So I've had the
iPhone for a little over a week now, and piled up lots of usage on it. I thought I'd put together a comparison with the other PDA-phone devices on the market, as I've used or supported most of them.
Background: I've owned PDA-phones since the first
Pocket PC Phone Edition hit the market. I was hacking it with the xda-developers.com group from day one, and have owned about 10 different ones since. Before that I've owned about two dozen
Pocket PCs, a few Palms, and of course, had a Newton from the very first day it shipped. I tried a few Blackberry devices on demo but never found them useful enough to own. I support all types of PDAs in my clients' networks, connecting to Exchange, intranets, and whatever other services they use in their business. You might say I've been exposed to a few PDA devices here and there. My usage is both typical business and also geek entertainment. I read technology information and news for fun. Yes, I am that nerdy. In my business I am at a desk for part of the day and mobile for part of the day. I need to work from multiple locations or in my car, need to have easy access to client information, and manage a schedule from anywhere/any time. I need prompt e-mail access and access to intranet (CRM) applications. My most recent phone was the T-Mobile MDA, also sold as the xv6700, PPC-6700, 8125, etc. by other carriers. That was an excellent PDA-phone, one of the best made. It was upgraded to Windows Mobile 6 and had a strong complement of important add-ons such as Pocket Informant and phoneAlarm.
The first thing that struck me about the
iPhone (aside from the obvious glitz of the touchscreen) is the integration of the apps. The
Pocket PC has some app integration, and I always felt they were good. It wasn't until I used the
iPhone apps that I realized how much better it could be. There are so many little things I do many times a day in managing/contacting clients that happen so much faster on the
iPhone, both because the UI is faster and because they seem to have predicted what I would need to do. The way that I can exchange data and do typical functions from each application to other applications is a huge benefit. Like I said, the PPC did that to some extent, but now I'm realizing how much it also failed to do it, or did it in ways that require more effort.
The phone functionality of the
iPhone is absolutely top-notch. PPC-phones have commonly been criticized for "not being a great phone." I never gave that much thought until I used the
iPhone. While I will cover a few shortcomings of the
iPhone shortly, I have to say that in the phone functions I have not found a single thing to complain about. It's fast (the PPC-phones have to be dialed more slowly or you'll miss keys) and just works. The Bluetooth management is much better than on the PPC devices. I use a BT car kit and a couple of headsets. The PPC phones constantly give me issues in switching between them, sometimes even requiring a reboot. Often my car kit wouldn't pick up the phone because it was still "attached" to the headset sitting on my desk. The
iPhone ALWAYS switches to the car kit when it is on, then switches back to the headset when I turn off the car. When you make calls, if you have multiple BT devices in range, the phone will give you a selection pop-up which lets you choose your device instantly. Call quality is excellent on both the phone itself and on BT and wired headsets. There is a physical volume control on the side of the
iPhone that works for controlling the call volume, ringer volume, and media volume. It's easy to use without looking. There is also a hard mute switch next to the volume control. It's a physical on/off switch, not just a pushbutton with software control. This is a very welcome addition because it allows you to mute all sounds (turning on vibrate) without looking or even taking it out of the case.
The "visual voicemail" feature seemed like a gimmick at first, but I've already learned to depend on it. First off, since it's on the phone and you don't have to call in, you save airtime. The voicemail message is played in the same way as a media file; there's a player with a scroll bar and media controls. This means it is easy to back up/fast forward by just dragging a slider on the screen, and pause/play with buttons. Repeating a phone number several times while you make notes is SO easy with this method. When you delete a voicemail, it's not actually deleted, but placed in a "trash" box just like an e-mail. I've already used this once to get contact info that I forgot to write down, from a new potential client.
