Two Hours With The iPhone

So I have an iPhone. (No surprise there, right?) Tried to be clever and buy at the downtown Brooklyn AT&T store, which was a nightmare and limited me to only one phone. Came home and my wife was so irritated at my having the only iPhone in the house that I got back into a cab and went into Soho at about 10:30, where I bought a second phone at the Apple Store in maybe 45 seconds.

First impressions after an hour or two of playing (and traveling in a cab) with it. Edge speeds right now are much better than I thought they'd be. Typing may be a little harder, though I'm still getting used to it. The landscape mode keyboard is SO much easier -- why is it only available when you're typing a URL?

But on the whole, my gut is that this going to turn out to be the best first-gen product Apple has ever released. It really is that good.

The thing that really struck me riding in the cab tonight was how foolish the consumers-don't-like-convergence naysayers have been. I'd been thinking of the iPhone convergence as primarily a pocket real estate matter: I'd be able to consolidate music and phone into a single device, thus leaving one whole pocket free.

But I hadn't really thought about convergence as a media experience. I got a little glimpse of that future riding in the cab tonight: I'm listening to a song, and checking email and surfing around a little, knowing full well that if someone calls me, there will be no fumbling around to find the phone, or switching from browser mode, or turning down the music, or pulling off my headphones -- the music just automatically fades out, and I just hit "answer" on the screen and start talking. And the second the call ends, I'm back reading email and the song starts up right where it left off. Pretty sweet.

Update The Next Day: EDGE speeds are way faster than I was expecting, in Brooklyn at least. Loaded up the front door of kottke.org in about 12 seconds while standing in the Long Meadow in Prospect Park. And while I was there, I read this excellent line from Jason, which is completely true for me as well:

After fiddling with it for an hour, I know how to work the iPhone better than the Nokia I had for the past 2 years, even though the Nokia has far less capabilities.

Comments

[Paul Levinson]

this future has been a long time coming - the iPhone was predicted back in 1979... http://paullevinson.blogspot.com/2007/06/iphone-arrives.html

[h. kramer]

haha, very funny about u coming home to an irritated wife, wanting a 2nd iphone! good review. NYC!

[Tim]

I've been doing that on my (now ancient) Sony w810 for a while. I got it specifically to free up pocket room. I can't wait to see what the future holds for portable media/cell phones. Hopefully more than 8gb very soon.

[eszter]

I've only had one gadget for phone/music/calendar/games for a while now: my Treo. I understand that the iPhone is different and is certainly novel in some ways, but what you described in this post isn't one of them. I'd find it more interesting to read about the truly innovative aspects, not ones that have been around for years on other gadgets.

[Pete W]

Seems to me, that the iPhone is nothing more and nothing less than a really small laptop. It's not quite as good as a laptop, but that's what it's aiming at.

However, I'm sticking with Blackberry 8800 for myself. It's a more rounded product for my circumstances. The iPhone just lacks too many things that I want.

What would REALLY impress me? Someone to make an iPhone/Blackberry/F700 style device, that I can run iTunes on.

A phone (that is a phone first), with a 30+gb hard drive and a cut down version of Vista, so I can run iTunes and all my normal programs, with a slide-out keyboard like the F700, and GPS like the Blackberry, and I'd be happy as Larry to fork out £400. THAT would be a great tool.

Sure, the OS would take a while to boot, but how often would you turn it off?

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