I got mine yesterday.

I was in York walking back tot he train station, passed the O2 store on the off chance and they had "loads". It took about 15 minutes from walking in to walking out.

First impressions. The App store is great. Some of the edges are a little sharp somehow. Screen is amazing, so is the touch screen.

On the downside O2's 3G coverage is really really rubbish and quite slow in my area. If you are connected to a WiFi spot it doesn't drop to 3G if you haven't logged in, it just sits there.

Quite an amazing device, blows the socks off anything I have ever used before.

Cheers

Cris.

I noticed that too. It's like the fit and finish of the casing's edges are off a nanometer or something. Just enough so you can feel it with your finger, not enough to make it an issue.




That's something they really need to work on: automatically logging in to spots that give you a web sign-in page. For instance, in my company building, there is a free "guest" wifi hotspot that prompts you for a user name and password. Well, after I set up that user name and password, it works, but then I have to answer the prompt each time I reconnect. The iPhone should give me the option to remember that password and blast through that hotspot login for me, so I don't have to open up Safari and type in the username and password each time I want to check my mail or browse the app store.

It also needs to be smarter about joining wifi networks. It joins every network that has a common name. For instance, in my town, everywhere you go, there are wifi networks named "DLink" or "Actiontec" or "Linksys", because people are dumb and they never rename their wireless routers. Well, those are often open to the internet (for similar reasons), so I often join those networks if I find an open one when I'm sitting in a restaurant or whatnot.

But then let's say I'm driving down the street and using the mapping feature with 3G. As I drive by other routers named "DLink" or "Linksys", it keeps connecting to them, even though it can't see the internet through them, and it drops the perfectly good 3G network, and of course freezes up solid.

I wish that, before it automatically joins a wifi network, it could spawn off another background thread that makes sure it has an actual path to the internet and can retrieve something other than a hotspot logon page.

Yes, this is a very much needed feature. Already starting to annoy me. I have also noticed I have had to completely turn the thing off and on again for it to pick up an internet connection, it doesn't seem to retry very well, it just sits there waiting.

And why no copy and paste? Seems pretty basic to me.

I have downloaded a few games from the App Store now, and the free VNC really is impressive. I am amazed by some of the graphics it's something I really didn't expect. The game control is very very good, it picks up on the slightest movement and there really is no need for physical keys.

How the hell do they fir everything into it??? If I sit it next to my Karma (which is still very much in use!) it really is amazing what is now possible.

Another thing I like is the push email, I think this will be the killer app for me. The only reason I don't like my blackberry to be honest is because it gives me more work to do. The iPhone and .me are just what I have been looking for, I think I may even pay the £59 when my trial runs out! Shock! Horror!

In fact you can help me try it out email me at crismatthews @ me.com (take out the spaces!).

Thinking about it I haven't even tried it with music yet

Cheers

Cris.

I grabbed a new one yesterday before heading to Quakecon. Line for it wasn't too terrible, but still over an hour of waiting. The speed difference between Edge and 3G is definitely noticeable, and will be handy when needed, but my main benefits of upgrading are other features. The 16gb of space is already coming in handy and the GPS is working wonderfully to lead me around Dallas. True navigation software will be a welcome addition. The new phone also feels better in the hand, something I didn't expect.

It's an evolutionary jump, but a welcome one.

Interesting tidbits about the iPhone out of Carmack's keynote:

1. He's really disappointed he and id didn't have time to release a game for it yet. An evolved version of the DS copy of Orcs and Elves will likely be their first release.

2. He really likes the SDK. Easy to work with, great tools, and a nice professional fit and finish to it when compared against other mobile platforms.

3. The graphics capabilities are on par with the Dreamcast (1999 high end console), and due to the much higher memory, could probably outclass a PS2 or XBox.

I got mine at 9:01am in Pittsburgh, 24th in line, opening day. At 9:35 it finished activating and I left

Things I want:
-hwpen updated for 2.0
-bluetooth keyboard
-bluetooth a2dp (i have been poking at frameworks trying to figure out what might be done here; don't want a fob)
-bluetooth obex
-better tethering than socks.
-streaming wma (though i will probably work on that this week)

It's nice as a replacement for my old phone. It's not good as a replacement for my Treo, yet.

