I’ve had my iPhone 3G for a while. I haven’t posted a review of it because, for all that I have a PhD, and could probably tell the difference between an iPhone
An iPhone 3G, enduring masterpiece of design. Yesterday
and an Acheulian hand-axe,
An Acheulian hand-axe, yesterday a million billion gazillion BC, or thereabouts. (In the town hall if wet. Restrictions may apply).
… I knoweth not my Win from my Waps, and am therefore not greatly frontloaded with jargonilia of a technopolitical presumptication.
I’m a palaeontologist, so help me. ‘One’ I can manage. ‘Two’, likewise. ‘Three’ makes me a bit edgy. Anything more than three and my knees go all wobbly and I have to be helped to cross the road.
What I can say, however, is that my iPhone is gloriously, splendentiously, breath-smackingly easy to use. It’s the kind of interface that I like – that is, it transduces thought into action while interposing itself as little as possible. Uses slip effortlessly from one’s brain into the aether with such alacrity that one tends to do things on an iPhone without knowing it or appreciating the consequences.
The web-browser is so accessible that I found myself being able to get into the Nature web-based manuscript handling system from my iPhone (almost) as easily as were I sitting at my desk… but when I told everyone that I’d rejected a manuscript using my iPhone, I got into hot water – which criticism the astute reader will note conflates the medium with the message.
Stephen Fry, gentleman, scholar and gadgeteer, also loves the iPhone 3G whereas his views on the Blackberry Storm are less complimentary. His views elicited the following comment from a user.
- I tend to base all of my purchases on advice from bipolar manic depressives, so I will definitely not be picking up a Blackberry Storm.
In that vein, I’d like to wax on what I think is the best part of the iPhone, what those in the biz call the Killer App. That is the ability to upload all kinds of amazing, useful, bizarre and gloriously silly programs from the Applications Store.
What the iPhone comes with as standard is amazing enough.
The phone. (Well, yes – but did you know that when you apply the iPhone to the side of your head, the screen dims, to conserve battery life?)
The texting (this is lovely – you see successive text messages as a whole conversation arranged as speech balloons).
The camera (orgasmic).
The iPod (did the Earth move for you, darling?).
The eerie maps function that can get you from point A to point B, even in Norfolk (I promise I’ll still love you in the morning).
The clock that allows me to time egg-boiling to the satisfaction of Gees Minor and Minima (Yes, YES YES!!!).
The astonishingly easy-to-use virtual keyboard that accommodates even those of us who have Cumberland sausages for fingers (I’ll have what she’s having).
A Cumberland Sausage. Some time ago
But what have I added from the Apps Store, I hear you cry, in my two or three months as an iPhone addict user, all those things I didn’t know I couldn’t live without?
There are games, of course. Several different sorts of solitaire, chess, a fantastic sudoku program, and an absolute pig of a Reversi (Othello) game that makes mincemeat of me even on the easy-peasy setting. I got this to help me defeat my 11-year-old niece, who is a whiz at Othello, and whom I’ve only managed to defeat once. There’s also a great gizmo that downloads crosswords from free-access newspaper sites around the world. Bored with the Independent crossword? No problem – here’s one from the Sydney Morning Herald.
The iPhone is great at all sorts of music. I have a tiny wee music studio called BeatMaker, which I haven’t got to grips with; a thing called Cosmovox that utilizes the iPhone’s accelerometer, turning the iPhone into a kind of theremin (it drives Heidi barmy); a keyboard synthesizer; and, best of all, an ocarina, which turns the iPhone into a musical instrument of haunting beauty.
The accelerometer also comes in useful when I turn my iPhone into a handy spirit level, and slightly less useful as a virtual zippo lighter – great for those power-ballad moments in this age of health-and-safety.