The browser is nearly as good as any desktop browser. I've yet to find a site that doesn't work. It is extremely intelligent about how it lets you display and use standard (non-mobile-specific) sites. On the PPC-phones I was constantly fighting to try to use desktop sites, usually failing. The
iPhone shows the full site with text that is too small to use, but good enough to find what you're looking for. You simply then double-tap on the are you want, and the
iPhone instantly zooms to the paragraph. This works perfectly, surprisingly, on every site I've tried. It auto-zooms right to the width of the text you have chosen, and then lets you scroll easily with a finger. The scrolling is smart; it won't randomly move the page around, but locks it into scrolling straight. You can still move the page around if you choose, and the
iPhone is smart enough to detect whether you are scrolling or moving. If you turn the phone sideways, it will immediately rotate the page view while keeping the page location and zoom setting. This is very much unlike the PPC devices. To rotate a PPC you have to manually use a button, it is slow to rotate, and often loses the place in the document. Also the rotation changes the sizing of most pages because it tells the site that the screen size has changed. The
iPhone has no quirks at all with rotation, and the rotation happens in less than 1/2 second. There is no support for Macromedia Flash, which I see as a benefit, since Flash is mostly pointless crap. However it's nearly certain that this will be added in the future, I just hope they provide a way to disable it.
The e-mail application is very nice, and it automatically synchronized all of my mail settings from my laptop. There was no configuration do to on the device itself. When I updated a mail account on the device (changed server), it automatically synchronized it back to my laptop; very useful. Mail supports POP and IMAP, with Exchange support via IMAP. I'm using IMAP on all my accounts and this works very well. I can check mail on either my laptop or
iPhone, and all changes are kept in sync. There are a few features I wish for in the mail app. The top one is having "seen/unseen" mail counts in addition to "read/unread" count. What's the difference? If I get a new mail notification I want to go look at the subject and preview of the mail, but may not want to read it immediately. I want to keep it as "unread" but want the device to consider it "seen." Then when a new e-mail comes in that should be "unseen" until I go and look at the mailbox again, and I want to know which mailboxes have unseen messages. Right now I need to tap through every box if I don't remember my previous mail count. Also the mail application uses a single set of parameters for ALL boxes, such as how often to check mail. On the
Pocket PC I had the option to check business mail frequently, personal mail less frequently, and then I also had some "miscellaneous" accounts on the device which were never checked unless I did so manually. I don't want notification on those mailboxes, or even timed checking. The mail app works very well though at both reading and sending/replying. It can display PDF and MS Office files, as well as inline images. PDF files are handled intelligently and elegantly just like web browsing, making it very easy to view them, which I do often. On the PPC, viewing a PDF is a horribly slow and painful process. Zoom and scroll would often take 5-10 seconds. On the
iPhone it is nearly instant, and much easier to do with the user interface. You cannot edit or save any files outside of the mail application, so if you need to edit Word files for example, the
iPhone won't work for you.
The SMS (text messaging) application is very nice. Again, it's one of those things that I just lived with on the PPCs, and didn't know there was another option, until I saw the
iPhone implementation of SMS. It is threaded by person, just like an IM application. In fact it looks exactly like iChat. The main screen has a list of people you've traded SMS with, and tapping a user takes you to the most recent "conversation." You can clear this when you're done, but the user stays on your list, making it easy to trade messages with that user again. On my PPC I used to keep one old message from a few of my common contacts that I sent SMS to, because it takes so long to create a new SMS to a new person on the
Pocket PC. The
iPhone does it much more intelligently and quickly. Of course the SMS app is integrated with contacts and the phone, making it easy to dial the person or view/add their contact info.
This reminds me of a missing feature on the PPC that always annoyed me greatly. The
iPhone lets you add contact info from the phone or other app to an existing contact, unlike the PPC, where you can only create a new contact. Clients and other contacts will often call or e-mail me from a new number/account, which I'd like to add to their contact card. On the PPC this was torture, on the
iPhone it's a couple taps away.
