Why the iPhone is good

There are so many blogs, articles and rants out there both for and against the first generation iPhone, but I really wonder how many of these reviewers have spent a few weeks using the phone, and how many spent 20 minutes flicking through the interface before sitting down to write their review.

Let me level with you. I’m in Australia, and I own an iPhone. I bought an iPhone because it did everything I needed a phone to do and cost $400 less than the similar offerings from Sony-Ericsson or Nokia and my old k750i’s joystick was almost completely useless making it an extremely miserable device to use.

The iPhone came from the US via eBay and cost me around $580 delivered. Back when I bought it, unlocking the phone was a difficult task but for those considering picking one up today, ziPhone has made the entire process really easy.

Once it was unlocked and my Virgin sim was in place, I was off. And I loved it. The interface really is something magical. Flicking your fingers across it’s glassy face and watching the pixels underneath obey your gestures is awesome. I spent a good fifteen minutes giggling away playing with the tumblers under the Timer application.

After updating my Virgin Cap plan with one of their generous data packs, the iPhone was ready for the world. The speeds were not fantastic, and are frustrating if you are in a hurry, but you can live with it.

The key things that I believe make the iPhone an extremely valuable device are:

1. IMAP Email -> Hook up your gmail account, your ISP account and any others you happen to have lying around and keep your entire world in sync without having to spring for an expensive Crackberry.
2. Internet browsing -> With the large screen and ease of scalability the version of Safari built in to the iPhone is a pleasure to use. Double tap on a paragraph and the screen will scale to fit that paragraph to the width of the screen – handy!
3. Calendar -> Sync with iCal every time you charge the phone, keep all your activities in your pocket all the time.
4. Maps -> While the locate me feature that came with the 1.1.4 software is far from accurate, it is nifty, and will generally land you within 200m of where you actually are. I have used this several times to find my way around new suburbs or rural towns when out on roadtrips. A map of the world in your pocket? Awesome.
5. Customisability -> While not technically a feature of the iPhone, the modding world has done some amazing things for the iPhone with tools like Summerboard allowing you to make your phone yours with custom icons and backgrounds and Installer allowing you to find and install new tools and applications wherever you are.

The things they got wrong though are pretty annoying, and will put you in a bad mood if you let it all get you down.

1. Volume -> The volume on the iPhone is miserable. If you have the phone in your pocket and you are walking down the street, you will not hear it ring. The vibrate is also rather weak meaning you will have a lot of missed calls.
2. The camera -> A miserable 2MP camera that hates the dark and generally puts a green colourcast over everything. After the glorious phone in the k750i, this was a major disappointment.
3. Limited SMS features -> Only with the 1.1.4 update could you send SMS’s to more than one person, and even now you can’t forward a message on, or re-send a sent message.
4. No games -> Why no games!!! Even the iPods shipped with the music quiz and that shooty paratrooper game! Game me!
5. Battery life -> If you don’t watch videos or go nuts on the net, it will last you three days. If you do make use of all the features of the phone for 8-9 hours of a day, you will need to charge it overnight.

So that’s my iPhone review. If you are looking to get a new phone, really consider the iPhone. It is awesome and with the impending launch of the 2nd generation iPhone later this year, chances are you will be able to pick up an old 1st gen phone for under $500 really soon.