mike[space] dot net

Over the past few years, I've had various iterations of the Sony Ericsson Smart phone range, and have watched with dismay as the quality has gradually deteriorated, and/or it hasn't kept up with the way I want my phone to work. This culminated with Dave providing me with a P1 last year, and I've been soldiering on with it ever since. And frankly, if I had paid for it I would've been gutted. If I was still using a windoze machine, it may be that I would've got on with it better, as my main issue with it has been the synching. But it's also unintuitive to use, seems to get itself confused quite easily, and mainly just succeeds in getting on my tits quite a lot.

After much uhmming and ahhing, I decided to take the plunge and fork out for an iPhone. The initial outlay is certainly hefty, but I am not that bothered by the monthly cost at all (I'm actually going to be on a better deal than I have been in terms of free texts and calls). As a mac user that often gets short shrift on the phone integration market (witness blackberries and the charging/phone mgmt software absence), it's certainly a natural fit. The syncing is a key thing for me. And having a nice interface on a phone will make a really big change (the last really decent interface that I got on a phone was when I was just after a phone on its own, at which point it was a Nokia and it was the 6310i. I love the idea of having a small internet tablet for the home, that's also my phone (so I will always have it to hand), and having an ipod that I can play loud and still not miss phone calls etc, and maybe I also fell for the advertising a little. But with the SDK coming out as well, I was sold. Sod 3G, I want a decent bloody phone now.

So on Monday evening, I braved the terrible British storms (oooh, a whole 80mph wind was recorded on the coast ... 24 hour news channels have done no favours for our sense of perspective) to go to the apple store and pick one up. And so far I've been very happy with it. Set up was basically a breeze (a few clicks of the mouse and it was operational in about 5 mins) the screen is gorgeous, the browser fab, and the way everything is displayed is beautifully clear.

Issues so far:

1) Mail doesn't have junk filters on it, so am winding up reading about girth and viagra a little more than I would like.
2) You can't tag photos that you have synched over from iPhoto, which would be nice to be able to do.
3) Not everything has a landscape mode, which is a shame as I much prefer that view - I'm a widescreen kinda guy.
4) Settings are all under one thing, which can be a bit annoying as I would like to be able to get to photo settings when I am in the photo app etc.
5) Stupid recessed headphone jack not compatible with my headphones, so had to buy an adaptor.

Highlights:

1) Making shortcuts to web pages on the home screen of the phone.
2) general internet-in-your-pocketness, which is lovely (and vastly superior to any previous internet-in-your-pocket functionality I've had on other phones, the screen real estate makes a huge difference).
3) ability to simply show people photos from my holiday.
4) the way it shows text message content on the phone without having to touch anything - very growl-like. When combined with the sound cue through the headphones, it works v well.
5) The syncing is everything I hoped it would be, and possibly more.

Interestingly (well, for me anyway), I've had to spend a bit of time thinking about playlists to work with the smaller memory available. Smart playlists look to be v powerful ...

All in all, am so far very happy with it, and think it's worthy of the hype ... once it's bedded in for a bit I will update again ...