First iWait. Then iPhone. Now iHappy.
Saturday June 30, 2007 at 2:27 am | Filed under Gadgetry, Mac
Who was I kidding thinking I wasn’t going to get an iPhone? I tried to convince myself of just this fact about a month ago when I started to believe some of the negative speculation and getting caught up in the idea that if I went with a cheaper phone, I could get the same satisfaction of a new gadget, but also solve the problems I was having with my current phone, which was losing it.
I went down to the freshly painted AT&T store 3 weeks ago and picked up a Nokia n75. I liked the phone a lot, but the serious flaw was that because it was “3G” (meaning it runs on a newer, quicker data network) it sucked the every lovin’ life out of its battery and had to be charged every night regardless of actual time being used that day. That was a deal breaker! I returned it on Wednesday amidst all of the hype about the iPhone. Then Thursday I made my Friday plans to stake out the local Apple store.
So I got to the Brea Mall at 9am Friday morning — prepared to wait 9 hours until 6pm, when the phone went on sale. I was a little discouraged to find out that I was #75 in line! Each person could buy 2 iPhones, so I was hoping the store received more than 150 of them. Waiting in line with all of the other crazies was a lot of fun and the time went by so much faster than I thought it would. There were some great people around me and we talked the whole day and I didn’t have to resort to my book or laptop that I brought with me. Most of the conversation was about speculation of inventory, and general pre-admiration of what the iPhone could do for us individually. But there was also some funny moments where 5 different people knocked down the line dividers, there was this old bitter dude (he looked like Larry David) who came by to give everyone a hard time and bounce his blue raquetball around, and of course the robo-security mall cops on Segways. Nice.
By the time 6pm rolled around we were ready to shell out some dough. The Apple store folks were awesome. There were like 50 employees in there, some as a welcoming crew screaming and giving high-5’s to people who were coming into the store to buy, and those leaving with their new treasures. I’ve always had a great experience at the Apple stores, but this was overkill. They were very organized, and most “checkout counters” were just employees with mobile credit card processors that printed out receipts right there on the spot. The girl that helped me had trouble with my card. It wouldn’t swipe!! I had to call Monique, who had met up with me about 5:30 and was waiting outside the store, to give another card to an employee and run it in to me. Well, it turned out to be the card reader that was at fault, and it finally all went through. We were out of there by 6:30 with our iPhones. Yeah, we got two! Monique’s going to decide if she wants to keep the 2nd one or no.. we’ll see.
As for the phone itself. I’ve been playing with it since about 7:30 (I had to eat!) and I’m really impressed. The touch keyboard I was worried about having trouble with is super intuitive and works great. The screen is the best screen I’ve ever seen on any small video device. It pairs up with the car’s bluetooth perfectly. It’s got a great camera. It’s the first phone I’ve even wanted to get my email with. I’m getting a much better signal in the house than I have with any other phone I’ve had. The visual voicemail is simply how voicemail should be done. After all my messin’ tonight the battery is only half drained. …and it’s a phone with a Video iPod built in! But I think the key is that it does all of these things in an incredible sexy design and with a (naturally) kick butt, easy-to-use Apple interface. Simple, and amazing.
12 Responses to “First iWait. Then iPhone. Now iHappy.”
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Danny Says:
June 30th, 2007 at 11:25 amSweet! The iPhone is on the top of my list…in one year. Why? 1) I’ve got another year left on my Sprint contract and can’t afford the early termination fee on top of the 6 bills for the iP. 2) version 2.0 should be even better than todays. It’s not that I’m expecting it to be bad (or doubting updates will flow freely for a while), I just know that another year of development will give me even more reason to throw my Treo under a bus. I’m also hoping for bigger drives in the future (I’ve heard about 16 and 32 Gig flash drives in the pipe). Number 1 is the real reason. If my contract was up this July instead of next I’d jump on this thing!
Looking forward to some future posts about your iExperience!
