iPhone impressions

I wrote this entire piece in the Notes app of my iPhone. Not too bad
for a notepad, huh?
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It is Thursday morning and I am up playing with this delicious piece
of hardware known all over the world as the Apple iPhone and I feel no
shame. This may sound strange to all the Nokia fans out there but it
is the honest truth, and I am sorry if my actions reflect the worst of
blatant hypocrisy. At the end of the day last night I realized what so
many others have already found out on June 29th: cool tech is cool
tech no matter how you slice it.
True, this iPhone may not champion all of the bells and whistles of
the Nokia E90 and N95 (which are sitting off to the side right now),
but it doesn't need them at all. The glitz and glam of the interface
that I complained about before is exactly what is drawing me to this
phone. This attraction is not entirely about the look of this machine,
but also about its inner workings...I mean let's be honest, this
iPhone isn't being run by any mediocre operating system. In other
words I've got egg on my face and both feet in my mouth.

Let me start off by mentioning where I stand with Nokia so that I may
clear the air. It's a wonderful company that has released some
worthwhile gadgets in the past and present and most likely in future,
and I truly believe this. There was just a point when my loyalty to
Nokia began to wear thin along with my patience, and having this
device in my hand is a result of that. No matter how amazing the
features would be on paper and in person there was no getting around
the fact that Nokia is natively all about PC support.

For a good stretch of time I overlooked this issue and forced certain
devices to play nice with my Mac and never saw one problem with it.
All of a sudden this harmonic utopia was disturbed by an occurrence of
sync glitches in the iCal application, and I was ticked. At the time
of downloading iSync plug-ins from Nokia Europe I knew that I was
taking a big risk in accepting possible complications with my MacBook
Pro, but I still chose to keep the faith. So when these glitches of
ignored appointments and duplicated events started happening I was for
sure pissed off at the inconvenience and tried in vain to find a
solution. It got to the point where I threw my hands into the air and
resigned myself to uploading Windows XP to work with the Nokia PC
Suite. I am sorry but for the amount of money I pay for these phones I
believe that seamless Mac integration is not asking too much. Although
syncing my Nokias via XP worked out, there was an underlying sense of
irritation at having to "bend" to the will of these Nokias. Customers
with Macs should be considered as top priority right along with the PC
customers, but I feel that often that is not the case at all. Going
from one incompatible device to the next really began to get old
despite the many beneficial features that came with them. For the
longest time it seemed that Palm Treos were the main game in town when
it came to Mac synchronization, and I grew tired of this notion. But
even though I took the time to do work arounds to get these great
machines to function with my Mac as a team, I ended up hitting the
brick wall of failure once again. This feeling is what I felt when
that E90 no longer wanted to work with the iSync app on my Mac. To add
insult to injury after dropping my E90 on a 4 mile run, I ordered the
small N95 as a secondary phone only to be under whelmed by its quality.
As I held the N95 I got this sickening feeling that I was about to
settle for mediocrity with yet another handset that is not fully
compatible with my computer, and I didn't like it one bit. I
configured the settings of the N95 to the fullest extent and completed
a sync with the E90, but something did not feel right. Even as I took
snapshots with the 5 megapixel camera and surfed through the neat
menus with animated icons I still could not settle with the phone. At
that point I could have gone back to my E90, but I was so fed up with
the whole Nokia situation that I needed to have a drastic change. It
was at that moment when my memory of the iPhone had come back to me.
Immediately I threw caution to the wind and drove to the Apple store
with a most humble heart, and here I am with the same machine that I
had previously given so much grief. With utmost admittance of my
hypocritical ways I hereby declare that this iPhone is indeed a jewel of
innovative technology.

Aside from the obvious draw of the interface and design I am also
taken by the functionality of what is included in this sleek package.
For example I shall mention a phone call I had to make to my
dealership: I had no idea when the first appointment for my VW Jetta
was scheduled and was not certain if I would get a reminder. I needed
to contact the local VW dealer but did not have a number handy, so in
the past I would have called 411 on the phone or checked the yellow
pages. Not with the iPhone! I instinctively knew to access the Maps
app and then do a search on Greenbrier VW. A red tack landed on the
exact location of the dealership and displayed its name. Upon tapping
the name I was brought to an information screen providing the number,
address and website URL. Tapping the number instantly connected me to
the receptionist and I was helped right away!! Now could I have done
this with the Nokia E90 or N95? ABSOLUTELY NOT!

Another discovery made about this phone involves my need to write
blogs and poetry on the phone. With Nokia I have been accustomed to
working with the Quickoffice word application and assumed the iPhone
could not meet my needs...I was wrong. With the help of a friend I
learned that the Notes application can be used as a basic text edit
feature in which I can write to my heart's content! Right now I am
writing this entire piece in Notes on my iPhone and there doesn't seem
to be any word limit. Once I complete an entry I can then email it to
myself and then copy and paste the text into my blogs or a word
document!! I shall test this out after finishing this piece tonight.

So far this iPhone is an impressive example of innovative technology
never seen before on any gadget. At first I had dismissed the multi-
touch feature as just a throwback to the days of Palm and Sony
Ericsson, but it is LIGHT YEARS away from that! Bluetooth features I
had relied on with my Nokia to transfer pics, movies and docs are no
longer needed since media syncing now occurs in iTunes. As of now I
cannot say that I miss any of the extra features of the Nokias to the
point where I'd want to return this iPhone. As I type this and listen
to the crisp audio of the built-in iPod in the background with my
earbuds, I finally have a sense on contentment and peace. Unlike the
Nokias this has demonstrated seamless compatibility with my MacBook
Pro with every item of personal data ranging from contacts to Internet
bookmarks to calendar entries. No need for any kind of extra software
or plug-in to make devices play nice with one another...everything
just works as it should without question! Not only does this iPhone
shatter my own expectations and performs flawlessly, but it does so
with an immense "cool" factor that dominates every Apple product.
Though I may have been devoted to Nokia and Sony Ericsson and other
brands at one point in my past, I am happy to be back with Apple once
again as a satisfied customer, former employee and indebted fanboy.

This shall be the end of my rant for now.


TRENT
Sent from my iPhone