Comments on David Alison's Blog: After a week with the iPhone, what's great, what's...

@David : "Shake it like a Polaroid picture to ente...

2008-09-01T07:23:36.604-04:00

@David : "Shake it like a Polaroid picture to enter select mode" LOL good idea, but may be a bit risky! ("oops i just wanted to copy some text, and now my iPhone is lying on the floor...")

The main criticisms about my iPhone are:
-no keychain, so typing passwords again and again is a pain
-random landscape mode, so I am often stupid when rotating my iPhone in Mail or Notes...
-no plugins in Safari (goodbye Flash, hello again ads)
-diacritics input: to write a "à", there is no virtual "à" key, but one must perform a long click on the "a" key, that will bring a submenu. Too long for an efficient typing in French.

@theMikeSwan: That's an excellent point, one that ...

2008-08-14T14:51:25.468-04:00

@theMikeSwan: That's an excellent point, one that I was thinking about as well. Maybe this is where the accelerometer comes in. Shake it like a Polaroid picture to enter select mode.

Seriously a gesture (make a circle with your finger to enter select mode) is probably the best way to handle it. Perhaps keeping your finger pressed to the editing surface would pop it into that mode.

I would love to see Copy/Paste as well. I do have ...

2008-08-14T12:33:55.398-04:00

I would love to see Copy/Paste as well. I do have to say though that everyone that thinks it should be there already should figure out how. By how I mean how do you select text. All the intuative ways I can comeup with are in use for scrolling and zooming in and out. Do we really want some little button always on the screen that we have to press to go into select mode and then press again to come out of it?

I like how Mail displays pics and Microsoft Word d...

2008-08-13T18:05:02.424-04:00

I like how Mail displays pics and Microsoft Word docs.

@Maxpug: Interesting story - thanks for the link! ...

2008-08-12T16:45:57.781-04:00

@Maxpug: Interesting story - thanks for the link! I haven't experienced any connection problems yet. My service has been good; flippin fantastic compared to Sprint.

@Martien: You should see the Wunderground weather site on the iPhone. I use that instead of the built in weather checker.

FYI... Found this on CNET...http://news.cnet.com/8...

2008-08-12T15:36:12.531-04:00

FYI... Found this on CNET...

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-10015301-37.html?tag=nefd.top

@Martien:There are quite a few sites that automati...

2008-08-09T11:17:53.673-04:00

@Martien:

There are quite a few sites that automatically detect that you are on an iPhone and present you an iPhone optimized site instead of their regular website. Last time I checked www.cnet.com and www.iphoneatlas.com both worked this way (try typing those URLs in your iPhone and your regular computer browser to see how they are different).

However, I am not sure if these are the best examples of iPhone optimiazation...

What's the iPhone optimized site you refer to? URL...

2008-08-09T04:17:25.084-04:00

What's the iPhone optimized site you refer to? URL?

Check out MagicPad in the App store. MagicPad adds...

2008-08-08T20:56:53.045-04:00

Check out MagicPad in the App store. MagicPad adds copy and paste, rich-text editing with fonts, colors, and styles. It goes for $3.99

@JamDaddy: I was wondering why picture mail that m...

2008-08-08T18:26:03.106-04:00

@JamDaddy: I was wondering why picture mail that my daughter was sending me never arrived; I didn't even get the message you got.

i agree with prev posts that NNW standalone works ...

2008-08-08T17:43:09.597-04:00

i agree with prev posts that NNW standalone works pretty well, though the earlier versions froze up my iphone a few times. The latest seems a lot more stable...

I think not having picture texts, esp. the ability to accept them is crazy. You get a text saying a username and password which you have to write down (no, copy/paste 'member?) then go to a at&t site to put them in and view!!!

I understand that I could tell all of my friends, 'hey i have an iPhone... yeah that super new techie thing... well it doesn't take pic texts so can you update your phone with my email and send them there instead???'

I'd feel almost as big as a jacka$$ as I do for standing in line for this thing.

Add'lly concerning use of the iphone as iPod, not having scrolling of the artist and song names in playlists and when listening to songs is inexcusable. Especially since this functionality is available on iPods starting with my gen 1 20 gigger (granted it came later with firmware updates but I've still had it for years). And that it also happens/works within the Remote app.

Frustrating.

Only you guys in America would think email is a be...

2008-08-08T16:50:05.710-04:00

Only you guys in America would think email is a better MMS substitute!
lol
You forget that everybody around the world can receive multimedia messages on their cheap phones, but less than 1% can(or want) to read emails in their Nokias - no fuss, no nothing!
You (Americans) are really living in a parallel universe to ours.
No ofence intended.

Thanks for the iPhone manual links, I appreciate y...

2008-08-08T15:48:38.157-04:00

Thanks for the iPhone manual links, I appreciate you taking the time to post them.

Cheers

D.

@DarrenFor a manual, I bought "iPhone: The Missing...

2008-08-08T14:52:25.769-04:00

@Darren

For a manual, I bought "iPhone: The Missing Manual", David Pouge, O'Reilly Press.

http://www.amazon.com/iPhone-Missing-Manual-Covers-3G/dp/0596521677/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1218221383&sr=8-1

The new version covering the 3G phone and the 2.0 software just came out.

Excellent book, easy to read, and actually quite humerous.

@Darren: the iPhone "manual" is online at apple.co...

