iReview

After multiple attempts and long wait in line next to an extremely chatty woman, who compared the experience to her wait in line for an exclusive beanie baby at Target, I was actually able to pay a large sum of money obtain a iPhone 3G. (The more money something cost, the easier it should be to get someone to actually sale it to you.) While I am disappointed with how the release has been handled, I am very happy with the phone.

Now, there are lots of people this phone is not for. Save your money if you just want a cool looking phone, the hottest gadget or don’t know the difference between push and fetch. (If that is the case and you still want a cool phone, go for the nonconformist vibe and grab a Samsung Instinct or a Nokia N series). This phone is for people who already organize their lives on some sort of device and want/need to always be connected to the cloud. I just happen to be that type of person.

Off the top, the iPhone is by far the best iPod offered (as an personal music player it functions identical to the iPod touch.) As a phone, it offers much better voice quality than my old Samsung Blackjack. I was actually shocked. The 3G makes web browsing practical when not on a the wi-fi network, though the whole actual web pages with Safari still leaves a little to be desired. The thing that really makes the phone are the applications and their integration with the GPS. For instance, while Kyllan was in town, I simply pulled up restaurant reviews using the Yelp! app and filtered them by distance from our location to decided where we should eat and then pulled up a map with turn by turn directions. At this point the device is serving as my phone, iPod, e-mail client, calendar, address book, to do list, weather station, gps, stereo remote (an airport express is hooked into m reciver) and on the fly event planner. It may be the most useful device I have ever owned… and I hate liking anything made by Apple.

All that being said, the battery life sucks. I am in one of those unique work environments where a 12 hour day permits me to have head phones on for 11 hrs without anyone taking a second glance and leave teh Wi-Fi on, so I probably should not complain with all of the use the device is getting on a daily basis, but I am sick of having to hook it up to the charger at the end of the day. The majority of my accessories for my previous iPod don’t work with the iPhone, which also sucks. Apparently new accessories, that look identical to the old ones, are going to be released soon. There is no ability to send MMS, but that doesn’t realy bother me. I love the interface for SMS. I have had a few freezes when opening an app, but the phone has quickly reset afterward. That may be my only real concern, but the consensus seems to be this is associated with useage immediately after installing multiple apps.

So, those are my thoughts. I really like the phone, but only recommend it for the tech geeks and gadget fiends.