Thursday, December 20, 2007

Lessons from the iPhone

Jon bought me an iPhone. Thanks Jon!

Here's some lessons I am gleaning so far, after owning it for 5 days.

  1. Integration is a good thing. Dial visually from the contact list. Maps will map addresses from contact list. Searched stores whatever on the map, press the link, you see phone number and web pages for each store, press the phone number it dials, press the web page and browser opens.
  2. WiFi and other connectivity should be seamless. Once you add a WiFi access point to the iPhone it goes over to it automatically, without even telling you. Right now I don't THINK it makes voice calls through WiFi, but perhaps soon it will, it will be seamless, that should work. Right now email, web browsing, youtube, etc. are what are handed over seamlessly.
  3. Beautiful screen!
  4. Small screen still useful if it is beautiful. At 50 I thought I would be screwed (without reading glasses) but I can read smaller things on that screen than in other places.)
  5. UI with fingers is amazing. There are still things that can be done to improve UI.
  6. Advanced featuers, not so important. Obviously the iPhone has plenty of advanced featues, but it doesn't have:
    Voice Recognition (for dialing)
    Calls initiated from headset
    Position location
    VOIP over WiFi
    Even though competitors have these things, presumably it is smart for the iPhone not to have them until they can be made to work really well.

Much cooler than I thought it would be. Big surprises:

  1. Can navigate in browser and maps much easier than I thought, 20 seconds to find something on the map for example.
  2. Having email on phone much more positive than I realized it would be.
  3. Visual voice mail very valuable.
  4. Dialing from contact list VERY nice. (although regular phones do this, but not as beautifully).

Ciao for now,