iPhone by Steve

As my contract expiration date with Sprint approached, I got busy checking out the iPhone. I googled. I surfed. I researched as many angles as I could think of to make sure that all of the functions I had become used to on my Treo 700wx (which uses Windows Mobile) would be handled as well or better by my new gadget.

I enumerated the things I need from my phone in my last post, and I did considerable research into each of these areas. If you are researching the iPhone, I think the first place you should visit is Apple’s website. They have many videos there that you can watch that will help you get a feel for the device. I watched most all of them. Once you’ve watched the videos, be sure to check out all the web apps available for the iPhone. Web apps are small little applications that run in the Safari web browser on the iPhone. There are literally hundreds of them in just about every category imaginable, and more are added every day.

For me, these little apps showed the true advantage of making the switch from Windows Mobile. With a decent “full” browser like Safari on the iPhone, much can be accomplished even though none of these applications is actually native on the phone itself. I checked out tons of web apps, and previewed quite a few. Previewing web apps is pretty easy if you have an Apple computer. Sometimes, I’d just open these apps using Safari on my MacBook Pro (if you use a PC, you might consider downloading Safari for Windows). In many cases, what you get is exactly what the app looks like on the iPhone, abeit quite a bit larger. If Safari doesn’t work, there are other places you can demo these apps, like iPhonetester.com. Just load your app inside the site’s iPhone and you’ll get a pretty good idea of what the experience is like. The site recommends the use of Safari, but I used Firefox and things worked just fine for me.

Lest you think I’m some sort of Apple fanboy, let me just say that there is one pretty humongous caveat when it comes to web apps—if your iPhone doesn’t have a connection to the Internet, either through the AT&T Edge Network or through a connection to a wireless network (yes, the iPhone has built-in Wi-Fi), then your web apps will not work. To repeat, the web apps depend on Safari web browsing to operate. Therefore, no connection to the web, no web apps—it’s that simple.

My research took me to many other sites too, like Lifehacker, MacLife, and MacWorld, and even Paul Thurrot’s Windows Supersite. All had useful information. A quick Google search of iPhone sites will yield dozens of places that can answer your specific questions. I like my Mac and my iPhone, but I don’t work for Apple and have no reason to endorse them other than my own personal experience with their products. Heck, I laugh when I read Fake Steve’s blog. Sometimes they even take a jab at Apple itself.

I spent several hours surfing before I got up the gumption to check out the iPhone in person, but, about a week before my Sprint expiration date, I finally took my first trip to the AT&T store. There the point-of-sale displays simply inundate you with the iPhone. Large bright, beautiful displays. And let me tell you, the iPhone looks pretty good when it’s shown 50 times its normal size!

Anyway, I got the attention of the sales rep and he took me over to a shelf with several working iPhones, where I got my first hands-on opportunity to check out the product. The first thing that strikes you is that this is not your father’s cell phone. The “cool factor” with this gadget is way up in the red zone. One thing I’ll say about Apple: whether or not you like ‘em, they sure know how to make beautiful products–sleek, clean, sense stimulating products!

Once I got past that, I got down to the business of testing the phone. I surfed, I dialed, and I typed away for about 30 minutes. I had heard that typing on the on-screen keyboard was difficult to get used to, and for the most part I found that to be correct. My typing was pretty erratic compared to the thumb keyboard I had gotten used to on my Treo. (Postscript: Having owned an iPhone for a while now, I have found that typing is not a big issue. My keyboard entry is now about as fast as it was with the Treo.)

The Safari web browser lived up to it’s billing. Once the sales rep showed me how to shrink and expand web pages, I found myself really loving the surfing experience, especially compared to the Windows Mobile phone I had been using. I’ll also say that I had heard some pretty negative stuff about AT&T. At my store, the sales reps were more than helpful and very friendly, and that gave me some comfort.

If you’re going to purchase an iPhone, one decision you’ll have to make is where to purchase it. You can but it online from Apple’s website, or directly from the AT&T store. I didn’t see any difference in price either way, so I bought my phone from the store. While I was there, the sales rep checked my credit, a step necessary for activating the phone. Once he was satisfied my credit was okay, he gave me a receipt with a credit authorization number that could be used during product activation.

By now most everybody knows that the iPhone isn’t activated at the AT&T store. You have to activate your own phone using your own computer and iTunes. Anyway, I left the store with an 8GB model iPhone and headed home. With a couple of days left until my old mobile contract expired, I had some time for a little last minute research. But, I had the phone, and I was excited and happy and fired up to get it going.

Next post: My experience with iPhone activation