Other useful things include an uplink to an atomic clock in Switzerland, so I can argue with railway jobsworthies about the exact time; a neat program that tells you where on Earth the sun is shining at any given moment; an apocalyptically powerful scientific calculator (if I could only understand Reverse Polish Notation); a flashlight (in various colours including red, for those stargazing moments); a to-do list; a utility that grabs any train timetable you could possibly want (hat tip, James McQuat); another utility that gets your googlemail and other google-themed wonderments (another hat tip to J. McQ.); and a program called Vicinity that tells you all about the pubs, shops, retaurants, taxi firms and everything else within a ten-mile radius of wherever you happen to be.
But I have saved the best until last.
This is a program called Shazam (h.t. Noah Gray). Now, picture the scene. You switch on a radio and want to know the tune that’s playing, but have missed the announcer’s intro. Maybe you are in a restaurant and want to know the name of the music playing in the background. Or, perhaps, as happened with me, someone has given you a CD with a lot of miscellaneous tracks on it, but no listing.
What is to be done?
Easy – open up Shazam, place your iPhone anywhere within listening distance of the source, and Shazam will tell you the tune and who recorded it. It will also tell you the name of the album (with artwork), where you can buy it, and even upload YouTube clips of the artists playing it…
OOFTUGs all round for the best/silliest/most useful iPod application you can think of. Something you didn’t know you couldn’t live without. Chances are, it already exists, somewhere out there in the iSphere.
Last updated:
Tuesday, 09 Dec
2008 - 16:19 UTC
Yeah, I’m in love with mine. Henry, may I recommend downloading Fieldrunners. Very simple, but hugely addictive strategy game. The Koi carp pond is good for showing off the iPhone to elderly relatives who just wouldn’t get it otherwise.
I’ve not downloaded it, but Flyfishing is the dumbest app I’ve seen listed. A simulation of flyfishing, which uses the acceleronimatroniser to cast your line. Who? Why?
see, I don’t really care for surfing the internet with my phone but having a possibility of knowing which song is playing in the background. Priceless. [to paraphrase a commercial on the telly] Too bad that the Iphone isn’t priceless… last time I checked it had a big price on it ;)
I hear rumours that Walmart are going to stock them for $99.
I’ve seen someone draw Chinese characters onto the touch screen, and have them converted to either the traditional or phonetic Chinese in an email-able form. That was pretty cool.
I picked up my iPhone the other day to make a phone call, and for a minute I couldn’t remember how to do it… I spend far too much time using it as a browser, camera, iPod and GPS to remember that it is also a phone.
BTW Henry, which chess game do you have? I tried to download a combined chess/backgammon package and it was too big… I have about 1GB of my 8GB left, and I don’t want to delete any of my music.
And I have to agree about the UI. On every phone I’ve had before, I’ve only used half the functions. There was no compulsion to remember the location and use of every built in tool. On the iPhone, which has infinitely more functionality, I use every application and scrutinise every software update for new tricks.
BTW, Henry, do you think we’ve said enough to receive our commission from Apple yet?
I may live to regret mentioning the ocarina function to several students who have iPhones.
As for me, though, Bah,
Ludditehumbug!However, Independent crosswords at the touch of a few buttons sound nice … there was a science-y clue in a recent The Nation crossword puzzle: Associate of Crick, or Holmes? (2,6)
I was, of course, working the puzzle in the neolithic manner: with a pen, in the print version.
But you are all in the control of iTunes and its evil empire. Apple consistently forces websites to remove iPhone hacks and prevent any form of music sharing. As many on NN are keen on open access publication, I would have thought an iPhone was against these principles.
Maybe I will go and get an android phone.
@ Cath: BTW Henry, which chess game do you have?
It’s Caissa Chess.
@ Matt: BTW, Henry, do you think we’ve said enough to receive our commission from Apple yet?
If they are reading this, I want MORE.
Specifically, more memory – why do iPods have 160Gb when my iPhone has just 8Gb? And also more battery life – that’s the one big let-down.
@ Kristi: I may live to regret mentioning the ocarina function to several students who have iPhones.