Also, I got a small scratch in my screen; I might learn about polishing glass

ahhh - have a look at dynolicious

might make an iphone almost worthwhile, as I'm still a luddite who doesn't really like them (very few of the features are benefits for me, and they don't have a lot of things I need/want in a phone)

That's kinda awesome.

I drive very little at all anymore, sadly...
Otherwise it'd be neat.

Determining the performance characteristics of locomotives could add a new element to your trainspotting.

Boarding one is probably not looked highly upon.

Somebody I know made something similar using the Wii paddle...

So after a week of use, here are the high a low lights...

A cool feature is that if you remove the headphone from the jack the player pauses. This means you don't have to unlock the screen to pause if you have finished listening.

The GPS and maps is a triumph! I used it today to find a post office in York, it will be a very useful feature in future!

The sound quality is pretty good, my ears are used to the Karma after many years but I think this will be the way I listen to music on the go from now. I don't find I need the eq, it sounds good and rounded as it is.

I love the apps store, amazing idea. Great mix of apps already.

The screen quality is amazing.

Unfortunately most of the negative points relate to email, the main reason I opted for the iPhone. No Spam filter on the phone as there is in Mail in OSX, I didn't realise just how much spam gets through my isp's filter. It doesn't update very well, the "push" features of me just don't work for me. The software seems to lock in "checking mail" and the only way I can get it to get new mail is a full power cycle, it feels like I am using windows mobile again! I assume these are just bugs.

Also all my apps stopped working all of a sudden, I had to wait until I got home and remove and re install them all. A blip I am sure.

The case is annoying me, the right hand side is fine, a smooth tactile finish, but the left side of the phone is not put together correctly, this is really annoying me now, I notice it every time I touch the device. I am thinking about returning it, but it feels a little petty doing that.

WiFi signal strength is just as good as any other device I have, but the mobile signal is shocking, I find it hard to use the phone in Leeds centre as it breaks up all the time. I also find o2 data throughput on 3G shockingly bad. I am assuming this is all an O2 problem?

I miss an led or something like on my blackberry, it would be great to have a pulse led that lets you know you have email etc... waiting.

Overall I think it is quite an amazing device, it all comes together in the apps store for me. I feel I have made a good choice in the iPhone, and I am sure that the bugs will be ironed out in future updates.

Cheers

Cris.

I don't know how the retail stores for the phones work in the UK, but here in the US, it's a very painless process. You make an appointment at the Genius Bar, walk in at the appointed time, and walk out 10 minutes later with a new phone.

If there is an obvious defect in the casing, I wouldn't have the slightest hesitation doing it. The company *expects* people to return items with defects. They know that they can't make 100 percent of them perfect. And when there *are* defects in the field, they want to know about them so they can make their assembly and quality control procedures better.

In other words, there's nothing petty about returning a product like that. Don't think twice.

You paid money for goods in what should be perfect condition. If its not then take it back. If it was advertised as "slightly damaged" and had a discount then you'd jsut have to deal with it but in this case it wasn't.

Besides, if you don't do it then you'll forever be slightly annoyed each time you use the phone.

Yes, this is the current feeling. I think I will drop in the Apple Store next time I am nearby.

Cheers

Cris.

Both versions of the iPhone seem to have appalling mobile reception for some reason. No idea why. Everybody else seems to have mastered the internal antenna for the last few years.

O2 data throughput isn't that great. To be honest, its not great on any of the UK carriers even if you have a HSDPA capable phone.

My observation is that the treble was far too high. Setting the EQ to "Bass Booster" mostly worked, but resulted in some really nasty clipping artifacts. I'm now using the "Treble Reducer" which works much better. I never felt a need to make any adjustment on my (1st-gen) iPod Nano.

