Living with the iPhone

Was it worth the wait? The 5-hour phone service/text/data outage? Do you really have to get the new iPhone on the first day? The first weekend? From a rational point of view, the answer is probably not. But, from an admitted early-adopter Apple-phile, a resounding hot tamale train YES is the answer. But, this is not without caveats of course (battery life, hassle, and jittery/buggy application crashes). Overall, the new iPhone 3G is slick. The applications (which work 90 percent of the time) are even slicker (many worth special attention to come in the next few posts). Sound quality is much improved. The handset feels bigger, but is lighter. It's more than a refinement over 1.0, but I wonder if that has to do with the 2.0 firmware update that allows those long-awaited, legitimate third-party application bringing in outside innovation.

In any case, with the white 3G version that yours truly got, people stop and notice and ask questions like they did last year. Today, I've already had two people stop and ask about the iPhone when they noticed it wasn't the typical one that we all have grown accustom to seeing. Sure, they've seen iPhone before, but when they spotted this one, which is different (it's white for Pete's sake) they stopped and asked to see it and the new applications with a lot of attention paid to the GPS-maps feature (deservedly so).

The fact that people stop, look and ask, and that there are still long of people willing to spend part of their weekends in line is pretty fascinating - even given the tough economic that 2008 had over 2007. As the Field of Dreams quote goes: If you build it, people will come.

The new iPhone is looming, right? Current iPhone models are not being restocked or are 'sold out', buzz is being generated. It's a different kind of buzz than last time around though. There aren't 'leaked' pictures, there aren't many purported leaks, or any increased amount of feverish patent-trolling to see what's coming. It seems that there won't be a ground-breaking paradigm shifting this time around, right?

On the larger vein of waiting, though, I'm a pretty impatient type. A bit ADHD too. But you know the type of person I'm talking about: people who are ready, willing and able to wait for something for a finite amount of time. Not talking about waiting for iPhone 2.0 but more about waiting in a line, for a table, for a movie to start, at the DMV, etc. Moving to California from the Midwest a few years ago taught me how Californians are supposedly so laid-back. In realty, we all have just gotten used to dealing with the large amounts of people who live here and that things take longer here than they do in other parts of the country. Here, you have to learn to wait in line for everything, parking, coffee, food, etc., it's part of the deal.

Of course, there are plenty of ways to alleviate waiting, cell phone calls, reading a magazine/newspaper, staring off into space. So instead of wasting time in the waiting line (ala Zero7), having the internet on the iPhone (or similar devices), especially in Starbucks with their free Wi-Fi now makes the wait, for me at least, seem much shorter. For me, a wait evaporates with a quick check of the NYTimes, Facebook or of email. If the internet connection or if EDGE is slow, however, the wait seems even more interminable. While I distract myself from the wait with web-safaris ala Safari, there are others who isolate themselves off from the rest of the world with their iPods or and others who subject the rest of the world to a potentially inane and ceaseless cellphone call. Whatever the poison, passing the time away in a waiting line may no longer be a time where you can meet new people or see new things if we're distracted by our own PDAs. Is that even more of a waste of time?

Recent iPhone ads have touted the utility of having the iPhone on a trip. Vacationing with the iPhone is a great convenience, but also makes it harder to vacation.

Using the quasi-GPS and Google Maps, being able to make dinner reservations, forsaking tour guidebooks and printed itineraries it great. On a recent long weekend to Hawaii, my friends and I discovered and confirmed the utility of the iPhone features on the road. So much so, we didn't even bring our laptops, which is a big deal for some of us. Really, it is. The only physical complaint I had about the iPhone was getting sunscreen and sand on it. The only user-interface issue: dragging and dropping the "pin" in Google Maps as it sometimes got tripped up and I wished for some "reset" function to clear out all the locales we looked up.

In a larger sense though, at one point, I kind of wanted to throw my iPhone into a pineapple patch or a volcano (there were road closures do to hot lava flows). But while the iPhone is touted to merge phone, camera, iPod and PDA. Doing so, however, makes it hard to truly disconnect and unplug - spam emails follow you, work emails come too. Sure, this is true with any phone or mobile device. But doing so is both liberating and daunting as it takes me a particular amount of will power to switch off my phone and to keep it off for an extended period of time. Imagine a knight without their sword, a politician without their teleprompter (or morning talk show hosts on SNL for that matter).

Switching off the iPhone, I think requires oo much effort to think about it on vacation by my book. But there are times for serenity and calm, however. the horror!

Anyway, I say this all as we still await the SDK package, meaning we may get Exchange server emails and endless applications that make us even more reliant on the iPhone.

So yes, there are iPhone-related products at CES 2008 primarily focused covers and protective skins and audio speakers. Two products that really caught my eye in terms of form and function are B&W's Zepplin (yes, a Zeplin, like the Hindenpeter of Family Guy fame - hope this one doesn't burst into flames) and THX/Razer's Mako speakers. Both are definitely against the grain from a Bose or a Altec Lansing iPod docking audio system. I've never liked the Bose docks - the sound is too grainy or metallic, and the Altec Lansing product at the CES just looked boring.

