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iPhone questions

Avatar John Surtees
Could I ask what iPhone owning members think of it. Joy is thinking of replacing her Palm and wonders if an iPhone can really take its place.

1. On the phone side, I've heard stories of poor coverage, calls being lost and not being able to hear it ring when in noisy surroundings.

2. As I understand it, as yet, there is no way of syncing with iCal. This is such a fundamental requirement, I can't believe Apple have not provided it. On a blog, I've read that the following works: Appigo’s “To Do” synced with Remember The Milk and integrated into Gmail (Firefox plug-in) and Google Calendar. Sounds a bit of a work up though.

3. Can you download pdf forms from the web.

4. Is there a facility or workround to connect to a printer?

5. Version 1 of Grafiti (the handwriting recognition software on the Palm) gives pretty fast data entry, but I've heard bad reports of the current version, so how fast is the on screen keyboard on the iPhone?

Re: iPhone questions

Avatar Tony Sullivan
Hi John

I have a 1st gen iPhone (I have not yet upgraded, and am not sure I need to at the moment) and I am very happy with it.

To answer you queries in order:

1. I have not had any problems with calls/coverage that I have NOT had with any other phone. I have a work phone and a work PDA, in addition to my iPhone, and if I am having problems with the iPhone, I invariably have trouble connecting any of the devices. (Yes, I know it's a pain carrying all those devices, but that's work IT dept for you - they won't let me do it all on the iPhone, and it would, 'coz they spent all that money on giving everyone inferior devices - so they now have to justify it.) I think it depends where you are, and the signal coverage. I don't think it is a iPhone specific problem. In fact, I believe a Scandinavian university did some tests a while back and found just this - there was no problem with the iPhone calls/coverage that were specific to the iPhone, or it's hardware - in fact it came out quite well in the tests. (I think this was covered in TUAW or MacFixit web forums- I can't remember which.) Also, on not being able to hear it ring - you can set it to vibrate as well in noisy surroundings - just like other phones. I must admit, some ringtones seem to sound louder than others - I use 'Old Phone' - call me old fashioned but I like my phones to sound like phones - and it seems one of the louder ones. I think some experimentation could be in order. Also, you can make sure you set the ring volume to max. I never have any problems if it is my pocket.

2. There is indeed a very good way of syncing with not only iCal, but Safari bookmarks and Address book as well. Just subscribe to Mobile Me (used to be .Mac - so much better a name, if you ask me) The email account you get with Mobile me will sync all your info, and you can control exactly what in either iTunes (which it uses to interface with your mac) or through the System Prefs on the phone itself. Both Mobile Me support websites and Apple iPhone support give several good tutorials on this. I have a Mac Pro at home, and a Powerbook on the road, and the iphone (I even have a really old PC laptop that also syncs with Mobile Me)- all three (4) sync seamlessly, and any changes you make to one are transferred to the others automatically. I know there were many teething problems with the MobileMe changeover in the summer - God knows I was one of the victims for about a month and a half - but all that seems to be fixed now and everything now works like it should do - i.e. with all that Apple ease of use that we are so used to.

3. PDF support is built in to the OS - if someone sends you an email with a PDF attachment, just click it and it will open. If you want to get a PDF from the web, just navigate there in Safari and it will open. If you want to keep it, just bookmark it and it will always open in Safari. If you are syncing your bookmarks, then when you get home, you can navigate to that bookmark and 'Save As...' on you computer. As yet, I have not found a way to load a PDF webpage and download the actual file itself on the iphone, but given the above, then that has not been a problem - after all, all I want to do is read it.

4. As far as i know, you cannot print directly from the iphone. However, there is an app called 'Air Sharing' available from the App Store on iTunes, which enables you to use your iphone as a mounted volume on your mac - Wirelessly- you can then add/store files (almost all file formats, as far as I can tell - I found it doesn't work with Camera RAW files, but everything else seems to work) as you see fit, and take them to another computer that has wifi access, and print from that. I have tried it out tonight and it works well - just navigate to the file on your iphone (which appears in your macs finder window)-open it and print from the file menu.

5. I have no info on Grafiti, but the iPhone keypad works really well once you get used to it - it just takes a bit of practice. I started off with one finger -slowly to start, but once I sussed the predictive text feature and started to trust/train it - I rapidly got faster. I am now onto the two thumb method, which is even faster. Again - practice. I am now MUCH faster on this than I am using the fiddly little buttons on the work PDA.

As I said at the beginning, I have the 1st Gen Iphone - but it runs exactly the same software as the new iphone 3G. The only things mine can't do that the new one can are hardware related - it can't download at 3G speeds and use GPS to find my position. Both of these are very useful features, but ones I can live without for the moment - the car has a separate satnav, so the GPS is redundant, and I try to use wifi to surf wherever possible (again, an app called wififofum will enable you to find all the wifi nodes available, and tell you whether or not you can get in without a password). I use it a lot in hotels which offer free wifi - but when I have to, I find 2.5G (Edge) is perfectly usable. Even GPRS is usable, but can be frustratingly slow. But these are not iPhone problems, and you would get the same issues with any other PDA/Webphone - and the web interface is to die for - completely knocks the work PDA into a cocked hat when it comes to web surfing.

The only other issue that may be of interest is SMS messaging - if you use that a lot - you may find it not quite what you expect - it works fine, but is in an iChat style format - difficult to explain, but it saves all your texts in little speech bubbles (i.e. like saving the conversations in iChat or MSN) I've got used to it now, but to start with it was a little ...er, different. Apparently it is something that Apple is working on but not their highest priority. It has already had one major upgrade in functionality since I got the original phone, and may get more in the future.

All in all, I can thoroughly recommend the iPhone. You will never look back. Just think - about 6-7 years ago, how many people had an iPod? Now how many have got one? I think that in 5 years all phones will be like this, and most people will have one.(even if they are not Apple ones) I find myself using lots of its many functions on a daily basis - much more than I used to use the similar functions available on all the other devices, just because it such a pleasure to use. The interface, using your finger for navigation, is addictive, and the screen is incredible - easily good enough to watch movies/videos.

Well, I hope this is useful

Regards

Tony

Re: iPhone questions

Avatar John Surtees
Tony,

Many thanks for your very informed reply. I'm sure I'm not the only one who has at some time or another fell under the spell of the advertisers art. Only to find that once you've got the item home, it doesn't really fulfil expectations. So it's very reassuring to get some answers to what I feel are real world questions.

I'm sure other members found your reply equally informative.

Regards

John
 
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