Steinblogger

I’ve had the iPhone working since Thursday morning, just enough time to form some opinions. I’ve been using a Palm Treo 700p with Sprint since January, so I’ll use that as my benchmark.

To summarize: I had high expectations, but the iPhone has exceeded them at every turn. This is a truly amazing device. If you care to wade through the details, here they are:

The weak points

AT&T
What do you get when you try to find a company that will let you have it your way? You get the only partner desperate enough to make a one-sided deal. Every time you strike a bargain like that, you won’t get the highest-quality player. I just hope Apple can help AT&T improve their operations.

AT&T’s customer service has to be the most convoluted system in phone history. Compared to my experience getting the iPhone up and running, Sprint was a dream (and that’s saying a lot). It took four days and 10 calls – with at least one transfer per call – to find out I had made a mistake with my phone number transfer from Sprint. Then, I was told it was fixed on two occasions when it was not. AT&T is a maze of departments: I found the Activation department, the iPhone Activation department, the Transfer department, the Port and Activations department, the Activation Status department, the Port Request department, and two separate Customer Service departments, plus Apple’s own iTunes activation line. That’s a recipe for the iPhone activation PR disaster we saw this week.

Signal strength
The signal strength seems to fade away inside buildings more than Sprint’s did. I’ve had two situations where I would have expected some sort of signal but wasn’t able to get one. Since I’m switching networks, I can’t tell if this is AT&T’s problem or the iPhone’s. Regardless, it’s a step down from Sprint’s coverage in the NYC area.

No iChat
Even though the free AIM client I picked up for the Treo, Toccer, was buggy as all get out, at least I had an option for chatting with Instant Messenger. I hope Apple adds this in an update, because I don’t want to shell out another $10/month for unlimited texting.

Slow Internet-over-cellphone
I’d like to have more speed on AT&T’s EDGE network. Still, I find I’m using the iPhone to browse the web more (see below), but that doesn’t mean that the speed is better than Sprint’s. It isn’t.

The strong points

Safari and WiFi
As I mentioned, browsing the web is a pleasure, even when I’m on the slower cellular network. I don’t fear what a site will look like, or if it will function, like I did with the Treo. My bookmarks are synchronized with Safari on my computer (thank you!). There are innovative interface touches, like the spinner that comes up with drop-down menu choices. It’s never been so much fun to pick a state while filling out my address.

For no extra cost, the iPhone gets on a WiFi connection when it’s available. When you live in New York City, you can find an open WiFi network on just about every corner, so this is invaluable. When I’m on my home WiFi, Safari appears to be avery bit as fast as on my MacBook Pro. Truly amazing.

The keyboard
Contrary to my expectation, I like the keyboard. I’m typing at least as fast as I did on the Treo because of the iPhone’s auto correct feature. Plus, the iPhone keyboard gets out of the way when not in use, leaving behind a ton more screen than the Treo.

Video
I never used the Treo for video, because it was such a pain to get video onto it and the quality was terrible. And it sucked down battery power like you wouldn’t believe. Instead, I carried a video iPod when to watch video. No longer! Video on the iPhone is stunning. The screen resolution and size is such that I am seriously considering selling my video iPod because, even though the iPhone only has 8GB of space, I don’t think I’ll ever watch a video on my video iPod again. Why would I?

The iPod
The interface, sound and overall user experience is, amazingly, superior than the iPod.

Mail
Mail on the iPhone is quite good. I get fully formatted mail (including HTML), a great interface and automatic synchronization of my Mail accounts (that’s right, I didn’t have to set them up on the iPhone. They simply came over from Mail.app on my computer). The Treo’s email was functional, but plain. All setup was done on the phone, and it sent and read only in plain text. You couldn’t even see HTML-formatted email.

The fun
I never had fun using the Treo. I have fun using the iPhone. Case closed!