what I love about my iPhone so far
Someone pointed out in the comments to a previous post that I've just whinged about things. That's completely accurate, so this is time to change it.
Physically, I like the device. It fits comfortably in my hand. The weight is comfortable. The dock connection is tight. (I should say that I've still got my old 2G iPod, so I haven't experienced an iPod dock myself.)
The screen ... oh, the screen. It's gorgeous. I was worried about fingerprints on the screen impairing the visibility. That doesn't seem to be something that I'll need to be worried about. The brightness of the screen means that the fingerprints are invisible. The speaker in it is the best I've heard on a cell phone. The screen is so beautifully high-res, it's wonderful to look at.
The amount of work that has gone into making the iPhone work well has paid off. I love the genie effect of deleting emails. The bouncing effect when you reach the end of something (your address book, a webpage, etc) is quite nice. My current favourite thing to do with this is to zoom in on a webpage or email, then swipe fast diagonally -- the screen moves diagonally fast, and bounces off at an angle. (Yeah, I know, I amuse easily.) The shutter effect when using the camera is a great touch -- it's so much nicer than the standard 'saving picture' dialog (or simple freeze) that happens on so many cell phone cameras.
Speaking of cell phone cameras, this is shaping up to be the first cell phone camera that I'm actually going to use. Getting pictures off of my old cell phone camera was never easy, so I never did it. All of the pictures that I've taken with it were ones that I intended to use for wallpaper. But the iPhone just syncs easily with iPhoto.
The Google Maps app is fun. Map out a long cross-country drive, and the effects that it uses to show you the long boring bits (say, driving for 1000 miles on I-40) make the idea seem less horrible than it a tually is. I'll check out the traffic conditions when I next go to Redmond -- I don't have traffic on my 10-minute drive to my office here.
The keyboard is surprisingly nice. I'm typing okay on it, and learning (slowly) to trust the auto-correct. The auto-correct works well, and appears to improve with every usage. It has picked up my name already. This seems like it's just as much about me getting used to using the keyboard as it is the keyboard getting used to what I type.
I'm really pleased with this so far. Apple, you guys have done a great job!
