I Love my iPhone

This Christmas several of my friends and colleagues have gotten iPhones. A few are people like me that had very simple phones, or in one case no cell phone at all (yes, really, no cell phone at all).  I want to share what I know about my iPhone because I really love it, and people can take or leave the info. 

Tonight I got an email from a friend requesting advice on my iPhone.  Did I like it? Did I do a lot of email, etc.  So, this will help formulate my response to her, and finally get me posting about it.

My Phone History

Prior to my iPhone I was using a $15 AT&T phone from Radio Shack.  It was my temporary phone until I got my iPhone. I was given good advice to wait until the 3G phone came out before purchasing.  My old Nokia phone was unusable.  I had dropped or thrown it too many times and could not read the screen. No, I didn’t throw it because I was mad, it would just randomly fly out of my hand, or fall out of my pocket.  So, I was nervous about having a fancy phone but couldn’t resist.  So, about a month after the new 3G phone came out, I went to the Apple store thinking there would be no wait, and well, there was a wait.  They were handing out place holder cards, but they were only for the 16gig phone.  I only wanted the 8gig.  I mean, I was upgrading from a $15 phone that was working quite well.

The Apple Store Experience

So, I called around, found another store, not too far away who had them in stock so I immediately went.  The store is really small, the line was out the door. I promptly asked the sales person managing the line if this was going to be a 2 hour ordeal.  She said, no. It looks like you will get helped within 10 or 15 minutes. She did not lie.  Within a few minutes the first salesperson did my quick background check to make sure I was eligible for the AT&T upgrade. That was nice, because if I wasn’t I wouldn’t have wanted to wait in that line!  Then, a few minutes later, I get the next guy with his hand-held cash register who brought me my phone and activated it. I asked him how difficult it would be to synch up my Outlook information: contacts, calendar and email. I am a PC user, not a MAC user and definitely had my concerns about Outlook.  He asked if I had iTunes. I said yes.  He said to just plug it in and it would work.  I was shocked.  No way would it be that easy.  I was out of that store in less than 20 minutes walking around the outdoor mall with my shiny new toy!

I would say my experience at the Apple store was stellar! I haven’t been that impressed in a long time. I have visted since, and am always helped with very knowledgeable people who are eager to assist.

Synching with Outlook

I went home, took a picture of a friend who happened to be in my kitchen when I returned like a child on Christmas morning.  When he calls me, his picture pops up.  I had learned this and a few other little tricks from another friend who gave me a demo the Christmas before.  It was that demo that made me lust after other’s iPhones until I got my own. I was so excited to actually have a phone with a camera, not to mention GPS, email, etc.   So, I opened up iTunes, plugged in my phone, and lo and behold, it updated iTunes to accomodate the iPhone. I can’t remember now if it asked me any questions, but if it did, they were very straightforward, and within minutes it was synching all 400 of my contacts, not to mention my appointments. 

I set up email shortly after. That was not difficult, once I found my password. With Outlook it automatically logs me into my email server, so I have to look up my password whenever I do anything like this. I was able to get my SMTP and POP addresses from Outlook.  It allowed me to do multiple email accounts, so I could have my business account and my gmail account.

The one disappointment is that it doesn’t automatically synch my tasks. I need my tasks. I will eventually pay for an add-in application to get my tasks, but I am not willing to do that yet.

I do not use the Mobile Me that synchs to Outlook automatically. I didn’t want to pay yet more money. My email gets downloaded to my iPhone, but if I add an appointment to Outlook, it does not automatically go to the iPhone.  So, I usually synch once a day through iTunes to make sure I don’t miss any appointments.

Email

I do like having email on my phone and use it quite a bit. I’m not great at the typing, and don’t know if I ever will be.  I guess that’s good — shorter messages. The feature that fixes mistakes and guesses what you are trying to type works well, and I’m getting better at working with that. From what I hear from others, Blackberry keypads seem to be a little more efficient.  Reading email is nice, except some don’t wrap text within the screen, so scrolling from left to right can be a hassle.  I’m not sure why that happens with some email. I’m guessing it’s the format in which they are created.

I did have one major problem a few months ago where my “other” items on my phone were bloated to the point that I lost over 50% of the space. I had to uninstall and reinstall everything. I was pointed in the right direction by a very helpful person tech person at the Apple Store, but it did take me awhile to figure out how to fix it.  I haven’t had the problem since.  I did LOVE being able to bring it in and get help within 10 minutes.

Yes, I love my iPhone!  More to come soon.