If you hang around this weblog you probably know that I’m a 20 year mac user and I’m no fan of Steve Jobs. I’ll admit that I was hoping, in a rather childish way, that the iPhone would be a huge failure. But it certainly hasn’t been and after seeing many of my friends and family using them, happily, and after much researching, I decided that maybe one would make my life better.
So here’s my report after 48 hours – Yes it is pretty great, but there are many improvements to be made, especially with email. The Weather feature is almost useless and I do not want a stock tracker on my phone and without hacking, I cannot remove any of the preinstalled apple stuff. Most of the apps out there are rubbish, but many of them are free… and I’ve found a few that you might find useful. Wikipedia and Google both have free apps which are easier to use than the Safari browser. Still, I was shocked at how well the little browser works and you can just about navigate this weblog using it! You cannot play the music here as that requires flash and the iPhone Safari doesn’t have flash.
The two things I wanted which I thought Apple should have included are a system for storing files other than within iPhoto, iCal etc – there is an app for $7 or so called ‘Files’ which does this in a fairly pain free way. Then there is the dictaphone, voice memo recorder thing which I need for songs I’m working on, and surely something like that by Apple could integrate seamlessly with iTunes..?? But no you need to buy one, and which one to choose? There are many. I looked, and looked and eventually decided that as ‘Speakeasy’ ($2) has a system (not perfect) to add your recordings to iTunes I’d give it a try. It works and the audio quality is actually very good. However I have found a bug – if you create a new category, eg ‘Song Idea’ to store your recordings then the iTunes sync doesn’t work. Not a big deal, although I did waste 1/2 hour figuring out what was wrong. Just use their categories and it seems to work fine, you can always edit the resultant files in iTunes later.
What is great is that I can have my itineraries, flight details, hotels and promoters all stored on my laptop in Address Book and iCal. All of this is now in my pocket, too. Short tours without the laptop may be possible, that would be great. 6 gig is plenty for my music and the only videos I need are The Beasts of Bourbon and DogJudo.