noisepunk

Some quick thoughts on my new iPhone, an upgrade to my 2 year old BlackBerry Pearl. My main complaint with the Pearl was the lackluster browser that was always crashing on me, constantly causing me to reset the phone. I also got shitty reception in my living room, where I usually do most of my conversating.

The iPhone has a great browser, and functions great as a phone. In fact, I can finally talk on my couch without fear of dropping calls. The third party apps, 3G network, and big screen are all nice. Typing on the touchscreen is strange and takes some getting used. I’d prefer tactile keys, but it’s worth the sacrifice for extra screen space.

While I’m certainly impressed with the iPhone, I do have some gripes, in order of annoyance:

• No cut and paste. Come on Apple, this is basic computing 101 102. If I’m browsing teh internets and find some pornography or violence, I CAN’T share that link with anybody, unless I want to transcribe an often convoluted URL. That’s stone-age computing, and completely unacceptable for a pocket computer like this, expecially considering every other cellphone on the planet has this capability (at least my Pearl did!). Or maybe I’m just being a big sissy?
• Instant messaging rendered almost useless. Apple has a policy of not allowing third-party apps to run in the background. And there’s no native iChat. So Google Talk is completely useless because every time you leave the chat window to do something like check e-mail or the web, the app shuts down and you’re logged out. Fortunately, some third party apps (Beejive, Palringo) have created workarounds that allow you to stay logged in even when you shut down the app, and will even notify you by e-mail when you’ve got a new message (a push e-mail account helps too).
• Weak & non user-replaceable battery. I had to recharge twice a day with admittedly heavy use. With normal usage, I estimate having to recharge once a day. Disappointing, but I can certainly live with this. As reference, with the Pearl, I could go a full day with heavy use, two days with normal use.
• No alert light. I really liked how all I had to do was look at my BlackBerry and I would know if I had a message if the red light was flashing. I can live without it, but it seems like such a simple thing to be missing.
• No MMS messaging. I can easily live with this, as there are many other options that are probably easier, like e-mail and uploading to the web. But it does seem strange to omit this feature since every other cellphone on the planet has this capability.

As far as apps I’ve checked out… Facebook is good, Palringo is getting there (e-mail notifications coming in new version and more improvements planned), WunderRadio has all my favorite internet radio stations (KDVS, WFMU and WKDU), WordPress is good enough to allow a quick unhyperlinked-to-hell post, TwitterFon allows me to tweet to my heart’s delight/dismay, Sportacular keeps me up-to-date with the latest scores and tracks my fantasy players, Instapaper allows me to save internet reads for a later date, and Bloomberg lets me follow my 401k as it collapses into a 41k. Still looking for a good RSS reader.

Explore: Mobile Burn review, Apple batteries- iPhone.