Oh dear … despite my anti-apple protestations (all in jest to wind up the fan boys of course! mostly!) … and after a succession of windows mobile & blackberry devices … it would appear that I’ve become an Apple fan …. almost!
There can be no doubt that the 3GS is a sublime machine. The UI is a master class in the art, the app store is bunged full of wonderfully engineered apps (and a load of old tat too!), and the whole experience is just very slick.
The battery life is nothing short of horrendous. It didn’t even make it past 2pm on my first day on the road! A collection of chargers & car chargers now follow me around.
Email handling is much less fully featured than my old Blackberry – but it works – and it’s a doddle to set up linking to gMail or Microsoft Exchange. Much easier than the BB in fact. 10 minutes and I had my calendar/mail/contacts sync’d wirelessly to the iPhone. Try that on a blackberry .. and weep!
I loath the iTunes tie in. How can the same company produce both the iPhone masterpiece and the iTunes disaster? iDunno! I hate the fact I can’t just copy some MP3s onto this without having to put up with iTunes messing me around. I hate it so much that 6 months on I still have no music on this machine.
Generally the “locked in” apple approach does still wind me up – I want to install whatever app I like without having to “jailbreak” it. Just get out of my hair apple – if I want to bugger up my phone I should have the right to do so! Damn communists ….. (sorry – just reverted to my antagonistic past for a moment …)
Bottom line? I use this phone for many hours a day for a wide variety of things – both business & leisure – much more than any other phone I’ve had. It’s the first Smartphone which is much much more than just a phone. It really is a Smartphone. And I like it a lot.
The killer feature for me though is not the hardware, or the UI – it’s the massive range of high quality apps available. Many of which are mobile versions of specific software I use on the desktop.
I’ve downloaded a load of bits & pieces – but what are the apps I use almost every day? Actually mostly many times a day.
- Email / SMS / Phone!
- Google Reader
- Instapaper
- Remember The Milk
- Sky News / BBC News / Bloomberg / Guardian
- Evernote
And every few days?
- YouTube
- OnTime
- LogMeIn
- m.Strands
- iPeng
- Memengo Wallet
- Wolfram Alpha
- Wikipanion
- Ping Lite
- Maps
And occasionally – once a week or so?
- WordPress
- Tweetie
- Ebay
- WiFiPhoto
- WiFi Analyzer
- DocScanner
- iFlight UK
- AroundMe
What about the iPad? Tempted. Very tempted. When not using the iPhone as a phone I would love it to be bigger. There’s been a massive amount of chat about the iPad form factor etc. I really get it. But it’s early days and I foresee some interesting kit coming out over the next 18 months.
What about a MacBook Pro? Not sure it would survive life on the road with me. And it would have to run Windows 7 instead of that strange OSXYZY thingy. But maybe ….
Filed under: Apple, Blackberry, iPad, iPhone, Productivity, smartphone
