I am furious and indignant at the difficulty and expense of acquiring a new battery for my three year old phone. It is easier to buy a whole new phone. Planned obsolescence is all well and fine when it comes to a washing machine, but then learning the operating system of a new washing machine is far more straight forward than figuring out how to program my phone’s dictionary to contain the wide collection of expletives required by me in daily electronic conversation. I hear echoes of my mother when I express my dismay at my ever diminishing ability to learn new platforms, especially ones which involve pressing small buttons with tiny print on them.
Needless to say, I am not much of a gadget person, but I am entertaining the prospect, that if I am being coerced into purchasing a new phone, I may as well lash-out for once and get something really flash (and hopefully, more enduring.) Naturally, my thoughts wander to the painfully trendy new iPhone and I can almost imagine myself fondling the slippery flat brick, but I could not bring myself to imagine me walking through the doors of the jam-packed Apple Store.
So before I begin my telecommunications device research in detail, I have a question for all the iPhone fans out there: Aside from allowing you to frequently remark “Look what I can do on my iPhone”, do you actually ‘use’ your phone for doing anything other than sending texts and making phone calls?
Or, can phones even make phone calls anymore?
I don’t have an iPhone because the plans are WAY too expensive ($70 Canadian per month), but_/_so I do have an iPod touch which is everything of the iPhone except the phone and the camera and the internet access over the phone (?) network.
So basically it’s an incredibly stripped down iPhone. I use it for: wifi access to the wonderful world of the internet to check e-mail, or to look at Twitter, or sometimes Nature Network, but many websites (like NN) that have no mobile version are hard to see on the tiny screen. I also regularly use it to listen to music, check the weather or time in other cities, play games, use the calculator, look up which movie is playing in the theatres closest to where I am. I also just downloaded a program that will let me write word documents on there, because I plan to use the ipod touch as my main computer while traveling. (NB – I will be in Sydney end of July.)
Applications I sometimes use: to-do lists, grocery list-making thing.
Applications I love and have, but actually never use: restaurant or coffee shop locators, subway times, the complete works of Shakespeare, molecular structure viewer, Google earth.
And I guess if I had an iPhone instead of an iPod touch I would do all that plus make phone calls and take pictures.
Audra, if you’re always getting lost like I am, the iPhone’s GPS mapping system is a life-saver. I use it not only when I get turned around in the tiny streets of Soho, but also on road trips when a certain person takes the wrong exit and we have to re-jig our itinerary at a moment’s notice. You can program in your start position and desired finish position, and select Walk, Car or (in London at least) Bus itinerary to get a purple route line projected onto a flat map or satellite image. A flashing blue light lets you know where you are on the route at all times; I use this sometimes when walking to work out which direction I’m heading – something a paper map can never do.
what Jenny said — it saved my life when I got to London and didn’t know where the hell I was, and the traffic feature is so totally cool it’s unreal. Yesterday when friend came to visit I was able to see that he’d be OK on the M4 but could see the blockage on the A40 before the BBC travel report said there was a problem. Having said that it doesn’t seem to do traffic info for Aus, although I can see (for example) that route 40 into Baltimore is clear.
The iPhone makes it so easy to integrate locations, contacts and calendars that I have, for the first time ever, started keeping an electronic diary that I take notice of.
What Jenny and Richard said. Plus the apps. I have a fabulous Scrabble game, to which I am addicted. Also there’s one called Boatie that gives me local tide times (I live by the sea) which is great for planning walks. More seriously and in answer to your question, I don’t use it too much as a phone or texter (though the v3.0 software makes these more attractive) but as a web browser. As most of my work is web based I use it for work quite a lot… It’s as good as a small notebook computer for that purpose.
It’s great for settling arguments in the pub, but I have very few apps. I use mail, SMS, safari, GPS, twitterfon, calendar & addressbook the most, I think.