The Zepplin (it's just fun to say, isn't it?) and the Moko were fun. The B&W Zepplin weighs a ton and costs a ton too ($600) and was released late last year. It was the first time I'd ever seen it. The B&W rep invited me to plug my iPhone in and to ignore the error message. After this error, the devices eventually synched. The Zepplin is a complete one-unit speaker unit and, well, obviously looks like a Zepplin, supposedly to replicate a musical instrument's design. I tried the various music tracks on my iPhone - classical, to hip hop to the Counting Crows.

While the Convention Hall may not be the ideal place to test it, I was surprised as I pumped the volume and the Zepplin appeared to handle it well without bursting into flames and maintaining sound quality. I wonder how it'd do in an office or home setting.

In contrast to that, THX and the gaming company Razer are releasing a two satellite, one subwoofer Moko desktop system that looks somewhat like a Cylon (yes, I geeked out there).

The Mokos supposedly uses the desk surface it sits on to reflect sound up and is not as expensive as the Zepplin coming in at $399 (comparable to the Bose Companion 3 series). As would be expected the Moko's bass was strong and solid. Dance music a pumpin would be great on this system. The clarity, again in a sound hall, is hard to tell as I never plugged in my iPhone, but the THX rep spouted a bunch of numbers and hertzs to me to reassure me of its worth. The fact that I could hear what was being played over the din of the hall may speak volumes itself. (oh yes, what a pun!) Also, both the Zepplin and the Moko's come with remotes, one looking slender and sleek and the other like a contraceptive device.

Assessment on both:

Form factor/design: solid and sleek. Each are unique.

Function: Couldn't really tell the sound quality as the convention hall din was overpowering, but based on extrapolation - good. The Zepplin hooks up to TVs as well and you can watch videos on your iPod and iPhone.

Price: At $600 and $400 respectively, a bit pricey, but other entries by others like Altec Lansing just fell flat.

Overall: The Zepplin is more of a status symbol and the Moko is an edgier product for gamers. Picking between the two would be based on what image you want to convey.

So this month I will have traveled more than 20,000 miles via plane, train and boats to various destinations and various time zones. The iPhone has proven adept and adaptable - so long as you activate the international roaming and data plans - which you have to do in person or via AT&T's operators before you leave the country - as my friend Max found out the hard way.

Anyway, upon landing at each airport the iPhone will find the applicable AT&T network or AT&T compatible network - oftentimes in seconds. But more importantly, as you taxi after landing (make sure you have your iPhone in an accessible location), it's nice to see text messages from friends and loved ones pop up, emails and voicemails too when you turn on the iPhone or switch off the "airplane mode."

What's also interesting is people asking, "oooh, is that an iPhone?"

Once inside the terminal it's great to have the WiFi search function, or, if you're cheap like me, I'm pleasantly surprised by the speed of the EDGE network as I read the news, check emails and do all those precious things to pass the layover time.

Finally, the iPhone's first major update!

My optimism for this 1.1.1 update was muted as, after a couple of months of waiting, I was excited for the ringtone feature that has ultimately proven lackluster. If my iPhone is in my pocket, I honestly cannot hear the ringtone portions of songs I've picked - even the jarring ones! The only reason I know I'm getting a call is because of the vibrate feature. So, with yesterday's major update, I was cautious. It should follow, however, that the speaker adjustments in the 1.1.1 update may solve the ringtone-being-too-quiet issue. Verdict: eh, not really.

The 1.1.1 update, however, was still welcome. Apart from allowing the homekey to access the iPhone's iPod features, a redesign of the calculator, my favorite feature thus far is the WiFi iTunes store that was already available on the iPod Touch.

Ironically, I downloaded "Wrapped Around Your Finger" by The Police and, after hoping onto a WiFi network. After hearing it, taking note of it on the notebook, I found the song, downloaded it and started playing in about a minute's time. The iTunes WiFi interface in terms of search and purchasing features are slick, clean and fast. Transferring the purchased song to my main desktop was seamless too. A new category of playlist, "songs purchased from the iPhone" (or something close to that) also appeared in my iTunes.

You might think that having access to iTunes on the go is unnecessary - but to me, it's both brilliant and dangerous. Brilliant because if you're like me, you hear music and songs around all the time. For me, I tend to think: oooh, what is that song? I'd like to have it. And now, I can get it, provided that I'm near a WiFi hot spot. (Usually, someone around me will know what song is playing. Not being able to identify the song is an entirely different matter). And, iTunes WiFi is dangerous because I hear a lot of music during a day and I think I'll be buying songs left and right. So, in a surprising turn-around, I guess I'm glad that my purchasing capacity is limited by iTunes WiFi only being accessible via WiFi. (I wonder how quickly the EDGE network would implode if iTunes WiFi could be accessed over AT&T's EDGE Network).

