dailyeatings

So, some thoughts about the iPhone after one week of use:

Pros:

I still haven’t gotten over how amazing it is to be able to browse the web, search maps, find who you’re looking for and immediately interact with them via mail or phone, on the go, all in the same device. The experience is truly like the “Calamari” commercial, just ridiculously simple and ready anywhere, any time. I have completely eliminated the need for preprinted maps, calling my brother when I get lost*, or pretty much any kind of route planning—I just look it up when I need to and go. It’s totally revolutionized how I get around the city.

Seamless integration with Address Book has encouraged me to keep a more thorough and up-to-date contact list, complete with headshot photographs.

Typing is much easier than I expected. I’ve gotten much better, but I’m still not confident in writing long emails, though you could argue that writing long emails with such a small screen is a ridiculous idea to begin with.

The iPod functionality is excellent. It seems completely natural to navigate my music collection via a touch interface, perhaps even easier than the previous clickwheel method (which I hasten to add, was also a very intuitive interface). I love how music fades out upon an incoming call and automatically fades back in at the same point when the call is ended—a great touch.

It’s tiny, it eliminates the need for carrying up to four separate devices (phone, ipod, laptop [sort of], point-and-shoot camera), and does enough to wow me on a consistent basis.

Cons:

Safari crashes too often. Hell, even one crash is entirely too often.

The speakerphone is far too soft. My old Nokia 6600 had a speakerphone fit to be a guitar amp; the iPhone’s speaker is by comparison barely a whisper.

I can’t customize the SpringBoard (the main root-level interface screen) without jailbreaking the iPhone, which may or may not brick it. I have no use for a stock tracker. I would like it gone, but I can’t remove it.

Although its physical design is aesthetically pleasing, even while encased in a rubberized sleeve, I’ve started noticing how odd it is to place a perfectly smooth, highly reflective piece of flat, rounded black glass against your face. The iPhone doesn’t have the robust, workmanlike heft of my old Nokia, which I routinely dropped and carelessly threw around; rather it feels like I’m talking into a piece of art, and that I should handle it delicately, lest I somehow breathe on it wrong.

Lack of tactile controls means I can’t control playback blindly, as I could my previous iPods.

*My brother and I have this joke where we serve as each other’s OnStar—the odds are high at all times that one of us is near a computer, so we’ll call each other for quick Google Maps searches and driving directions.