2008-08-08T13:14:44.263-04:00

@Darren: the iPhone "manual" is online at apple.com/support (direct link).

@All: AT&T 3G coverage here in the Denver metro is spotty at best. They really need to invest more in their network! I've found OS 2.01 far better in many ways but still get dropped calls when on 3G as it fails to change over to 2G. It sux and I'd return the phone if I didn't like so much of the rest of it. I've not been one to use the phone much so I'm living with it. Still, it would be nice to not have to constantly turn 3G on & off.

@wcarr3: I plan to keep the blog active. I'm just ...

2008-08-08T13:10:02.918-04:00

@wcarr3: I plan to keep the blog active. I'm just going through a slow time right now while taking some extended vacations. I'm glad you like reading the blog!

I think the iPhone 3G is a fantastic device, surpr...

2008-08-08T11:39:41.739-04:00

I think the iPhone 3G is a fantastic device, surprisingly close to my perfect, converged phone-pda-portable.

As you say though, there are a few niggles:

1. Updating installed applications seems to kill the phone. There is a lot of traffic out the web about this. I've had to restore my phone twice because of this (first time restored from backup, but that restored a broken install...)

You should remove the app and then install the new version to avoid this issue.

2. I'd like to see landscape mode when writing emails and SMS messages. It would make typing a little easier.

3. We need cut-and-paste. Apple... what were you thinking?

4. A better camera would be nice, although for image capture rather than normal photos.

Anyone tried Evernote? It's fantastic. A better camera would improve the performance of Evernote no end (you can take a photo of an image, and Evernote OCRs it and then lets you search for the text. Got a pile of your business cards from all those people you met over the years? Take a photo of each one with your iPhone (or iSight) and then stick them into Evernote. You can then search them all by name. Nice...)

5. Provide a manual with the phone!!! Very frustrating that I had to Google to find out basic information like how to insert the SIM...

Dave,Your comments seem to mesh almost exactly lik...

2008-08-08T11:28:39.073-04:00

Dave,

Your comments seem to mesh almost exactly like mine with thoughts about the iPhone. Yeah, I believe cut and paste will be coming with the next major update. I work in Arlington and get 5 bars on Edge and 3G. I live in the Maryland 'burbs and I'm just outside the 3G range but my Edge works fairly well at home. When I'm at home I'm using my WiFi any way for surfing the net.

I see many people making a big deall about the lack of MMS, which I don't see as a major hindrance. Emailing and attaching picture more than makes up for it I think. Just my 2 cents.

Even though your're now almost fully entrenched with Apple products, I say keep the blog going, I really enjoy reading your perspectives.

No copy/paste, no picture text messages,I agree wi...

2008-08-08T10:48:42.332-04:00

No copy/paste, no picture text messages,

I agree with copy/past, but I think it's coming.

For picture messaging, I just use email. Any phone that accepts MMS has an email address. It is the phone number "at" the carrier address. For example 9995551212@mms.att.net for AT&T.

For the other person to send one to you, they just have to enter your email address into their contacts on their phone and select it instead of your phone number.

It's not hard and for iPhone users, it's included in the cost. An MMS package would cost extra. I'll take the free email option...

I agree with retromaccast - give the NetNewsWire i...

2008-08-08T10:37:06.822-04:00

I agree with retromaccast - give the NetNewsWire iPhone app a whirl. The initial version that was released was a stinky mess, but the newest version has fixed most of those shortcomings. Definitely a step-up from the Web version now.

@RetroMacCast: Thanks, I will check it out. I hadn...

2008-08-08T09:49:49.536-04:00

@RetroMacCast: Thanks, I will check it out. I hadn't heard good things about the first version of it but apparently they have updated it so maybe it's better now. NetNewsWire is one of my top Mac apps.

@Andy & Jason: You are correct - turns out the few...

2008-08-08T09:46:52.449-04:00

@Andy & Jason: You are correct - turns out the few links I tried that on opened them into a new browser window. Sorry; that would be a great feature.

@Trisha: The calls from my phone have been very clear for me, even when I'm in an area with fewer bars. That may be something to talk to the Apple folks about.

"I like that if I hold down on a link in the Safar...

2008-08-08T09:28:20.238-04:00

"I like that if I hold down on a link in the Safari browser it opens the link in a new browser, allowing me to keep my place. It's like having tabs in a little browser."

I just tried this and it doesn't seem to work for me. can you elaborate? maybe the specific site this happened on just opens new windows by default

While it's amazing what the iPhone can do, I find ...

2008-08-08T09:23:40.066-04:00

While it's amazing what the iPhone can do, I find it equally amazing what it can't do.

No copy/paste, no picture text messages, no way to alter what email account is used when emailing a link or a picture, only one email signature for all accounts... and so on.

I love my iPhone and don't think I could live without it at this point, but some of the omissions seem rather glaring.

And since I'm in the same region as you (live in Manassas, work in Tysons), I thought I'd ask, how is the signal on your phone? I get plenty of bars and it connects for calls fine, but I am getting a lot of static that I never got on the original iPhone, but have now on the 3G. I reloaded the software and it doesn't seem any better.

You said:"I like that if I hold down on a link in ...

2008-08-08T09:21:38.298-04:00

You said:

"I like that if I hold down on a link in the Safari browser it opens the link in a new browser, allowing me to keep my place. It's like having tabs in a little browser."

Are you sure? My iPhone doesn't do this. I wish it did.