Otherwise, the only thing that's annoying me is that there's no way to set the different alerts the way I want. I want new emails to vibrate with no sound, but I want a beep and vibration for SMS. (Email is arriving all the time, and it's rarely important enough to interrupt what I'm doing, but SMS is much more rare and thus worth generating an interrupt.) For now, I just have email alerts turned off altogether.

My iPhone seems to have trouble switching back and forth between EDGE and 3G seamlessly, sometimes I will get a very strong EDGE signal then it will drop to a 0 bar 3G signal. I just turned off 3G unless I really need it (am in a good area and need to do some heavy surfing) and that fixed a lot of my signal issues.

No current phone of any type has any sort of spam filter that I'm aware of. It's simply too much processing. This really should be done at the server or ISP level.

Are you using ActiveSync to push mail? I'd guess not since you mention your ISP and rarely do ISPs offer Exchange.

I have 2 accounts set up on the iPhone, a me.com set to push (which doesn't work) and my isp account set to fetch (which doesn't work). I really like my blackberry for work emails so I figured that I should get a similar service from me.com but I don't. It simply isn't working for me, it did but it's so up and down that it makes it hard to predict how long it takes for emails to turn up on my mobile, and often I miss them.

I think it is the fetch function that doesn't work the most, it is set to 30 mins refresh but it can go all day without even trying. And when it does it just sits there, logging onto my isp's webmail shows I have email waiting. It does this both over 3G and WiFi.

I am sure these are just bugs, but it really is annoying as everything else is pretty good.

Cheers

Cris.

Me.com failing to work might well be a bug (they had rollout troubles with me.com), but fetching regular mail from your ISP should work just fine unless there's authentication troubles. I'd investigate things like the server names, the settings, the password, etc., and call your ISP and ask them if other users have had trouble connecting with their iPhones.

I'm fetching from Gmail and it works great.

Miscellaneous annoyances, in no particular order:

- There's no way, from the iPhone, to forge my From: address, as I do from Gmail itself. That means that any message I send from my iPhone has my @gmail.com address rather than my preferred @cs.rice.edu address (which forwards to Gmail and keeps a copy locally).

- There's less fine-grained control over how alerts work (I've griped about this here before).

And, while I'm at it, I've got a small gripe about the calendar support:

- I'm now using Google Calendar's CalDAV support to hook my Google Calendar to iCal. That part works great, and my remote calendars sync perfectly to the iPhone. The problem is that I can't specify which calendar receives a new entry on the iPhone. They all go to the local "Calendar" calendar. You can't specify a different calendar to receive a new event.

I also have the problem where it will not fetch for some reason even though it it is set to check every 15 minutes. It doesn't sit around when it tries, it just doesn't try. So when I initiate a manual fetch I will sometimes have e-mails hours old.

I also find it very frustrating that I cannot send/receive files to and from via bluetooth.

Stu

Does that mean you can't stuff multiple addresses into the account prefs like you can in the full Mac OS version of Mail?

In Mail what you do is supply multiple addresses, comma separated, in the "Email Address" field of your account prefs. You can do this for every account and when composing an email you will see a pop-up menu next to the From: header where you can pick what address to use.

I bounce between EDGE and 3G routinely in certain (weak 3G) places and I've noticed no real issue with it. I do get data on the 0-bar 3G until it gets too weak and goes back to EDGE.

The crippled Bluetooth stack is a bummer. BTManager has support for everything it does on a laptop; The MobileBluetooth framework is useless. I haven't looked at the kernel yet but I bet someone can eventually add what's needed. I have a full toolchain now, but no time.

And for the techy who doesn't have an EEE:

iSSH

I know you can set up multiple accounts. What it won't let me do (and I've tried several ways) is set up my account at gmail.com with an email address other than my @gmail.com address.

I do this with my GMail account. I can send and receive messages with my cushman.net e-mail address completely from gmail.com and my iPhone with my setup like this:

I believe the key is stored as it is on a Mac, in your keychain, which is encrypted - so you don't get it in plaintext if you steal/hack the phone.

Beyond that, it'd be nice if the phone would erase itself if someone kept trying to crack your PIN, but I don't believe it does that... I should file a bug really!

Hugo