And I got a business plan so I use it as a phone a lot (except for 0845 numbers…)
I would add the to the above comments: email. Naturally, this can also be done on a crackberry or other smartphone, but the ease with which I can address any number of questions or issues from multiple accounts while I am out and about (most of the time these days) is crucial. I also agree with Henry. The web browser is really the best I have ever used on such a small device, since web pages appear in native form. Things get a little stickier though if you are out of range of a wi-fi or 3G signal. Web browsing on a regular, non-3G network then becomes somewhat frustrating though not unworkable.
I must also add my two cents on the GPS functionality. In Boston, where the roads and signs change on what seems like a daily basis (Thanks Mayor Mumbles!) it is great to employ to the maps and traffic information to chart a somewhat less gummed up course.
Related (sort of): Has anyone tried to use the Spore app? I mean the concept of micro-evolving a little beastie is really cool but I am wondering how sophisticated the thing is. The comments on the store page mostly address the playability of the game versus how close it hews to our understanding of how natural selection works. Maybe I am thinking too much about this…
About using iPhones as phones: a friend of mine uses his iPhone as his main (only!) phone, and complained about things for which you need to press buttons during a call. For example, when someone rings his doorbell he needs to let them in by answering the phone and pressing 9, but that is apparently not a straightforward thing to do (you need to pull up the keypad to type or something? I don’t know, maybe someone with an actual iPhone can elaborate)
Eva, I find that the act of taking the phone away from my ear and moving it down to my left hand makes the keypad pop up. If it occasionally doesn’t, it’s just 1 button to make it pop up.
In the last week I’ve used my iPhone as a GPS, to-do list, score card for a real-life scrabble game, guitar tuner, metronome, bus schedule checker (our local transit system has an app that shows you every bus stop within 3 blocks and the next 5 buses to arrive at them), personal trainer (running app that tells you when to walk / run / sprint / rest), as well as for email, internet, iPod etc. I think I made a couple of calls too.
I use my iPhone, on average, about three hours a day – mostly for listening to podcasts and catching up with TV, but also for web browsing, emails and reading novels. Oh, and playing the ludicrously addictive Drop7 game (do not download it – it’s more gripping than Tetris). On reflection, I’d have probably been better off getting the much cheaper iPod Touch and keeping my old mobile. But it is nice to have everything in one sleek device.
I’m one of those
Ludditespeople who forgets to turn on the cell phone or carry it with me, but since I’ve had the iPhone, I’m a little better about remembering I have one. Sometimes, though, I forget that I can access e-mail out in the boonies, as I did this morning, when I neglected to access a schedule change message.I listen to podcasts on my iPhone three or more times a week at the gym, and I use the web browser and e-mail functions fairly frequently (but briefly each time – otherwise I get a headache). One of the apps I really like is the GoodGuide, for identifying non-toxic products from environmentally- and socially- responsible companies. Probably TMI for many people, though.
I like the iPhone camera … I can use it to take and send a photo with the message “Look what my knucklehead horse did to his leather halter this morning, after pulling away from me with the lead rope attached!”
Yep, that’s the whole ventral aspect of the halter busted, from knucklehead stepping on the lead rope whilst running and bucking and farting round the paddock. One good reason never to turn a horse out with a nylon halter, which, unlike leather, will not break.
I like to be contrary so I opted for an HTC Magic instead of an iPhone. It runs the Google Android operating system. It has the 3G and wifi internet access, a touch screen almost the same size as iPhone and is pleasingly slim and smooth.
I too have found the positioning and mapping very useful – for vital things like finding where the nearest Caffe Nero is.
It is not so good on music (no itunes link-up) and I think the apps market is smaller than for the iPhone. I still hope those things will change in time.
I use it more for internet/email access than as a phone.
@ Robert: Has anyone tried to use the Spore app? I mean the concept of micro-evolving a little beastie is really cool but I am wondering how sophisticated the thing is
I have played Spore on a PC and Spore Origins on the iPhone. The latter is so much of a cut-down of the former that they’re really two different things, as if Grand Theft Auto turned into Minor Shoplift Unicycle. Not that it isn’t a lot of fun, though. Spore Origins has 30 levels, most of which are far too easy. But level 29 is bloody hard and level 30 appears to be impossible.
