regardingjohn

I’ll try not to gush. It’s only been a day. There is, however, a very strong tickle I get when I encounter great design (ROTFL).

Phone: sure, whatever. I’m not a big user of minutes, but the iPhone does this mundane task beautifully. Just being able to separate my most frequent calls into “favorites” while still having quick access to my entire address book is almost worth the price of admission (yes, it’s still steep).

Visual Voice Mail: Are you kidding? I couldn’t wait to answer all my calls today, so there’s no voicemails to look at.

Email: I wish I could see all my accounts together, as way I can in Apple Mail, but that would be icing on an already delicious cake.

Safari: Kind of wonderful, but I miss Homestarrunner.com (even though Flash sucks, it *is* pervasive, and semi-required for web browsing).

Notes: Let me address the user-input here. There’s no copy-paste??!! I am learning to type fairly quickly with the touch screen solution though. I *really* want a better ability to edit things.

Calendar: This is why I bought the iPhone. I needed a better calendar solution than my Sony Ericsson w600i gave me. This does it. I can access my Google calendar through Safari, and add with “Quick Add” — but I can’t edit them after the fact.

Apple’s iCal is pretty good for input, and because I set up my iCal (on the Mac) to subscribe to my Google calendars, they sync to iCal on the iPhone. But I can’t make changes to the Google calendar events — only the events that I created on the iPhone, or in iCal. This is a bother.

Still, it’s much better than what I was dealing with, and since scheduling has become incredibly important for me in the last few years, it’s nice to have a tool that helps.

YouTube: Only the YouTube videos that have undergone a special Google-Apple-process are viewable (because standard YouTube is Flash-dependent), but there are a lot of them. None of mine are, of course. I think Apple and Adobe are having another tif. But seriously, YouTube is not a feature that I need; it’s fun for small parties, but that’s about it.

Maps: This knocked me out. The step by step directions are wonderful. The interface and resolution are outstanding. Now Apple just needs to add GPS, and Google’s MyMaps.

Camera: Image quality is noticably better than my Sony Ericcson w600i’s 1.3mp camera, but it’s even more evident because of the amazing screen. No flash here either. But it’s enough of a camera that I’m going to stop carrying my trusty Pentax WPi with me everywhere I go. This may not last long if I find the resolution too limiting, or want video capture. We’ll see if I can stand it.

Stocks: Hmm… glad I’m not in that world.

Weather: I may look at this — oh, 69F and storming, that seems about right — it *does* look pretty, but I’ve never made much use of the widget, or been a Weather channel addict, so I don’t see it being a big draw.

iPod: I forget that this has an iPod. I bought a 2nd generation iPod, and hated it because I don’t like to isolate myself. I’d rather be in the world with all my senses. So I’m not sure about this one. I’ve started running, so I envision putting my research interviews on it to listen to while I run, or maybe NPR Podcasts like “This American Life” — we’ll see. I *do* have most of the videos of last year’s research interviews on it. They are not very entertaining.

Misc.: The web versions of Google Mail, Google Calendar, Google Reader, etc. are nice. I expect that they will get even better once Apple gets used to their success here, and ease up on their currently iron-fisted control over the iPhone.

Overall, I’m a fan.