So, this leads to the next question: What about 3G transfers? In the long run, it looks as if the trend appears to be moving a time where storing music on a desktop or iPod may well become pretty obsolete. This is all the more so especially with larger online servers and storage dumps becoming more widely available. Like Google Apps and Documents, one day, it seems more than likely that I'll be able to access all my music along lines like iTunes WiFi. Perhaps a constant streaming, or perhaps I'll access an entire playlist in chunks at a time, thus eliminating the need for an obscenely massive HDD-based iPod/mp3 players. The only limit now seems to be speeds of over-air data networks. Even if you were on a plane, or in a subway, you may be able to beam yourself enough music to carry you to the next WiFi rich area you get to.

While that may be a while away, iTunes WiFi is definitely a starting point.

So I haven't yet downloaded the iPhone update, so here's a customer-issue story until I get the update tonight.

When I bought my iPhone I actually bought two handsets. The other ended with a close friend of mine who switched over from Verizon. Today, we met for lunch in San Francisco at, appropriately, the downtown Apple store. He had questions to ask the Apple people.

There were no answers for the following questions apart from: Call AT&T and/or call Applecare, specifically:

Question 1: Why is it that everytime his iPhone calls back home (New Jersey) it echoes and you can hear the conversation twice?

Answer 1: Have you tried turning on and off the iPhone? Yes? Is the area calling populated? Yes? Oh, well you'll have to call AT&T.

Commentary 1: I too had this problem calling Iowa, that's to be expected, it's Iowa and reception could be spotty, right? I typically hang up and call again with good results, but I've noticed the same problem but not with every call.

Question 2: On passcode mode, the iPhone won't unlock, calls are missed, what gives?

Answer 2: Have you tried turning on and off the iPhone? Yes? Oh, do you have the latest update? Yes? Oh, well you'll have to call Applecare.

Commentary 2: I've also had the same problem, but it seemed to stop after the last mini-update.

Question 3: My Apple iPhone $100 credit got screwed up, can you help?

Answer 3: Us retail stores can't access that database, have you called Applecare?

Commentary 3: No comment as my credit issued in less than 30 seconds.

Overall commentary: It's a bit frustrating that you have to use your iPhone to call in to answer these questions that would seemingly best be answered in a real-life live-person setting. What if you're passcode wouldn't unlock? Would you hear everything twice?

One of the inherent risks of having an iPhone will necessarily mean that you will become a de facto sales rep for Apple.

It's not uncommon for co-workers, non-iPhone-laden friends or strangers asking to 'see' your iPhone. "See?" Is that the right word? No, perhaps play and fool around with your iPhone is a better description as you can plainly see an iPhone, but these people clearly want to touch it to believe it as the Apple ads direct them to do. It happens to me enough to make me feel like a roving iPhone sales rep. Steve Jobs should cut me a check! (Note: store credits will not suffice!)

Anyway, I typically oblige and don't mind showing people the iPhone. My first thought usually focuses around potential theft: it's not like they're going to run off with it, and if they do, I'm pretty sure I can catch them. But, my second thought I have as soon as the iPhone actually leaves my hand, is: what is exactly pulled up on my iPhone? What was that site was I just looking at? What was that last SMS text message I just got? What if that message was from that special somebody (or somebodies?) What was the last picture I just took? What was that email I just got? Not realizing what these may be, I usually quickly exclaim to people not to look at my SMS text messages and/or email. But these are the touted features of the dang thing, so usually, I'm a little more tactful about it and offer to give the would-be gawker a "guided tour" of the iPhone and its features. If I'm not lucky enough to get the iPhone back I nervously wait.

I suppose this is part and parcel to why having a passcode on your iPhone is a good idea. I've talked about this idea before and, now note, that having the passcode is a pain in the a** sometimes especially if you're listening to the iPhone's iPod and want to change songs, or rapidly respond to a SMS text message. But here, it's a little different. I doubt that you're carrying around state secrets on your iPhone (corporate data may be another matter) and here, you're not worried about your iPhone falling into the wrong hands. But what I'm talking about here is that the "enquiring minds want to know" mentality. My friends with iPhones have observed the same thing too. If we were famous, our iPhones might be a paparazzi partisan's dream. The New York Times even wrote an article about this notion in general in an article about spying spouses snooping on their significant other's computers.

All of this perhaps makes the "restore" function even more appealing. Wiping out the iPhone's memory all away may be nice because of the very public nature of a device like an iPhone containing private personal information that you might want to keep away from would-be looky-loos.

And, in case you hadn't heard, in a letter posted on Apple's site, Steve Jobs claims to have read "hundreds" of irate emails regarding the iPhone price drop and is therefore issuing $100 worth of Apple credits to us early adopters. Did he really read all of those emails? Hrmmmm.

While Apple is not under any obligation to do so, it was still nice of them. Now, I know some people will be like why not $200, or why not cash-money. May I repeat, not any obligation to do so. Besides, only us geeky types who are likely to purchase another Apple product in the first place were amongst those first in line, right?

And, after my quick drop-in at the flagship SF Apple store yesterday, I learned that we'll have to wait for those new iPods and iPhone Touch until tomorrow when they are actually at stores...