Where can I download Minor Shoplift Unicycle??
After I posted this, I did some research and pretty well had myself talked out of it, but now I must give it another think.
What I don’t fully comprehend is how on earth to predict costs and usage in order to decide what sort of plan is even remotely useful, especially here in Australia where the internet is evidently powered by a bilby on a wheel…
Do you pay when you connect to a wi-fi? Is it possible to access the internet through one’s home network in order to save on data costs? Is it true that iTunes is the only way to put content onto your phone and if so, what kind of financial black hole is that?? Do you pay each time your GPS co-ordinates your position or is that some sort of other subscription fee? Do you pay extra for email services or does it just count as data – such that when one of your challenged friends send you a 10 MB jpeg, you have eaten through en entire month’s allowance??
Eva – I am thinking about an iTouch as well…what are the associated operating costs with that beauty?
And is anyone concerned that the iPhone has the highest at-ear SAR around?
Audra – I think you’re gonna have to put these questions to your service provider. I can only answer from my own experience, having a contract with O2.
Do you pay when you connect to a wi-fi?
No.
Is it possible to access the internet through one’s home network in order to save on data costs?
Yes.
Is it true that iTunes is the only way to put content onto your phone and if so, what kind of financial black hole is that??
Yes, and it’s a free download to either a Mac or a PC.
Do you pay each time your GPS co-ordinates your position or is that some sort of other subscription fee?
Don’t know.
Do you pay extra for email services or does it just count as data – such that when one of your challenged friends send you a 10 MB jpeg, you have eaten through en entire month’s allowance??
Don’t know.
With my plan, I get 1200 minutes, 500 texts and unlimited web access for around £50 per month, including insurance. Because I use my iPhone mainly as a web browser I almost never go above that amount. Yes, I can key it in to my home wireless router just as if it were another computer, and I can use my existing email client for SMTP-based mail – which I almost never use nowadays, as I tend to use webmail anyway. I’m nopt sure whether using the GPS and such would take up one’s allotted talk time, but iof it’s mediated through the web, then I guess it wouldn’t. What web use does do is cane your battery like anything.
Another aside – the latest v3.0 software allows you to cut and paste, which means I can use the ‘notes’ app as a viable writing tool (for short pieces, book reviews and so on), and cut and paste it into a webmail account of my choice (rather than just SMTP).
The new software is fantastic — finally got MMS too, although I’m not sure if they charge more for that.
Audra, I didn’t get an iPhone in Aus mainly because of the swingeing data charges and abysmally low data cap. With unlimited data it’s definitely worth it (and no, there’s no charge for GPS location in the UK. Aus, probably there is. Bunch of convicts).
The Touch’s only extra charges for me have been the few applications I found worth paying for. Internet access through wifi costs whatever it would take you to do the same through a computer. So it’s free if it’s your own, or if it’s someone’s open network, or they give you the password, but as you move around (airports, especially) it will often pick up networks that charge for access. I just don’t use them.
Audra, with the iTunes black hole, were you talking about paying for content rather than for the programme?
While you can buy music, audiobooks, video etc. through iTunes, you can also import your existing content into it from CDs or whatever, and therefore onto the phone/touch. Plus there are some really great podcasts out there that are free.
I wasn’t one of the early adopters, but I have a first-generation iPhone. E-mail and apps are my primary uses. It has pretty much eliminated the need to carry a (comparatively) bulky laptop when traveling. However, I’m still hoping for an “in between” device—something like the much-rumored tablet Mac, for example.
Indeed
I have decided to buy a food processor instead. I chop carrots far more often than I lose my sense of direction. Thank you, everyone, for helping me remember that I do not want to be tethered to the internet at all times or pay extra for things in Australia that are free to the rest of the world.
Ah, someone with a decent set of priorities. My wife would agree with you, Audra.