Ok, so I am finally getting around to giving some thoughts to the iPhone.  I have been using it for about 4 months now, and I think I have worked out the good and bad aspects of the iPhone.  I didn’t come to the iPhone from a dinosaur cell phone - I actually had a Blackberry Pearl - so I was not overawed by the core concept of a smart phone.  I also am not a Steve Jobs fanboy (I can’t see myself ever overpaying for a “cool” and “chic” iMac, iLaptop or iWhatever) so I think about this phone as a phone, not as an extension of my Apple psyche.

Here is the good:

1.      It is the best multipurpose handheld device I have seen.  It does a whole bunch of things pretty well.  And it keeps getting better as more and more applications (”apps”) are developed and available.

2.      It has a great many applications to choose from, because Apple finally wised up and allowed developers to create apps and market them.  (Apple is still way too “Big Brother” about its app store, however.)

3.      The apps work (relatively) seamlessly together.  For example: You are in your contacts; you look at a contact’s address.  Click it and the Maps app opens, showing where the address is.  Touch again and it will map directions from  your current location.  Very nice.

4.      The iPod nature of the phone is very nice.  The speaker is good, and can put out some volume.  On highest setting, you can hear it in a good size room.  16GB is plenty of space for a good deal of music, and you can rotate your music off it.

5.      The internet nature of the device is awesome.  The ability to connect it to wifi is a HUGE plus.  It makes the iPhone much more powerful at home and the office.  The web browser is excellent - and coupled with the iPhone’s large screen, very useful.  The only problem is that (typical Apple) they decided that Flash just wasn’t ready for the “user experience” so no flash websites work.  That is supposed to be fixed in a couple of months.

6.      Reading (not getting) email.  The ability to easily read formatted email is much better than on my Blackberry Pearl.  It was very tiresome to have to wade through html coded emails on my BB.  Very nice.

7.      Access to information.  Between a great web browser and the many information apps available, you can have access to just about any information you need - notes, your blog, sports scores, etc.  There is a great Bible program that means I’m never without my Bible (a big plus for me).  Waiting and bored?  You can read the NY Times, a book or watch a YouTube video.

The bad:

1.      Battery power.  The battery does not last a whole day of decent usage.  But what is worse - in typical Apple fashion you can’t get a spare battery.  Apple is protecting you, you see?  Since firmware updates, the battery usage is much better.  One thing that I need to mention also is that it does charge very fast.  When the battery runs down, I can get a good amout of juice back with a quick 15-30 minute charge.

2.      Accessory incompatibility.  I’m so glad Apple isn’t out just to make money like Microsoft.  That would mean that Apple would make most iPod and original iPhone charging accessories (and therefore portable speakers and car accessories) incompatible with the 3G iPhone.  Oh, that’s right.  They did exactly that.

3.      You have to use iTunes.  iTunes is a decent music player.  I understand that it is designed for people who have never even used a computer to sync their music (and as the father of young boys, I can appreciate that).  But I really don’t like all the background processes running, and the fact that it crashes Outlook.

4.      The camera.  No zoom.  No flash.  Why did they include that again?

5.      Getting email.  The Pull options (15 minutes and 30 minutes) are not even in the same league as Blackberry.  I tried the Mobile Me Push (yeah, right!) service for about two days, before I decided it was the lamest, worst such service on earth.  Buggy, clunky, and you have to have all your emails go out under a .me address.  Real good for business.  Someone explain to Apple how a business works, and how you are not supposed to act like you are 12.  You would have to be nuts to pay $99 per year for that.  There is a solution though that I have found: you can get a shared Microsoft Exchange account for your email for about $9 per month.  That is full Exchange - synced Contacts, Calendar and Email.  Very nice.  Very much worth the price, especially when you get Outlook Web Access and a backup of all that data if the device fails.