So what's not to love? Well, first off you can't add any software to the device other than web apps (which are being released daily, and are useful). This means you can't extend built-in functionality. Now, while I do want this opened up, it's also important to note that because the
iPhone does so many things so well, there is less immediate need for this. Many of the apps on my PPCs were add-ons to fix things that worked poorly in the stock implementation. However I would like to add functionality such as Pocket Informant's excellent calendar and task management. The
iPhone has no ability to cut and paste. This seems like a key missing feature, yet I've only missed it once or twice. Since the apps are so well-integrated, it's less important. One use of cut and paste on the PPC for me was pasting new info into an existing client contact, but the
iPhone has a direct way to do that quickly.
There is no search built in. This means that for items such as contacts, you have to scroll. Now, the scrolling is VERY fast and intuitive, and very effective. However because the contacts are arranged by personal names and not company names, I know I will eventually want to be able to search to find all contacts in a company, for example. There is strong rumor that Spotlight search (from Mac OS) will be added soon, and I hope that is true. It doesn't make the device unusable to not have search, but it would be helpful.
Bluetooth connectivity is limited to headsets. This means no wireless sync, and you can't use the
iPhone as a modem with your laptop. For me that's not relevant since I use an EV-DO card, but for some users it's important. On the other hand, you can pop the SIM card into a data card and use that. Speaking of which, you can put the SIM into any other GSM device and use it, allowing you to keep a spare phone around or use a cheap phone in places where your phone could be damaged, or if you simply want to carry a smaller phone. You can NOT put another SIM into the
iPhone however, though that's not really much of a limitation for most users.
Let's talk about the keyboard. Some people love it. Some hate it. I'm luke-warm on it, because it does work and works quite well. However I like handwriting recognition. I find it ironic that Apple pioneered this in the Newton, and that technology is now in use on the
Pocket PC, but the
iPhone doesn't have it. The keyboard is highly intelligent and the only difficult thing about it is mentally learning to "use The Force" and allow it to do its thing. Don't try to correct errors or even pay attention to errors, because nearly every time the keyboard will auto-correct them. It knows what key combinations are likely based on previous key entries, and will try to predict the word you are typing. It also learns things you have typed in the past, such as names. It's certainly much easier to use than those retarded Blackberry keyboards with combined keys, and slightly better than the Qwerty keyboard on some
Pocket PCs.
Another common point of confusion, FUD, and controversy is the built-in battery. Yeah, it's nice to be able to remove and replace a battery. On the other hand, very few people do. According to studies by CTIA, less than 10% of cell users ever purchase a spare/replacement battery for their phone. And because the
iPhone has VERY long battery life, carrying a spare is not really important. Also since it uses a standard iPod dock, you can use any of the hundreds of iPod power accessories such as auto/home/air chargers, add-on battery packs, etc. I've seen iPod chargers in convenience stores, grocery stores, and of course in every airport in the world. The overall life of a Lithium-Polymer battery is very long. Typical life is at least 400 FULL charge cycles, meaning draining the battery fully and recharging. If you charge more often, the life is MUCH higher. If you always recharge when you have 65% remaining or more, you can expect around 2000 charge cycles. Since I have a charger/dock in the car, and charge/sync with my laptop frequently, I've never had a problem with any PDA-phone batteries. I expect the
iPhone will be the same. In other words, this is a non-issue unless you plan to keep the device beyond 3-4 years.
Data speed...yet another major point of controversy. The
iPhone uses EDGE for data, which is an older technology that is slower than the latest ones. The real-world speeds vary between 120k and 200k per second. In comparison, a typical EV-DO or HSDPA/UMTS connection does 600k-900k per second. While this sounds like a big difference, in practical use it doesn't necessarily feel like it. When using the device, EV-DO is quite efficient for all but the most graphic-laden sites. While I would always prefer faster speeds, a lot of people with HSDPA phones are finding they get horrible battery life (I heard that from Blackjack users in particular). The
iPhone has quick, seamless, unobtrusive handoff to Wi-fi access points. Unlike the
Pocket PC, it works every time and doesn't eat up battery life. I had a three hour surfing session on Wi-fi and found that it only dropped the battery by about 25%. On my MDA, that kind of usage would use up over 50% of the battery. I also found that the MDA would often fail to roam in and out of Wi-fi converage reliably. The
iPhone does it perfectly every single time. It also locates open Wi-fi automatically and prompts you to connect, remembering your past connections and using them automatically in the future.
