A Lesson in Procrastination

I can't decide whether it is better to do the review of the movie I just watched or the phone I got a few weeks ago.

Procrastination Method #1. Make a post referencing each. C'est cool, non?

Then... go get a drink!

Nice.

Okay, movie wins.

Heights. Has Glenn Close and one of the blonde actresses who look like Tea Leoni. Everyone (guys included) is attractive and messed up. What a good textured movie. Not a laugh riot, this, but what did you expect from my NetFlix queue? There is this certain kind of movie I love, in pacing and setting and character and plot. Ruby in Paradise is the closest I've seen, or maybe Go Fish. Heights is close to that kind of movie, but set in Manhattan. Which has the added benefit of giving me a sense of the emotional texture I might have related to had I been a big city kid. In any event it makes me want to move to Manhattan.

Now the iPhone. It's hard to "review" it because everyone else has already, and they all say pretty much the same thing, and they are all correct. So what else is left to say?

How about what surprised me.

It's heavy, in a car made of iron not plastic sort of way. Good heavy. The battery life is excellent, much better than my 30GB video iPod. The screen has adjustable brightness and fully bright it is beautiful. Has external speakers, which are surprisingly quite loud but blatty (no bass).

There are 16 "applications" on the home screen. You can't add more.

SMS - very pretty, but I keep getting MySpace SMS messages that I can't stop. Grrr! Mostly an annoyance because of that. 200 free SMS (not international), 20 cents each after that, and unlimited is available (like more than $10, less than $27; don't recall). There is no IM (AOL, MSN etc).

Calendar - Also very pretty. No week view, only day/month. That's annoying. Easy to add stuff. Good overall.

Photos and Camera - these two are linked. Uses the 4-8GB onboard, can't use removable cards. Can email pix. 2 megapixel, good colors. No flash, no video. Viewing and scrolling is very very nice.

YouTube - Never been a big fan. Quality is good over Wi-fi, not over normal AT&T. Hard to find stuff on search.

Stocks and Weather - Stocks is okay. Weather is particularly attractive; it gets "wow"s. You select your cities and scroll.

(Google) Maps - Unless you bookmark things it is tricky to use. For example, if you are looking at an address and you want to drive there, you have to put in the address again. But if you bookmark everything, it works very well. It has driving directions but no GPS; you select Start then go Next Next Next and it animates the movement. Has satellite view but no hybrid. Multi-touch works here and is very good. Multi-touch is where you pinch and pull the screen with 2 fingers, and double-tap to zoom in/out.

Clock - seems superficial but has more to it than meets the eye: World clock displays multiple cities. Alarm can set multiple alarms with selected tones, but not music from the iPod. Stopwatch is self-explanatory, ticking off to 1/10 of a second. Timer counts down to zero rather than up, and can be set to sleep iPod so you can run music for say 30 minutes at bedtime.

Calculator - seems superficial and so far, is. I guess it's handy if you need a calculator.

Notes - is probably the one application that seems deficient. Typing in landscape would be a serious help (it's easier than typing in portrait). Moreso, the ability to categorize notes would be a huge help. As it is, they all go in one long list. You can email notes. You can't seem to import existing notes from other sources (another drawback for me).

Then there are the main 4 apps: Phone, Mail, Safari (Internet), and iPod.

Phone - has 5 screens. One is your "Favorites", phone numbers you have chosen to be on the quick list. One tap calls. "Recents" lists incoming and outgoing calls, including missed, with time and number. "Contacts" is the big list, including photos, email, phone #s, address, birthday, and whatever else you save. "Keypad" is what it sounds like; touch numbers and tap Call. "Voicemail" is the big surprise feature; you don't have to call voicemail and listen through menus. Instead, voicemails appear here like emails would, with name or number. Tap one and it plays immediately, no "Press 7 to go to next message". Works like they say it does, very nice.

The phone also integrates with the iPod. You can answer or send calls to voicemail using the earphone, which also has a mike for handsfree. If music is playing it will fade and pause, resuming after the call.

Mail will syncronize with most major email providers. Mine is GMail. Only complaints are that when you send an email from the phone it shows up in your inbox on the phone, and the read/unread status is not maintained well during syncs (if you read on phone it is still unread in Gmail). Otherwise it works as advertised. You can set up multiple email accounts. Not sure about Hotmail, need to check.

Safari. This is the killer app on the iPhone. If you want to read all about it, go see the demo on Apple's web site and know that works like that. Surprises? That you don't have to pinch/pull to zoom on most web sites; a double tap will zoom correctly. The fonts resize and sharpen at each resolution, making it very easy on the eyes. You can open multiple windows at once. It remembers cookies, that is, you don't have to keep logging in to pages each time you turn on the phone. Bookmarking is as expected. It displays every page correctly, with exception of not playing Java and Flash (which I don't think any other phone does anyway, certainly not my old Treo). Flash they say is coming. But... but... AT&T is slow. At 4-5 bars it's like dial-up. At 1-2 bars it's like dial-up with that old 9.8K modem. Wireless is a joy, though. You can't seem to check SSL certificates (I haven't found how) but most normal humans don't do that regularly.

iPod. My surprise was that not only did they bundle a good phone and great browser with the iPod, but that they made a much better iPod than before, too. Coverflow is a real pleasure, dragging the albums around. Most missing album is added with two clicks in iTunes. Videos in particular are lovely; you really could watch movies on this. And I hear music battery life is ~23 hours. I did ~11 and had half-battery, so I believe it. (Wireless web browsing with bright screen eats battery though, I doubt you'd get 7-8 hours of that, maybe more like 4-5?).

Most iPod attachments don't work, depending on what they do. There is limited bluetooth (can use mono headset), no infrared. No voice calling. I can charge it from my car stereo iPod adapter, but not play music on car stereo itself. The headphone jack is recessed so many headphones won't work with it. Has external volume up/down (good for out and about) and a silent switch.

The AT&T plan is $60 for 450 airtime minutes, $80 for 900, plus bigger plans. Minutes roll over. All plans have unlimited data in the USA. $4 for overseas calling plan but you need a credit check if new customer. Same $200 early termination.

It's very good. It makes the day more pleasurable. Isn't that what you want from your gadgets?