Whoo HOOO!! So yes I'm a fool I went out and purchased the iPhone! I knew I was going to get this phone but I didn't think I'd get it right away like this but man the day of the release day I saw a lot of YouTube videos that forced me to get one... (well they didn't "force" they just had it in hands and I was just oogling over it and decided then I needed to get one) So the next day I got it and I didn't wait in any line to get one either. First of all I went to AT&T store in West Des Moines on University, I actually called ahead to check if they have any available they said they had 2 left so I rush down to get one. When I got there they said they "JUST" sold the last one. I had them call the one on Merle Hay. They too also had 2 left so I went down there and yes they had 1 available for me (YIPPEE!) so I shelled out the 599.99 for the iPhone and rushed home to activate it.
Activating and Syncing
You really can't do anything with the phone or play around with it until you activate over iTunes so I just went ahead transfered my phone number to it. It was actually a quick process of doing that and the phone was activated in less than 10 minutes! I was adding some of my songs and contacts into it but then realize hey where's the sound? Nothing came out of the speaker and when I got a call it didn't even ring as well. So I checked with the apple site to see what I can do to maybe bring it back up. I did my resets and very disappointed that this had to happen a replacement within the couple hours of getting it. So I called up AT&T store and they said to go to the apple store in Jordan Creek. I went out real quick got some fast food and drove down to Jordan Creek Mall and to the apple store.
Apple Store Genius
So I got in there not knowing who to talk to I saw this guy that somewhat looks like a techy dude so I went to him I guess I'm suppose to submit my name to see the "Genius" so I waited 30 minutes just hanging around the apple store not really much interested in the whole thing. I should invest in an apple computer though just to mix things up and stuff. Anyway the "Genius" hollered my name and I went to him to have him check on my $599.99 purchase today. I guess he couldn't figured it out and within the 20 minutes of him looking at it I instantly got a replacement right there no wait. GREAT! I shouldn't just purchased the phone here from the start... He had to fill out some paper work and put my sim card from the first iphone to the second.
Second Time Activating
I iPhone didn't recognize right away my service with AT&T it advised me to connect with iTunes again so I did I had to go through the activation process again... I hope that doesn't screw up anything on my account... anyway it actually took longer this time around it told me to wait until I get an email from them. I guess it got confused when the old sim is with a new device? I don't know... So I decided to take a nap since I woke up pretty early to get this phone. It actually took a couple hours for AT&T to get back with me and had me reconnect my phone again. I did that and it was activated again. GREAT! So I did my syncing I did before and it was good to go, Speaker and ALL~!
A Small Review so Far~!
Not bad so far screen is beautiful it looks good in direct sunlight as well, but of course there is no way of avoiding greasy screen after a couple minutes of use. iTunes did mostly everything for me it integrated my pop mail settings I had set up with my outlook at home and it synced over all contacts and calendar entries. Email looks nice but when my emails all came down to the phone it listed them as all "unread" and so I had to actually open them all to have them in a "read status" there was not option to select all or mark all which kind of suck I had that with both my Nokia n93 and Treo 750. It didn't sync with my notes and task on my outlook which is alright I guess I don't use the notes feature but I do use the task but they don't even have a task app on the iPhone. (I'll live I guess)
Phone
So I made some calls and they were clear and I guess loud enough I haven't really tested it in a loud atmosphere. It does what everything the keynote speach has shown you so It's all good there. The visual voicemail they were pushing was an alright feature I guess it is more convenient then having to go through each message left.
Internet
Wow beautiful internet! it really does look like the real web but of course it's still mobile no flash or java animation. Since they were really proud of putting Safari into the phone they should really have made this a 3g phone with all capabilities of a desktop internet. I find it without a wifi connection the EDGE connection is kinda slow at times. I don't have 3g coverage in my area at this time but the people that do probably would be upset about not using the fastest connection to it. WIFI connection is great! Everything loads fast and great to run especially YouTube such a great add apple did with that. With the YouTube feature though when it connects to EDGE it does take some time to load and video isn't as clear as when connected with WIFI connection.
Camera
I really didn't expect camera for this phone to be great also a cell phone user that had the Nokia N93 that had 3.2 Megapixel and 3x optical zoom, the iPhone is very basic camera with 2 megapixel, it's really just a point and shoot the camera will recognize which angle you are holding the phone with the tipsy thing the iPhone is known for so if you do it landscape or portrait it will recognize which is down. There's also no extra settings for camera like white balance and not even a digital zoom and no flash.
Other Features
The apps on the phone is ok it has a nice maps feature which google needs to update on the Des Moines area some of the streets don't work anymore! It has a weather app that tells you right off what the temp is the rest of week. Text messaging is nice it gives it like an instant message so it's back to back with each person unlike coming all into one inbox. I had that feature on my Treo 750 though.
iPod
Probably the most impressive part of this phone is the iPod feature! WOW the new iPod itself needs to be this great! They really took advantage of the screen size for this feature on the "now playing" screen it will show the full album art and most all know when you turn it side ways you can scroll the album covers with a flick of a finger. The external speaker isn't so great so it's best to just connect some headphones, the thing about the earphone port is that even though it's a 3.5mm it's recessed so it may not fit regular readsets because it won't fit.
So Far...
I like it! I've had some problems with the phone like sometimes when browsing the web or playing some music the application would just close on me having to start up again, I don't know what's the deal with that perhaps some software upgrade will fix that issue it doesn't happen often but it does get annoying. Side from that it's thin and small and can carry my email with me. It does what I guess needs but the only one who can add on or make any changes to the device is apple themselves no way to put your own apps in unless apple gives them the ok to have it in the phone. So it's not really open for a lot of users that may be looking for other apps or other usage for the phone then what already came out of the box. I like how my Treo 750 and Nokia n93 had downloadables that's not from their own manufacturers themselves but from other 3rd party that increase the usability of the phone, which unless apple changes something won't be happening to iPhone. What I want for this phone is more apps, there's Mac X on here I guess they can work something out with each other. Possibly a feature where you can do basic functions on a desktop like (copy and paste select all) browser is good now but as the web grows it does get more fancier adding flash animation support to iphone would be just grand!