The screen is a thing of beauty; vibrant color, bright, and easy to see in anything from a dark room to full sunlight. Since it doesn't have a plastic layer over the glass like the pressure-sensitive (stylus-drive) screens on other devices, there is no refraction and glare in sunlight. The screen lighting self-adjusts with a light sensor, depending on the ambient light. This is a highly welcome addition. I've only seen one other PDA device with this feature, from HP, and it didn't work so reliably. The screen is made of tempered glass so it's nearly impossible to scratch. However, dropping it is obviously a big risk. All LCD screens contain glass, so that's nothing new, but with the
iPhone the glass layer is out front and unprotected. I haven't heard of a lot of breakage, but some. A few people have had what you might think would be catastrophic drops, but it has survived. The touch portion of the screen is simple brilliant. Highly intuitive, highly reliable, and very fast and easy to use. The integration of the screen gestures with the applications is not to be under-estimated; they work very well with a very high human factor. The gestures just make sense intuitively. Everything works quickly, so there is no second-guessing the device or your actions.
Alarms are a weak point. You can't snooze them, and there is no repeat function. When you create a calendar item you can set two alarm times, which is also useful, but they also should have allowed you to snooze a current alarm. And if you leave the phone behind or just don't hear it, you won't notice an alarm until you turn on the phone again and see it on the screen. There is no task management application in the
iPhone, which is another serious weakness. I certainly hope these two shortcomings are addressed promptly, either by Apple or by a third party developer once we have the ability to add apps.
Physically the
iPhone is a nice size, ergonomic, attractive, and easy to hold on to. It is slightly narrower than a 30GB video iPod, a tiny bit thinner, and taller. It will fit into a video iPod dock just fine. The included
iPhone-specific dock has sync and audio ports, as well as openings for the speakers which are located at the bottom of the phone. Speaking of which, they are very good, more than loud enough, and are naturally positioned for using your hand to redirect the sound towards you. The sync system works very well, just like iPod sync, and is compatible with existing USB sync cables. While I've found the PPC's ActiveSync to work pretty well, it does give me a minor problem at least once a week. Some people have had major problems with ActiveSync. So far I haven't heard of any issues with the iTunes sync system.
The
iPhone is an iPod, obviously. It does everything your 8GB Nano could do, plus a bit more. Of course it fades and pauses your media when you are on a phone call. It plays video very well, with no glitches, and the large, bright screen is great for video and photos. There is a nice photo album app built in, and you can automatically sync your photos. If you use iPhoto, everything works seamlessly between it and the
iPhone. You can sync your video library or specific selections, just like you can with music and photos. While the
iPhone works with the iPod integration kit in my car, it's not perfect. It functions just fine, but each time I remove the
iPhone from the car it "forgets" what I was last listening to when I return. It does remember it when I leave the car, allowing me to continue listening on headphones, but when I get back in the car it starts from the top. Not a show-stopper but it would be nice to have it be more seamless. I believe this is more an issue with my car stereo (which was one of the very first with iPod integration, and doesn't even handle Podcasts properly). If you have a car integration system you should be aware of this and test it thoroughly during your return period to see if it works for your needs.
The headphones/headset included with the
iPhone lets you listen to music in stereo as well as calls. It's a decent set of headphones, not great but not bad, and includes a microphone/button for use with the phone. The button is multi-function, allowing you to accept and reject calls, switch between calls, and pause/fast-forward your music. The button is easy to use without looking or thinking about it, unlike the button on my PPC headset.
Click here to continue to part two:
http://pdaphonehome.com/forums/apple...tml#post639422
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