Ah, yes, the eldritch piping of the SHUGGOTHS that dance attendance on the blind idiot-god Nyarlathotep. I know it well…
@ Brian: But you are all in the control of iTunes and its evil empire
I don’t CARE. It’s … just … so … BEAUTIFUL.
prevent any form of music sharing
you mean ‘pirating’?
i swear i shall make my own iphone (for lack of a proper generic term)
Brian, iTunes allows plenty of music sharing, legal and illegal.
The legal methods include sharing music with other users on you LAN, in a non-permanent manner. (See, Preferences, Sharing in the Mac version).
I won’t say anything here about less legal methods, for fear of Steve Jobs’ treacherous turtlenecks.
I’m a big fan of Mac OS’s (software conflicts with draconian Uni based PC security software are reason enough), but haven’t invested in an iPhone, for the tiny capacity reason, and the joy of not being constantly connected to the internet. And I can whistle a la Roger Whittaker, so I don’t need ocarina.
Fancy a trip back to ol’ Durham town, anyone?
I love my iPhone. But when do we get the iPhone-optimized version of Nature Network?
@Hentry @Richard The main issue is the way Apple prevents any other software developers to produce product that is not approved by them. They have recently prevented various software developers who have produced methods to allow the iPod to play different music formats. The sharing problem is sharing with other MP3 players or (-Jobs- God forbid) attempting to get music from sources other than iTunes.
The iPod and iPhone may be wonderfully designed pieces of kit but Apple is a huge organisation with self-interest and morals to match. People just want to really, really believe it is nice because it makes good product.
Of the ~6.5GB of music on my iPhone, I’ve bought precisely 3 songs from iTunes.
Apple, Microsoft – they are in business to make money. If they weren’t, we wouldn’t have the iPhone, a truly life-changing piece of equipment.
Is ‘life-changing’ an exaggeration? No – since I discovered iTunes I think of music in a wholly new way. To me, CDs seem as archaic as wax cylinders.
I will be writing my book “Confessions of an iPhone widow” shortly….
Mrs Gee, your dinner is in the dog.
I’m failing to see what your gripe is, Brian. If you don’t like it, don’t buy it. It’s a free market, after all.
Mrs Gee, my husband would like to pre-order a copy of your book.
So are the Independent crossword puzzles part of a widget that I could use on my MacBook? I already have a sudoku widget. :-)
Kristi, do you know how long it took me to get your last crossword clue? In my defense, I thought it was a cryptic crossword…
Cath, Most of Lewis’ clues in The Nation are cryptic; it was just that the recent science-related one I quoted was not. I developed an addiction for cryptic crosswords when I lived in London, and the ones in The Nation are perfect: challenging, but not insanely difficult (like the ones in Harper’s, curse them).
Brian, a useful question for the “music industry” to ask of themselves, is why have they allowed the “computer/technology industry” to be the ones who develop the way we listen to music. The Apple approach is probably highly regarded by the MI exactly because it makes it so difficult to listen to (downloaded) music unless you are tied into software and DRM technology that prevents massive copyright infringement.
Me, I’m still enamoured with vinyl (sorry Henry, wax discs were at least a cohort before me), but it’s hugely impractical for on the go musical and podcasts.
Cassette technology allowed us all sorts of copyright infringement as well. Many was the afternoon I’d nip round to a friend’s house to record the latest Belinda Carlisle album onto cassette for my own gratis listening pleasure.
I’m with Mike (except for the part about Belinda Carlisle. And the vinyl – gimme
sheltershellac any day). And iTunes is free. So what’s the problem, dudes? Except that when I wanted to convert my existing record collection to iTunes from WMA, the computer took five days solid.I have a feeling that the most powerful part of the iPhone is its ability to control things remotely over teh interwebz, whether its your TV, stereo, pieces of lab equipment (just imagine programming your iPhone to do those once-every-twenty-minutes-for-thirty-hours titrations),
detonations,peoples’ purchasing decisionsetc etc, the possibilities are endless.Crosswords: here’s a famous, nay almost mythical crossword clue, from The Times.
