driving into work today. Totally awesome. I’d like to be able to use it as more a basic GPS (w/ coordinates, altitude, speed, time to destination, waypoints, etc), but don’t know how to do that. I might have to download an app for that, not sure.

    I haven’t even played with downloading apps for it yet – the built in stuff is just so cool most of what you need is already covered.

    An interesting thing is the cost. At $300 capital, that’s a steal. They get the rest out of you w/ the 2 year contract. But if you compare it with Sprint, it’s not a whole lot more. Basically, with the iPhone you are forced to pay $30/mo more for the data plan, but otherwise I think the costs are the same as any other AT&T phone. The fact we get a corporate discount due to who I work for doesn’t hurt, so the monthly cost for switching up to the iPhone isn’t that bad – it’s worth it to me at least. The part I find most irksome is that they don’t include texting w/ the data plan. Come on AT&T, that’s just overt greed and annoying.

    There are a couple downers. The battery life isn’t so hot. I drained it less than one 8hr day in the office just playing around w/ it and checking my e-mails as time allowed. Apparently on an iPhone cable works with it – even though Beakers iTouch is basically the same device with the same looking cable that fits, the phone won’t charge up with the iTouch cable. The EDGE network is pretty slow – I’m not so impressed with my $30/mo value for the data package I was forced to buy. Mostly that’s because there’s no 3G network in my area – and probably won’t be for a while. Still, it is pretty cool to be able to surf and e-mail from anywhere.

    Conclusion – loving it. When your current contract expires, replace it w/ an iPhone.
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    Will you please stop watching your phone while driving to work.

    I prefer you watch the road!

    Or maybe I should just get better life insurance on you.

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    So now that I've had my iPhone 3G for a few months and the shine has worn off a bit, here's what I think:

    There's a lot of good - but there is also a lot of bad with this phone:


    The good:

    I still very much like the phone. You almost can't even call it just a phone, it's more of a personal-everything device. I:
    • watch movies,
    • play games,
    • listen to music,
    • text,
    • manage email,
    • surf,
    • talk,
    • GPS navigate,
    • take pictures,
    • use it as my office calculator,
    • Use it as my travel alarm clock,
    • Use it in rifle matches as my timer

    - you name it, I do everything on this phone.

    Sound great right? Well there's also...

    The bad
    AT&T SUCKS.
    When they say no roaming, what you think that means is no fees for roaming. What it really means, is there's no roaming. At the inlaws - everyone else's (other plan) cell phone works. Neither my iPhone nor the wife's normal phone can get a reliable signal.

    Sometimes it'll tell you no signal, so you powercycle, and look, now you have 4 bars??

    On a work bus coming back from a trip - through urbania so you know there are plenty of towers- none of our AT&T phones get reliable service. It'll sometimes even say 4 bars, but the conversation is just dropping out. You don't know when the conversation drops out - you just hear a long silence and assume the other person is being thoughtful. Had I known AT&T was going to be this bad - man I don't know if I would have gotten this phone - as amazing as it is. Let me say it again - AT&T SUCKS. A cell phone that you can't reliably make calls from ain't so useful.


    The iPhone is not rock solid reliable. It'll lock up. And since you can't get to the battery - there's not a thing you can do about it. It'll lock up for 20 minutes sometimes before it'll reset itself. Not too impressive there. I wouldn't say it does it a lot - but it does it a couple times a month - enough to be highly annoying.

    The safari web browser is unstable. It crashes - a lot. Particularly on graphics heavy pages. There are some sites I can only surf for about 20 seconds before bam - safari crashes and I'm back to the desktop. Even more annoying, you can't spawn new pages from links - so when surfing the AK forums - I have to navigate down to where I want to be, then navigate all the way back up before I can move on to the next thread of interest. Weak.

    Also, remember the world famous Apple Advertisement during the Superbowl in the 80's where the drones were stuck staring at the man - given no options in life? And the heroin runs through and smashes the screen the sledge hammer? Yea, well the guy on the screen now is Apple. Everything is Apple's way or the highway. If you want to transfer music to/from you phone - you're only option is iTunes. And iTunes doesn't work on Linux. The Apps rock, but all apps must be pre-screened and approved by Apple. Someone made a pretty handy ballistics bullet drop calculator for an iPhone - but you can't get it because apparently Apple thinks only Terrorists would be interested in that.

    The GPS is fantastic - BUT, you have to be connected to a data signal to use it. It doesn't store even rudimentary maps - so if you're deep in the woods, yea, you get a GPS signal - located on a grid that doesn't move. A blinking blue dot isn't' that useful on an empty grey background. I was hoping to use the GPS to help me navigate on my international travels; where data access is expensive in the extreme - and unreliable. Is there some kind of App out there that comes with pre-built basic maps I can use for that? Otherwise the GPS usefulness just took a real hit.

    Battery life is attrocious. I regularly drain it to 0 in less than an 8 hr day. Mostly this is because the GPS and data connections suck up a lot of juice.


    Conclusion
    If I lost my iPhone tomorrow would I get another one? you bet! And I'd pay over $500 to do it w/out batting an eye - it's that amazing.

    When someone finally makes something as good as an iPhone and it's not on the horrible AT&T network will I switch. You bet!

    One thing I didn't mention is cost. I personally think the price of the phone and the plan is fair - for what you get. I'm mostly annoyed with the poor connection service reliability. Did I mention AT&T sucks?
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