The uber geeks

An iPhone FAQ

I’ve had my iPhone for nearly six months now and each time I meet someone new that sees my iPhone they tend to ask me the same questions. I thought I’d take the time to jot down a quick iPhone FAQ, as I’ve experienced them, so that others who have similar questions can point to this article.

1. Do you like it? / Was it worth the price?
A lot of times people will simply ask if I like the iPhone after having it for a few months. Sometimes this question will come in the form of asking whether or not I think it was worth the purchase price. I think these questions are nearly the same one, so I usually answer them the same way. Heck yes!

But why has the iPhone been “worth it” for me? Being that I’ve recently been traveling more than usual, for business purposes, I’ve found the Google Maps feature to be nearly indispensable. I know that many other phones have mapping capabilities and some even use Google Maps, but from speaking with people with those other phones I’ve yet to meet one that takes full advantage of those features on their phones for various reasons. The device is too slow, the network is too latent and they can’t find what they’re looking for quickly. In other words: It isn’t fast enough or easy enough to use to make it worth even trying. On the iPhone it is the completely opposite experience; finding what you’re looking for is incredibly fast and couldn’t be easier. Have you ever used Google Maps in your browser? Then you can use Google Maps on the iPhone the very same way.

Leaving the “phone feature” out of the equation for a moment - I think the second most valuable feature for me has to be the Mail application. Recently Google has turned on IMAP for Gmail (see: some tips on how to set it up), which makes the experience much more powerful and efficient since I never have to read an email twice (Yahoo, and Exchange users have had this for awhile with Push email). As it stands I only check my personal email on my iPhone - but that sure helps since when I return to my computer at a later time, I have less to read and catch up on. So as a time-saver, the Mail application is a front runner for me.

Having the entire Web “at my fingertips” and not being limited to mobile interfaces has proved to be great. I know I’m spoiled too since I have access to information that other mobile devices simply do not. I’m reminded of this every time I log into any web site I need to and am able to use the site as if I was sitting at home on my computer. There is literally no difference in experience - meaning that there is no learning-curve - and so this is also a time saver. The drawback that I’ve seen here is that the iPhone inherently loads the entire page, which on some Web sites is a pretty big load on the iPhone. I think that over the next few years we’ll see a balance struck between “real” web sites and not having so much bulk. Flickr, as an example, takes a while to load the first time because their site is fairly heavy. It isn’t just the images. Flickr uses a huge amount of Javascript to pull of some of their features and each of those files has to be downloaded for Safari to use them. The mobile version of Flickr sucks - so I’m hoping one day that there will be an iPhone-esque experience added to Flickr. Same features, a little less weight.

2. What is it missing?
As you can probably expect, this is a loaded question. The iPhone’s software is still affectively at 1.x and as such it is missing many features. But one shouldn’t expect it to be perfect “out-of-the-gate”. Meeting someone in a passing conversation does not afford the time needed to dive deep into what I wish that the iPhone had (you can read many of my thoughts on my site, but I’ll give a short rundown of the things I think the iPhone should have right now and it doesn’t.

• MMS support is a glaring oversight. I think that being able to message someone a photo, without the need of sending an email, should already be available on the iPhone.
• The iPhone’s ringer volume is way too low. Nearly every other mobile phone I’ve ever seen is much louder than the iPhone. If you are in any situation except silence, you will not hear the iPhone.
• There is no way to delete all of the photos on your iPhone. Someone mentioned to me that it might be a precautionary measure. I don’t care, I want to delete all of the photos on my iPhone.
• Being able to edit the home screen’s icons. I don’t use some of the apps.
• Third party applications. Coming: February 2008

Again, the above list is not my entire wish list for the iPhone. These are features that I think the iPhone should have today, and it doesn’t. In fact, I think many of these things on this list should have been available on the iPhone the day it launched, and they weren’t. I’m not complaining, or upset, and it doesn’t change the fact that I love my iPhone - but I will say this… I am hoping that future software updates add the above features and they they won’t merely be reserved for future versions of the iPhone itself.

3. How long does your battery last?
As with any other device; it depends. I will say this - because I could go on forever about how my battery lasts when I don’t use the iPhone too much or how it gets better battery life if you don’t use WiFi, etc. - I am more than please with how long my battery lasts on the iPhone.

I typically plug my iPhone into my computer every few days. When I’m traveling and using Google Maps and Safari more than usual, I may plug it in every night - but not always. So I typically get “a few days usage” before I absolutely need to plug it in.

Best thing about the iPhone’s battery: It can be charged with any iPod’s USB 2.0 adapter cable. I’ve found myself in a few situations where this fact came in very, very handy.

4. How is EDGE?
This last FAQ comes in various forms. I’ve had it asked: “How’s the Internet on that thing?”, “Can you download stuff quick?”, and many other ways. So far my experience with EDGE has been “ok”. I can’t even begin to tell you how different it is in different geographic locations though. In San Francisco, I found EDGE to be much slower than anywhere else in the country I’ve been. This might be because the number of iPhone’s using EDGE might be pretty high in San Francisco, but I don’t know. In New York, North Carolina, and here in Pennsylvania - I’ve had pretty darned good experience with how fast the iPhone accessed the Internet.

So, those are the top four questions I usually get when someone sees me with my iPhone. If you have an iPhone, perhaps you could add to this list in the comments?

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