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Linda Says:
June 30th, 2007 at 4:31 pmI’m a teensy bit jealous…
How’s Disneyland.com look? Can you buy a ticket? a package? How about check out the super way cool new AP site when it actually launches? (No flash, no java, hmmm)
Check this out: http://www.aolvideoblog.com/2007/06/27/reporters-iphone-diary/
You can gp to nytimes.con for more of this guy’s stuff but AOL doesn’t make you watch a comercial
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Joe Says:
June 30th, 2007 at 5:35 pmJavascript is fine! “Steve” even works! As for flash: the low-band version comes up so at least there’s nothing missing.
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Ryan Says:
June 30th, 2007 at 9:35 pmI’m a little jealous too, but I’m more likely to wait until version DEUX.
Great video find, Linda. I loved the ending.
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Supermoe Says:
June 30th, 2007 at 9:40 pmAwesome! I am sooo jealous. I am stuck with this Q until early next year, like Danny, funds is an issue. Looking forward to how you like it.
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Joe Says:
June 30th, 2007 at 10:07 pmIt’s too early to be taking about the next one! Hah, I’m sure we’ll all be in line together on that one. But I have bad news for you guys, it’ll be awhile, and it’ll still cost the same when it does come out.
I saw Pogue’s video when I was reading everything I could on the iPhone leading up to launch. It’s a good one — his stuff is usually pretty funny. And Linda, you know to just you bugmenot when you go to nytimes.com!
I’ve been using the iPhone on my home network to surf the web and respond to email, the browsing capabilities with Wifi is great. Safari makes a great mobile browser, although I’m sure it’s painful at EDGE speeds, even with its recent speed increase.
Thanks for the comments, everyone!
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wolfbreaker Says:
July 1st, 2007 at 1:12 pmI’m jealous, too. In fact, if you find that you have an extra iPhone that you want to sell me for, say, free, I might take you up on it. Seriously though, the iPhone makes me glad that I switched from Sprint to AT&T, so now we’re ready to go whenever the time comes to pony up the cash.
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Joe Says:
July 1st, 2007 at 1:59 pmWe may have an extra one! Monique’s probably not going to keep the 2nd one we bought due to the price. I think she’d rather buy some stuff for some family member we’re going to have join us this winter or something.
We’ll probably end up returning it to the store, rather than try to sell it and make a buck. There’s enough people trying to do that already.
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Ryan Says:
July 1st, 2007 at 3:46 pmNow for some YouTube fun!
http://youtube.com/watch?v=68FqxGkc_1w - iPhone “commercial” from The Soup
http://youtube.com/watch?v=1xXNoB3t8vM - iPhone “commercial” from Conanand just because:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=jS5pq8aq5oM - Dismantling of the iPhone -
Shana Says:
July 2nd, 2007 at 8:48 amWow - how do you like it? I can’t wait to see it!
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Danny Says:
July 3rd, 2007 at 9:48 amHow’s the screen? I’m curious about smudges and scratches. Any opinions yet? I hope I can wait a year…this just gets better with every review I read!
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Joe Says:
July 3rd, 2007 at 10:44 amThe screen is the best screen I’ve ever seen for any mobile device. It reminds me of hockey. Wait.. I have a good reason. When they make the ice in a hockey rink they put the ads down, then they put the water of the ads and freeze it. The graphics on teh screen, especially on teh main menu screen, seem to be actual object floating under the pane of glass.
As for smudges, it shows fingerprints, but cleans off easy, and the screen is so bright you don’t notice the prints unless the screen is off. It seems pretty bullet-proof so far.
The biggest complaint for me so far is the way it syncs. You use iTunes, which is great, but you can’t manually manage your files on your iPhone. You have to sync using a playlist and anything in that playlist syncs with the iPhone. but you can’t just drag an MP3 from your library to your iPhone, which makes getting what you want on it a little more complicated. It’s a small gripe, but I’m hoping they address it. I’ve had a couple of apps crash on me (Safari and Google Maps) but again, we’re expecting software updates (rumor is within a month) that could address these quibbles.
I have no buyer’s remorse at all, and it feels really good ot know I finally solved my cell phone wants, and don’t feel like I need to see what else is out there that might fit me better.