Saturday, November 29, 2008

iPhone update

Posts have been a bit tardy this week, for which I apologise. It's been a very busy week - I've been up to London twice, and when I haven't been in London, it's been skittles or football at City - I've hardly been able to draw breath.

And in the midst of all that, my Christmas present has arrived! Ok, so it's not Christmas now, but we weren't thinking about that hen we ordered it, and before the darn thing arrived, I'd had an email telling me what my first bill was going to be next week! As I'm already paying for the contract, and it would be a rush to have ordered it later, and no end of people will be trying to activate iPhones on the big day, it made sense to open the box straight away......well that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.

In addition, I'd made arrangements with T-Mobile and O2 to get my number ported using a PAC code. In a way I'm sorry to be leaving T-Mob. I've been with them for years, and they've been good value and (mainly) faultess in their customer support. But they don't carry the iPhone - O2 do.

And I have to say it's been a pleasure dealing with them. The online ordering was faultless, as was getting my number transferred, which happened exactly as predicted. O2's online "my account" thingy is I think a tad clearer and more professional looking that T-Mob, but that's a subjective opnion.

Anyway, never mind all that....what about the phone?

Well, it is of course early days, but I have to say I'm already smitten. Leaving Palm is a wrench after so many years, and I'll hang onto the Centro as a backup. But compared to the Palm OS, the iPhone's OS is fantastic. It's easy, intuitive, clear, bright, colourful and responsive.

I'd worried about the on-screen keyboard, being a big fan of the Treo and Centro front mounted hardware keyboard. But the iPhone's just takes agetting used to. It's different, certainly, but very uable. I'm already up to using two thumbs to type with, and I don't think I'm making any more errors than I did on the Centro's small spaced 'pad. The auto correct feature works well for me too.

Having so much network connectivity on a device is new for me too. Used to plain old GPRS, I now have Edge, wifi and 3G. The latter does tend to eat battery, but is relatively quick when out and about, and it's easy to turn off and on. I've alreadu signed up to the free Cloud/BT Openzone wifi that comes with the contract when in a train station yesterday. The wifi is set up once then just detecs in future. Don't have to do anything.

Applications are clear and easy to use. I've already added Twitterific for my Twittering, and Newstand for my RSS feeds (thanks Murray). I've stashed a load of albums on there as well.

Safari appears to be a decent browser - after Blazer that's not hard (!) but it really is good, and the ability to zoom in and out and switch to landscape just by turning the device is superb.

I'm very, very impressed and loving it to bits. There'll no doubt be some more soon, but I'm off for another play!

A big thanks to Murray over at Palm-Mac for some hints and tips and pointers to a couple of apps. Nice one mate!

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