My Review of Iphone - Part I

Copyright (c) 2008 Adam Nowak

At first it was ignorance:

iPhone? What iPhone? Probably something from this funny Apple Company, which produces trash at tremendous prices?

Later curiosity appeared:

Why are they writing so much about it? Riddle bought it too. Damn, even blogs on Jogger appeared only about this equipment. There must be something in it.

Next - disappointment:

Why are they so touched by this phone?! It doesn't even have a decent bluetooth! After all - such an inept phone. It's absurd and what's more, it's very expensive.

In the end: enlightenment (or love)

- Look, darling! It's for 300 USD on E-Bay!
- ...but soft 1.1.2..
- Damn. You're right... HEY! Look at this...

The end of the story:

- -- RING RING--
- Yes?
(a friend in the bar)
- Oh f..., what the hell is that?

I bought iPhone. And after long exploitation (a couple of weeks), it's time for a review of this device. Steve Jobs divided his official presentation into 3 main groups: a mobile phone, iPod, the Internet. So I will do the same
, and let's start from the most important:

iPhone as a MOBILE PHONE

That is, actually, its basic function. Have we ever wondered about what we need from mobile phones? No, not from smartphones, a huge whopper with Java aboard or another 'mobile phone' for >=200USD. It's about a simple mobile phone. So? Surely, high quality calls. We want to hear our interlocutor loud and clear, and at the same time, we want to be well understood. iPhone is, in this respect, the best among my former phones. The quality of calls is perfect, both by the built-in microphone/receiver and by the headphones enclosed with the phone (of course in white ;)) From what I noticed - the software sets the headphones/microphone volume level according to the loudness of the environment. I have never read about such a function, but I am a hundred percent sure that this function has been added. Any other functions, such as conferencing, call holding, operating the address book, photos added to contacts - are present and work :-)

Cool, it's possible to make calls. However, it's been the 21st century for quite a while and it is too little for a phone... What else do we need? Texting? That's one of my favourite functions of iPhone. The history of SMS messages is stored in the form of a chat with a given person, and writing on a virtual keyboard is a few times faster than writing on a standard phone (even when taking into account writing by means of a T9 dictionary). Verily I say - sending texts by means of an iPhone is a real pleasure. But there is a small defect, which may be perceived as a fault. Characters are not counted and a notification of the limit of 160 characters is not displayed. In the days of free texts it shouldn't be a problem. However, opponents of Apple can pick on everything ;-) It's also impossible to send texts to more than one person at a time using the iPhone. But! These two shortcomings are made up for by the application called 'SMSD', available in iPhone's Installer.

MMS messages? Have you read everywhere about the fact that the MMS function isn't supported by iPhone? Well, maybe in the standard version there is no such an option, but... It is enough to install a program called 'MMS', 3 clicks and we can send MMS messages via iPhone.

What else? Here, some details can be mentioned, such as the fading out of music when a user receives a call and it turning on once the call is ended (everything in the form of 'fade in fade out'), a proximity sensor that shuts off the display when the iPhone is held near the face (till now I don't know how they did it - it WORKS and it works perfectly), a very upgraded address book, in which we can keep everything, from phone numbers of our friends to their addresses (dynamically visible in Google Maps), web pages (automatically as bookmarks in Safari), or e-mail (tapping the e-mail moves to the mail user and we can start writing). It's delightful :-)

Unfortunately, I've noticed 2 faults in the phone function of iPhone. Firstly, it's impossible to use the main function of this equipment when it is on dock (that is added to the set). To pick up the phone, one has to take the iPhone off the dock, answer the phone and when the call is ended - put it back. And what if it's on the dock because it's recharging? It would be ideal to redirect the call into a computer (I could do this in my previous SE K510i). It's quite a big disadvantage for me, as it's on the dock about 50% of its working time.
The second fault is rather cosmetic and it doesn't influence the general usage of the equipment. However, it exists and causes distress at the very beginning. I mean the lack of possibility of easy import of contacts from the SIM card or another phone. Either you have everything in iCal and use iTunes or you're unlucky and you have to key everything in manually... 300 contacts with your thumb - and that isn't cool... At this point, Apple could help in the 'conversion' from other mobile phones to its product.