Geg (9, 3)
“when you apply the iPhone to the side of your head, the screen dims”
Yes, but the same can be said of the Acheulian hand-axe.
Also the axe will not need to be replaced in two years and it works EVEN BETTER for rejecting manuscripts!
I want (I mean I WANT) an iPhone. My children now have iPod Touches, so I know the feel in general and desire it. But two things keep me away from it.
1) I bought my current phone in 1999. (Don’t laugh, it’s like the ones in The Matrix.) It still works. I come from near Yorkshire.
2) My typical monthly mobile phone bill is under £1. Seriously. I don’t know why Orange bother sending it out, as it must cost them more to do so than they receive. I could be wrong, but I suspect it would go up a bit if I got an iPhone.
So until the current Nokia pegs its (and it’s very robust), the iPhone is but a diaphanous mirage.
PS De Quincy went to the same school as what I did (Manchester Grammar). Not a lot of people know that.
@Brian C
Q. What is the definition of a Yorkshireman?
A. A Scotsman with the generosity wrung out.
@Mike – I am sure the music industry is jealous of Apple’s idea but is not at all happy with the cut that Apple demands for the privilege of using iTunes. That is one of the reasons that the Beatles catalogue is not available on iTunes.
Apple’s business model is for total control of hardware, software and content so that a large premium can be charged for all of them. It works well when they have a good product but is a total disaster when it has poor product. Anyone remember the Newton palmtop?
I’m still amused by the idea of Henry and Matt getting a commission from Apple…
Would that be something militaristic such as Senior Technology Commander or Hardware Geek First Class?
Or something more West Coast, like His Serene Software Oneness?
I think we ought to be told…. :-)
@ Brian D: C’mon, admit it, you’re just jealous.
@ Brian C: a schoolfriend of mine who was half Scots and half Jewish used these excuses for not buying anyone a drink, ever.
@ John C: when you apply the iPhone to the side of your head, the screen dims –
Yes, but the same can be said of the Acheulian hand-axe
ROTFL.
Also the axe will not need to be replaced in two years and it works EVEN BETTER for rejecting manuscripts!
The Acheulian hand-axe was the standard kit for a million years. And you never needed to change the batteries. But for rejecting manuscripts, I have this:
A
DogData Destroyer, yesterdayMrs Gee finds that a Golden Retriever copes with all her paper recycling needs more than adequately. Sometimes we come home and find that the sitting-room floor looks like the aftermath of a collision between a pillow fight and a ticker-tape parade. In a blizzard.
@ John G: Serene Software Oneness. When it was clear that the Futures series in Nature wasn’t a flash in the pan, I asked for my name, as Futures editor, be put in the masthead. I had havered over a title for the post I’d created for myself, and asked the Editor, Philip Campbell, if I might be called something like Grand Archmage, Imperial High Mekon and Absolute Ruler of All Living Things. Campbell demurred on the grounds that he thought that was already his title.
… and one can (of course!) read eBooks on the iPhone (ht Dave Lull). Or is that iBooks on the ePhone?
I see that you made good on your threat to me yesterday that you were going to blog about your iPhone…Good show…
Regarding the capacity limitations, I had the problem that my music library was 9.5 Gb, but the phone was 8. So I took the radical step of buying the 16 Gb version.
I would say the TRUE limitations of the iPhone are:
1. No MMS text messaging
2. No file management software
3. AT&T’s monopoly as the service provider
4. Too easy to check my work email
@Brian: My lowest phone bill was $0.00. When I didn’t pay, AT&T sent me a not so friendly reminder.
@Noah: Too easy to check my work email
I use the iPhone with Microsoft Exchange for email, contacts and calendars. I don’t need to check email anymore because the messages are immediately pushed to the iPhone.
The iPhone needs a copy and paste function too.