6.      The phone.  It is by far the worst phone for dropped calls I have ever had.  As far as integration, it is great (really easy to call contacts, look them up, etc.) but it can be really frustrating to actually have a long call on.  Much of the internet buzz is about how bad the ATT network is (hello? Fanboy alert!).  But I have been on the ATT/Cingular network for six years on several phones (Motorola, Blackberry and now Apple). I never had any problems of significance until the iPhone.

The Sum:

Don’t get me wrong, on the whole the iPhone is nice.  I am happy with it, despite its flaws.  Perhaps most of the flaws are more annoying to me because they appear to be able to be fixed relatively easily, but Apple refuses to fix them.  You get the idea that talking to Apple is like talking to a 1960s Soviet Apparatchik.  “What, you want copy and paste?  You do not need copy and paste, no one uses copy and paste!” “What you want flash camera?  You should be happy you even have camera!!  Who cares if every other phone - even ones built for 10 year olds have flash camera!”

But beyond that, the incredible interconnected nature of the iPhone and all its apps is great.  And every week a new app comes out, often making up for the shortcomings built in by Apple (for example, for some reason Apple gave landscape view web browsing, but not email - and a bunch of apps filled in that gap).

I love the fact that the iPhone keeps me connected.  Connected to my congregation by email, phone and text.  Connected in that I can blog post from anywhere (I did that from a Sproul conference).  Connected to the stock market (although Deb thinks I should stop looking and thinking about it).  Other phones may do similar things - but the iPhone does them faster and often with a single click. It is remarkable how easy it makes some tasks.

Now here is a list of the apps that I am currently using, mostly free ones, but a few I paid for because they are useful (and all of them are relatively cheap at that):

• Adela Voice Dialer - I got this when it was free (now it is $4.99).  This is a pretty good voice dialer.  The downside is that you can’t activate it just from a Bluetooth headset (like Blackberry dialers), you have to open the app.  The upside is that the voice recognition is good
• AOL Radio - this allows you to get a large number of radio stations (internet and web versions of air stations) to play over your iPhone’s speakers.
• AirSharing - this app uses WebDev (a network protocol built into Windows) to transfer files (PDF, Word docs, etc) to your iPhone and also allows you to view them.  A very nice app.  So if you need information to carry around (like your wife’s Christmas list), just make a PDF of it and put it on your iPhone
• Bloomberg - the built it Stocks app is great for checking out whether the market is up or down 500 points today, but this app gives much more detail.  And it is free.
• Constitution for iPhone - a free copy of the Constitution, optimized for iPhone viewing
• Dial Zero - this app gives you details on how to get through a key prompt maze to get a real person at a great many companies.
• Evernote - this is the iPhone version of the Evernote service (which is free)
• Expense2Go - you can track expenses, submit them to salesforce.com and even take and attach pictures of receipts
• Firemail/SpellCheck TouchType - Firemail is a free version of a landscape email keyboard.  SpellCheck Touch Type costs like $1, and has a few better features.
• GasHog - lets you track gas usage and mileage.
• Google Mobile App - perhaps the best app out there.  The new version allows you to submit a voice search to Google.  So if you are driving around and need an address for a company, you can simply speak into the phone the name of the company and it will provide Google search results.  It also intergrates with Google Docs, and Google Apps.
• iheart Radio - streams Clearchannel radio stations.  I use it to listen to Rush Limbaugh on the Houston talk station occasionally.
• LifeChurch.tv Bible - a very nice and user friendly Bible program.  You can download free versions (KJV, NKJV, ASV) but need an internet connection for others (ESV, NIV, NASB).
• NY Times - read the NY Times in easy format.
• Pandora Radio - a free radio program that allows you to create your own type of radio stations (by music selections).  It integrates with the web version.
• Remote - control iTunes on your computer from your iPhone
• reQall - allows you to speak notes, tasks, etc into your iPhone and it converts them to text.  You can view them in the app, and also have them emailed to you.
• Sportacular - easily see sports scores
• The Weather Channel - see weather for your area quickly and easily without having to input into a web page.
• Wordpress - create and read your Wordpress blog entries