So, I couldn’t resist. I bought myself an 8-gig iPhone a day after they went on sale. The Braintree Apple store had plenty in stock, and no lines: the whole process took me a total of about 5 minutes. Activation was quick and simple – although I didn’t try to port any numbers over, just created a new one and forwarded calls – and I was up and running about 20 minutes after hooking it up to my computer, with all my contacts and music preloaded. An easy and painless process.
Trying out the phone has been a joy. Compared to my piece-of-shit Treo 700w, this….well it doesn’t even compare. I was always on the verge of throwing the Treo against the wall due to some newly-discovered frustration. The iPhone is in a completely different class. A friend who just bought one calls it “the single best consumer product ever produced”, and he’s not really one prone to exaggeration. After years of putting up with phones that hate you, having one that just works is incredibly liberating and an awesome relief.
Having usable web access in a portable device is also amazing. It’s hard to believe that other companies had years to get this right and failed so miserably. Clearly, they think very little of their customers to make them suffer so badly, when something like the iPhone was always possible.
I’ve read a lot about how access speeds on AT&T’s network are painfully slow. Perhaps my experience is unique, but so far I’ve been quite happy with the access. About half DSL speed. There’s a lot you can do with 180k/sec, and if a web page takes a long time to load at that speed….well, someone screwed up because no web page should take that long to load (I’m talking to you ESPN).
I’ll write a more detailed review later, because there are some problems with the device as it currently stands, but they’re all software problems that should be able to be addressed by a software update. As far as hardware goes, the device is solid: it feels great in the hand and the glass face is disconcertingly difficult to scratch. Battery life is impressive so far.
Beth described it best: it’s a smile machine.