Henry: _Crosswords: here’s a famous, nay almost mythical crossword clue, from The Times.
Geg (9, 3)_
This is BUGGING me. I can’t get it at all. The only thing I can think of that fits is “Backwards Geg”. Can you possibly provide a couple of letters to help me out?
That is exactly the problem Martin…because I carry my phone on my person at all times… (I would put a little winky face here, but I am staunchly against them).
Scrambled egg.
That was more than a couple of letters!
Good one though. And I suppose “Backwards Geg” wasn’t a million miles away…
Henry, did you hear that crossword clue on Drop The Dead Donkey, by any chance? It was almost the first episode I ever saw where Henry Davenport was trying to solve that and I still think it’s one of the best ever.
One Telegraph crossword clue I saw was " " (1,2,3,4,1,4).
Joanna – I remember that episode. The photocopier repairman annoyed Henry by getting it, didn’t he?
Ooh… that’s going to drive me mad now. Don’t be surprised if I post at 3am with the answer!
I used to love the Telegraph. I know some people think it isn’t hard enough to be a “proper” crossword, but I thought it was clever. I was so proud of myself the day I got “Split Tongue” (5-5). I think I was about 12 at the time, though…
And yes – he’d done all but that one and the whole office (even Sally) worked it out immediately but he spent the whole episode determined to get it himself. I’m not sure the repair man lived…
“One Telegraph crossword clue I saw was " " (1,2,3,4,1,4)."
That’s easy! “I do not have a clue”.
Good one!
One last offering which made me laugh, in keeping with NN’s (supposed) theme:
“H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O” (5 letters)
Good one!
One last offering which made me laugh, in keeping with NN’s (supposed) theme:
“H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O” (5 letters)
Water? (H “to” O?)
Very good :)
Yes Cath – astoundingly good. Your brain is clearly wired very differently (and much more effectively) than mine!
The mention of NN’s supposed theme helped… and I had absolutely no clue (ha!) about the one that Eva got so easily!
For some reason I am best at cryptic crosswords when (mildly) hungover. No idea why.
@ Cath: That was more than a couple of letters!
I wanted to put you out of your misery. But ‘Split Tongue’ (5-5). Hmmm… I grew up with the Torygraph but I’m hopeless at crosswords…
@ Joanna: _Henry, did you hear that crossword clue on Drop The Dead Donkey, by any chance? _
Come to think of it, I can’t remember where I heard it, so it could have been Drop The DCead Donkey.
Split Tongue… Serbo-Croat?
Stephen Fry has actually just published a lengthy review of smartphones on his web site. His blog even seems to be addressed to you, Henry!
Fry covers the iPhone (turns out he has at least 4 of them), the G1 and the Blackberry Bold and Storm
I agree with his conclusion that the G1 is no iPhone killer for sure, but Android certainly has potential.
Stephen, or ‘Stevie-Babes’ as we intimates call him, is not so much a man as a national institution.
His blog even seems to be addressed to you, Henry!
Yeah, well, he just wants to be close to me, I guess. I’ll just turn my charisma down a notch …
Fry is, as I have said, a national treasure. Sentences such as
… make one want to go up to the nearest numpty and hug them to one’s bosom.
Now, I really must put my curlers in, slap some cucumber slices over my overworked peepers, and get forty-five winks. I have something Special to do tomorrow. G’night!
You do know that to go from the included simple calculator to a scientific one, you don’t need to download an app, but just swivel the iPhone so it is horizontal, with a long edge upwards?
That’s amazing, Scott – thank you! And there was I, thinking that you only knew about cake.
The iPhone as an extension of the mind (hat tip, Dave Lull)
This sums up why I like the iPhone so much – it presents the minimum obstacle between what you want to do, and actually doing it.
@Brian, I think the idea that Apple approve every App before making it available in their store is actually a good one; atleast you know the Apps are vetted and are not going to wreck your precious iPhone!