The whats and whatnots of iPhone 3G

Ok, so let’s get to business after introductions.

I chose to list Apple iPhone 3G’s pros and cons. Of course the major hype is now gone, but this might still be quite interesting. I made this list first in Finnish and “published” it in my Facebook page on July 2008 because few of my friends were interested in hearing my thoughts about iPhone. So here it is, with some modifications and with more detailed explanations. Enjoy!

In one sentence “I wouldn’t call this a smartphone, but rather a constrained entertainment device.”

General:
+ Touch screen with multi-touch.
+ Small eye-candy effects, e.g. in Maps's settings you can see through the map.
+ Display size
+ General appearance
+ Keylock mechanism. Just press a button and keys are locked and screen is turned off.
+ Usage of WLAN/WiFi made really simple. Once you've added WiFi details, iPhone will automatically choose the right connection, e.g. just added WiFi.
+ USB charging
+ Battery is quite ok. I wouldn't complain any almost smartphone's / smartphone's battery life because you are doing dozens of things at the same time (browsing, listening to music, navigating, writing SMS,... You got my point, right?)
+ Speakers. Ok quality to use as a boom box. Well not maybe boom box, but you are able to listen music in park with your friends.
- Display doesn’t rotate (go to landspace mode) in every application.
- Silence mode button. It goes on/off even if keylock is on.
- Only 2 profiles (normal and silence).
- There isn’t volume control in hands-free or way to answer an incoming call.
- iTunes dependencies. This makes it difficult to use in corporates because I could guess that iTunes is something you don’t want to / can't install.
- Difficult to change used internet connection, e.g. when you are browsing and want to change to some other connection.
- There are capital letters in virtual keypad although outcome is small letters.
- You have to active Caps lock from the settings to get it working normally.
- Special characters, even dot (.) and comma (,) are behind some keys.
- Predictive text doesn’t work properly. I used to accept suggested words although I wasn’t planning this. Prediction of compound words doesn’t work. Finnish language is full of compound words.
- You cannot use iPhone as a modem.
- Multitasking is slow or even impossible if you are using 3rd party applications. You cannot use multitask with 3rd party softwares because they are closed when you change from application to another.
- Crashing, even quite seriously and you couldn’t take battery off (unlike in most of the phones) but you just had to wait and hope. You can also try to press the menu button (basically the only button) long to restart iPhone.
- Expandability, you have to rely on current features.
- Doesn’t show any calendar etc information in Idle screen.

Text:
+ Discussion form.
- You cannot rotate the display. Writing of SMSs would be much easier with rotated screen. You can try this when you are browsing in landscape mode and write some address.
- You cannot send group messages.
- No MMSs.
- You don’t receive calendar invitations that are sent from S60 phone.
- You cannot forward a SMS.

Calendar:
- You cannot send calendar invitations.
- You cannot receive calendar invitations.
- You cannot enter a meeting that lasts less than a minute, e.g. from 9.00-9.00. I used to use this in S60 phone when I wanted to make a simple reminder that is not synchronized.

Photos:
+ Picture scrolling, zooming and showing. Slide your finder from left to right and the pictures will roll nicely.
- You cannot mark multiple pictures and remove them at once. You have to remove them one by one.

Camera:
+/- Camera and flash could be a little better.

YouTube:
+ Easy to use
+ Identifies used network speed and chooses the video quality according to this. In a way this is con because you cannot control this by yourself.
+ Youtube can be started from browser. If you happen to run into cool YouTube video, you don't need to find it from YouTube software.
+ Search. Works well and makes finding of videos easy.
- Some of the Youtube videos don’t work.
- Separate software.
- Supports only YouTube videos.

Stocks:
+ Simple
- Doesn’t have Scandinavian stocks, e.g. OMX (Helsinki)

Maps:
+ Fast. Downloads map information really fast.
+ WLAN/WiFi locating.
+ Search works relatively well.
+ Touch screen and zoom works well.
- Showing multiple search results and moving to another result is inadequate.
- GPS updates sometimes little slowly. Although I don’t have some much experience on this.
- Can you get a car kit from Apple? I mean where do I install this in my car.
- Display turns off relatively fast. This makes it difficult to use as a navigator.
- Doesn’t show the direction where you are going.
- Doesn’t recalculate routes.
- You cannot save any routes.
- You cannot download maps. This makes roaming really expensive.

Weather:
+ Simple and stylish
+ There are also Finnish cities
- Icon in main menu could updateable, just like in Calendars icon where dates changes.

Clock:
+ Stopwatch.
+ Timer.
+ Number of alarms. You can add multiple alarms.
+ World clock.

Calculator:
+ Simple.
+ Has also functional calculator.
- You have to use functional calculator in horizontal mode.

Notes:
+ Stylish fonts.
+ Outlook in general.
- You cannot synchronize this with Outlook using a cable. I've noticed that this is really good way to remember things.

Settings:
+ You can define multiple languages that you will be using. You can easily change the desired language when typing.
- You cannot choose your own ring tone except using iTunes.

iTunes:
+ Easy to use.
+ Billing made easy.
- Works only in 3G/WiFi.

App Store:
+ Easy to use
- Not too many useful software. (This was the case in the beginning, now there might be too many software?)
- Difficult to find useful software.
- Restricted 3rd party features.
+/- Are there possibility for trials?

Contacts:
+ Scrolling names made easy and fancy. When you slide your finger down, the list rolls nicely. Nice to show to your friends. Guaranteed WOW effect.
+ You see first name first although names are organized according to last name.
- You cannot create groups.
- You cannot send contact information in SMS.
- Takes sometimes long (3-4 seconds) to open.

Phone:
+ Favorites. You can add number of favorites and you can see them easily. Better than usual speed dial.
- You cannot organize received and made calls but all calls are in the same list.
- You cannot remove single call information

Mail:
+ Easy to start using.
+ Shows also HTML mails.
- Didn’t support SSL in Welho’s service.

Safari:
+ Seems fast.
+ Really accurate touch screen. You can hit even small links without zooming.
+ Zoom. Again nice feature and cool to show to your friends when you are sliding two fingers away from each other, browser zooms in.
+ Navigation is simple
+ Able to play mp3s, e.g. Radiorock’s podcasts rule.
+ Quicktime plays videos, e.g. trailers.
+ Establishing connection. Knows how to choose pre-defined WiFi or then use 3G/GPRS.
+ Big enough display to make mobile browsing a joy.
+ Opening new windows and handling them.
- No Flash support.
- Crashes quite often, although starts really fast after this.
- You cannot change used internet connection.

iPod:
+ Simple.
+ Shows album covers.
- Memory seems to run out if you are browsing and listening to music.