Now that it ’s been out for a weekend , the heavily - hyped iPhone has been in the hands of other adopter for a few day now — admit my own . After some show - stop activation problems that were later on settle , I ’ve been using my iPhone for 48 hour now . While my colleagues and I will be weigh in over the rest of this workweek with feature - by - feature film report on the iPhone — check out what Christopher Breen had to say about the iPhone ’s music and television features — here are some early impressions — what I care and what could be meliorate .
The iPhone as a phone
for certain , it has iPod and Web - surfing capability , but at its warmness , the iPhone is a phone — that capability is properly there in the intersection name . These day , speech sound are everywhere . Still , it ’s not a given that a company is going to bring on a in effect phone ; consider me , I ’ve had my percentage of clunkers , and I ’m guessing you have , too .
Problems with telephone move up when phone God Almighty become so concerned with putting lineament into a gadget , they blank out that we actually want to make sound calls with it , first and foremost . I ’m glad to say that Apple seems to have debar that pitfall by getting the phone part right .
I ’ve babble to several people on the phone using my Jawbone Bluetooth heaadset , the iPhone speakerphone and the handset itself . All worked hunky-dory for me — I could hear them well and they could hear me just fine .
The Bluetooth connection was superb . I was capable to take the air farther out from my iPhone using a Bluetooth headset than I could with any other phone before it . sync Bluetooth machine was very easy , too — just make a twist ascertainable and the iPhone immediately get hold it .
Making a call using the iPhone ’s onscreen dialpad
get a smart phone means to me that eastward - mail should be easygoing to jell - up , incur and interact with . Apple did a good business with the built - in Mail app in many respects , but there is some room for improvement here .
First the good : Apple made localize up e - mail bill as loose as can be — if an story is on your Mac ’s Mail program , you’re able to sync everything to the iPhone . That admit all of the options — watchword , smtp server , and vitamin E - mail addresses .
If you have an report that is n’t in your Mail app , you may localize it up on the iPhone manually . If you are setting up Gmail , Yahoo , AOL or .Mac , it ’s even wanton to set up . You type in your username , password and the name you want chain armor to hail from , and the iPhone has everything else it demand .
The aspect of item-by-item e - ring armor is unmatched on any twist I ’ve attend . They see frizzy and clear , and most messages are very quick to load , even if they have small bond or pictures , which show up inline .
So where does Mail go down down ? From my weekend of use , in a duad of ways . First , larger messages take a really foresightful metre to load . It would be skillful to have an option to confine how self-aggrandising subject matter get downloaded from the host so you may put a limit on it .
The thing that really got me about Mail is that every account is frame-up with a freestanding Inbox . There does n’t seem to be a way to see all incoming message in one large mailbox . This is really very important , specially if you are going to add several e - postal service accounts . the right way now , to see if you ’ve get down chain armour , you go to the explanation page ; see which accounts have post and bug on one ; tap on the Inbox ; and there you will see your unread messages .
Now if you have unread message in another account , you have to back all the way out to the accounts varlet and reprize the process with every account that has content . That ’s just a barren of time .
It would be overnice to have one primary Inbox that could be used to view all newfangled messages . You should still have access to the individual boxes , but get the principal Inbox would save a lot of metre and effort . It would make reading messages a one - tap process .
Another thing omit from Mail is the ability to note all message as read . In Holy Order to get free of the read naming on the iPhone , you actually have to look at each message — again , a metre destroyer if you have already read the messages on your computer . Why should you have to go through the message on the phone and mark them show on an individual basis ?
Wi-Fi networks and EDGE
I hear a lot about how the EDGE connection was n’t good enough and how this could be a major downfall for the iPhone . I just do n’t agree with that at all .
I ’ve been using EDGE on my BlackBerry for the last span of years and I have no problem with it at all . Would it be nice to have faster speed ? Sure , it always is .
When I ’m not near a Wi - Fi connection , I ’ll gladly habituate EDGE to grab my e - mail and surf to whatever connection site I need to go to . Many multitude that blame up the iPhone would n’t have used boundary before because the phones they had either did n’t support it , or it was so difficult to setup , they did n’t bother . Being capable to get your e - mail anytime you want is something you get used to really fast .
One thing about entering a password to join a Wi - Fi internet : You ca n’t actually see what you ’re typecast on the iPhone ’s onscreen keyboard . or else , the password you typewrite in is picture in asterisks ( * ) for security purposes . I ’d like there to be an choice that lets you see the password you ’re type to join a web . With long password — specially those that are a jumble of numbers game and symbols — it ’s comfortable to lose rails of just what you typed .
One day , we shall all typecast with two thumbs , as Jim Dalrymple can
The keyboard and predictive typing
I ’ll be honest : The prospect of a buttonless , keyboardless earphone terrified me . As a BlackBerry user , I ’m used to typecast very tight — trust me I can type fast on those little keyboard .
So I had my worries about an onscreen keyboard , namely that it would kill my experience on the iPhone . Turns out I was wrong — the keyboard is great and the predictive typing is even good .
I picked up the iPhone and start out typing with two thumbs right away . Honestly , I made quite a few mistakes , but it ’s all in what you get used to . I ’m getting the tone of the keyboard and how my thumb have to tilt and where they need to hit the screen to tapdance the correct letters .
When I do make mistakes , I just keep typing—99 percent of the time the predictive typewriting feature come up with the proper give-and-take . ( And when it does , bump off the space bar , and it will magically appear in your text edition . )
More to come
That ’s just some fast idea on a few lineament . There ’s plenty more for me and myMacworldcolleagues to talk about . But at this early phase , for me , the iPhone is definitely inhabit up to its early plug .
[ Jim Dalyrmple is Macworld.com ’s news director . ]
