Continue reading »]]> FYI: Leave it installed. Otherwise you’ll spend 20 minutes trying to figure out why your iPhone/iPod/iTouch won’t sync or kick into charge mode. A little more important than say, Bonjour.

Which btw, is a completely useless discovery protocol that CAN be safely deleted off your Window’s network as long as you don’t run anything related to Mac OS X or a handful of applications like Tivo desktop.

Continue reading »]]> After some AT&T account juggling I was finally able to secure a discounted iPhone. It arrived yesterday (8 day direct fullfillment order) and after waiting in line at the local AT&T store for 90 minutes last night, I got my paws on this marvelous little piece of technology.

24 hours later and I’m still pretty impressed with it. I had a bit of trouble getting it to authenticate with the 3G network but a SIM card swap-out this morning fixed whatever was causing the problem. I obviously haven’t had a chance to really dig into it but there are a few things I’ve noticed immediately:

• Battery life
  Yea, 3G does kill the battery with any sort of prolonged ‘net usage. I’ve made a couple of setting changes that hopefully will extend it’s daily battery life: turned off real-time push (I’ve set my Exchange account to sync every 30 minutes instead), turned off my wireless card (no reason to have it on unless I’m sitting under an active AP that I want to connect to), and surprisingly enough, I’ve turned off 3G. Why you ask? Well the iPhone falls back on the EDGE network and for the routine email and application sync – the slower EDGE speeds are fine.

  If I want turbo mode I can always turn 3G back on while I’m actively web browsing, etc. It’ll be interesting to see how these changes affect my daily battery life. A lot of people are hoping the current issues are just faulty software/firmware due to an unpolished OS release by Apple trying to meet their release deadlines in time. I’ve heard rumor that a 2.1 update is coming soon so we’ll see if anything improves on the battery front when it goes live.

• Coverage
  With such a slim hardware package, I’m not surprised the internal antenna isn’t as sensitive as the Blackjacks, etc. Remember – there’s [Bluetooth 2.0], [802.11b/g wireless], [UMTS/HSDPA], [GSM/EDGE], and an assisted GPS chip all stuffed in a case that’s only .48 inches deep. Compared to my Treo at .75 inches, it looks like I average 1-2 bars less in the same week signal locations (like my loft) but I haven’t noticed any phone call quality issues yet, even with reduced signal strength.
• Case design
  So far, my only beef with the actual case design is due to my large hands – I feel like I’m about to drop it anytime I pick it up. I think a case cover will add some grip to it and will take care of my apparent clown hands. By-the-way, the fingerprint smudges might bug some users but it is a touch driven device so I expect it to get the occasional greasy, dirty, [Dorito] stained fingerprint on it. Nothing a quick rub-down with the included shammy won’t fix.

My friend David put his [intial review of the new 3G iPhone] up a couple weeks ago. David started off with the original iPhone so I can understand how the 2.0 version might have some quirks to it. But I’m fresh to the iPhone scene so we’re starting from different baselines.

Anyway, as of this afternoon I have my corporate Exchange 2003 emails syncing, my pop account syncing, some freeware 3rd party apps installed, a decent 3G/EDGE signal and more importantly – my wife thinks the voice quality on the iPhone is better than my old Treo and infinately better than my HP iPaq (the HP was horrible – every phone call sounded like my mouth was full of jello).

Continue reading »]]> So I’m hooked. I gotta get the new [iPhone 2.0]. Problem is, every store in Atlanta is sold out and nobody has a clue when the next shipment will arrive. I had a shot on Saturday but missed the last one by 15 minutes so now I’m going crazy from [instant gratification withdrawl].

My buddy [David] had a similar experience this weekend but managed to squeak in under wire. I think my next best shot will be tomorrow at 9am – one of the local store reps swears the shipment that didn’t arrive this morning will be available for tomorrow.

Fingers crossed.

Update:

Well, my quest for a new iPhone is over. I’m not eligible for the iPhone “upgrade” until Dec. 18th, 2008. Sure, I can still buy one – I’ll just have to pay the full $399 price for the 8GB model.

Now I’m bummed.

Update 2:

David just suggested I head down to the local Apple store and buy one there. Apparently, they’ll sell me an 8GB iPhone for the $199 price and activate my service – this might bypass the contract “eligibility issue” the AT&T store claims I have. I’ve got another way around this if the Apple Store Bypass doesn’t work but I can’t attempt my hypothesis until Mel & I move back to Florida.

Now I have a glimmer of hope.

Continue reading »]]> About a year ago as the first iPhone was coming online and it seemed like the entire world was standing in line to get one, I made a decision to wait. Partly because I couldn’t afford ~$400+ of my own money on a new phone no matter how frickin’ cool it looked or how revolutionary everybody claimed it would be. Yea it had a really slick user interface, and it rolled your iPod, cell phone, video player, web broswer, and picture frame all into an uber-thin package but it was new. Not new like a new car new but new like “nothing Apple or anybody else has ever done before so it’s really new“. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned supporting new technology these last few years – no matter what the manufacturer claims, you’ll always run into ver. 1.0 problems.

Needless to say, I’m glad I waited. Almost within the first week, users starting reporting some very interesting issues with the new iPhone: battery failures (non-user replaceable btw), sign-up difficulties (not to mention locking yourself into a two year contract with AT&T), defective units right out of the box, zero SDK support and no third party software apps, security flaws within the [iPhone Safari browser], etc. The list just seemed to go on and on as more people dug into it. Hell, within a month of release somebody had already [cracked] it so you could use it on other networks (Apple retaliated by [bricking] your iPhone if you tried to run any future updates on it via iTunes).

Well a week or two ago and the release of ver 2.0 finally arrived – [the 3G iPhone] will hit stores on July 11th. At ~$200 for the 8GB version, it’s got me interested all over again. The only decision now is, is it still [new] or just improved?