Ten Reasons Why

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July 02, 2007

iPhone Review, Part I: the Pros

Dude, it's sweet!

First, some minor cool stuff.

I'm loving the keypad. Lots of reviews have griped about the on-screen keypad, but I was wailing away with two thumbs in just a few hours. The trick is to trust the software-based correction, which is really good in almost all instances. (Matter of fact, as I type this I'm griping to myself, because Movable Type isn't correcting my typos on-the-fly like the iPhone does.) The one place where the iPhone's auto-correction bites me is when I'm typing in usernames on websites. My username is frequently "gritter" which the iPhone always wants to interpret as "gritted." I'm hoping there's a way to train it or update the dictionary or something, else I'm going to curse while logging into dozens of websites.

Contacts integrate beautifully with Address Book on the Mac, and Calendar integrates wonderfully with iCal. The Alarms feature is super-easy and works well -- I've used it several times already in the last few days. YouTube and Google Maps are pretty sweet, and pretty equivalent to the user experience on the web. Actually the Google Maps experience is a little better, since it has additions to Driving Directions meant to be used while you're in the car. It's not a GPS, but it beats having to print out directions before you leave home.

The camera is better than I expected for a 2 megapixel camera. I took several photos of quickly moving toddlers at a friend's brunch this weekend, and it did a respectable job of capturing the action. I suspect in a dimly lit setting, it might be more problematic, but it's a fine camera for quick snapshots and party pics.

Most importantly, though, the iPhone just works. It's hard to explain how easy, intuitive, and natural the iPhone is.

The only way I can think to explain it is by comparison. Two weeks ago, I bought my mother a new mobile phone. Her six-year old phone had finally gotten so out-dated that AT&T told her it was no longer going to be supported on the current network. Buying a phone for a sixty-something woman who is pretty uncomfortable with technology more complex than a microwave is tough. I wound up getting a Samsung Sync, not because she needs the built-in MP3 player, camera, Bluetooth, 3G network, etc., but because it was the only affordable phone I could find with big buttons and big numbers on the display. After rebate and a new contract it was free, so she got a bunch of features she'll never use. Whatever. The thing is it took me -- a fairly technical, geeky guy -- about 30 minutes just to figure out how to add contacts into the Samsung Sync's address book, never mind figuring out any of the advanced features she'll never use anyway. I was ready to tear my hair out trying to configure her phone; I can't imagine what a painful experience it would have been for her on her own.

For that matter, I've had a Sony Ericsson T637 for the last several years, and although it (theoretically) syncs with Address Book, can surf the web via WAP, etc., I've probably used those features less in the last three years on the Sony Ericsson than I have in the last three days on the iPhone, because on the iPhone, it just works.

I was showing the iPhone around the office today, and demonstrating for Janhow to add a contact, make a call, take a photo, add the photo to the contact so it appears when someone calls, etc. All of that took 15 seconds and I'd never done any of it before (except take a photo). I asked Jan to call me from her six-month old Blackberry, so I could show her the visual voicemail (a very useful feature), and as she started she said "You'll have to wait a bit, because finding your number and calling is going to take me a good fifteen clicks." And it did.

Apple's emphasis on human-computer interaction design pays off in spades on this device. The user experience is by far the best part of the iPhone.

Tomorrow: the Cons (and, yes, there are cons).

Posted July 2, 2007 09:29 PM

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Comments by jgd3 . Posted July 7, 2007 07:36 AM

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