“Everything changes in June,” I said back in January. Well, I don’t have an iPhone. Not yet, anyway. Ed and Justine asked me on Thursday if I was getting one; I told them I wasn’t going to jump into it right away. I’m going to wait awhile. So maybe I’ll get one Sunday, I said.
Dave and I skipped yesterday’s crowds and visited the Apple Store in Southdale early this afternoon to play. What you’re reading on all the other blogs is right: it’s not just hype if it lives up to it. Amazing device.
The first thing I did was played with the keyboard. I could see it self-correcting my typos immediately but my first completed misspelled and uncorrected word was after my second sentence. That was also when I was trying to type without looking. At first, I felt like human fingers might be too big. Five minutes later I figured that it won’t take long for me to type on it while not looking at it most of the time. Seriously.
The pinch zoom with photography and the browser is fantastic and felt natural. I came home and had the urge to pinch my MacBook Pro screen to zoom in and out. Someday.
Browsing overall was nice. There’s a little Safari “Missing Plugin” blue block where Flash content should be. That icon, to me, strongly implies that a plugin may some day show up. Perhaps the ball is in Adobe’s court. I can’t imagine the iPhone couldn’t handle Flash.
One issue with browsing was going through a page quickly: even though the page was loaded it wouldn’t always display promptly. A placeholder checkerboard would sometimes appear on scrolling and that part of the page will render a couple seconds later. The other thing was the browsing speed. On a WLAN I figured it’d be a bit faster, but it was certainly useable. Those two things are very small complaints being that almost every other aspect of the browser is phenomenal.
Dave and I skipped over to the AT&T store on the other side of the mall where we were able to spend more time with the iPhones there without people breathing down our necks. I turned off the WiFi on one of them to test the EDGE network speed. Slow, as you might expect. Not that much different than the Danger Hiptop service I’ve been used to though. The Safari preferences on the phone allow you to turn on or off JavaScript, Plug-Ins and Pop-up Blocking.
We had a late lunch at the California Pizza Kitchen a couple windows down from the Apple Store and spent most of the time going back and forth if we should get it or not. We’re both under existing contracts with T-Mobile and neither of us are thrilled with our current devices. We’re both Hiptop expatriates and decades long Apple users both personally and professionally. If neither of us had contract penalties imposed on us, we’d both have iPhones now. Then we thought that if you’re going to pay this much for a device, what’s an extra $200? Well, it was enough to deter our decisions today. Maybe I should sell another $200 worth of stuff on eBay to justify it to myself.
Does anyone want to transfer T-Mobile contract? I have a sweet three-day weekend plan at a nice price they don’t offer anymore. 
Comments 10
Didn’t consumerist have a post about how to get out of t-mobile contracts because they just raised the texting rate from 10cents to 15 cents? Not sure if you’re still within the 30 day window, but might be worth checking out.
I’m avoiding the mall because I don’t even want to see one of these in person, knowing I can’t buy one.
Posted 30 Jun 2007 at 16:55 ¶Sarah-
Yeah, I’ve looked at that quite a bit. I’m not sure how successful I’d be. I’m outside of that 30 day window but it may not matter. I probably won’t know until I try.
I don’t blame you on avoiding seeing one. I went back and forth with that myself.
Posted 30 Jun 2007 at 17:00 ¶Do you know if the Minneapolis municipal wifi service will allow VoIP use? Either way, that will be a real handy service to use with the iPhone.
Posted 30 Jun 2007 at 17:06 ¶VoIP should work fine with Wireless Minneapolis. The iPhone currently does not have an application for VoIP though.
Posted 30 Jun 2007 at 17:13 ¶How much longer on your contract?
Posted 01 Jul 2007 at 08:10 ¶I believe it ends June 22, 2008. A year, essentially.
Right now my plan is set up this way:
$39.99 3-day free weekend minutes, 600 MTWR minutes.
$5.00 400 domestic text messages.
After taxes and fees my total bill runs $50.58.
Posted 01 Jul 2007 at 08:12 ¶I’m with you Aaron: I’ve got another year on my T-Mobile contract too. If I didn’t have another year, I’d buy the iPhone tomorrow. Despite the shortcomings, it’s still an incredible device. And to have a real web browser on a phone that’s thinner than my iPod is amazing! (granted, I have an OLD iPod, but still…)
Posted 01 Jul 2007 at 09:14 ¶I apparently haven’t had a contract with TMob for my hiptop since 2005. And I made the mistake of playing with an iPhone at an Apple Store yesterday. Now I am trying to convince myself to wait/justify paying that much. Argh.
Posted 01 Jul 2007 at 13:57 ¶i wouldn’t even begin to consider one until they make a 3G version, as it’s no faster than my BlackBerry Pearl at browsing really, which i’m also pretty damn happy with that anyhow.
i’d imagine maybe around the 2nd or 3rd gen i’ll consider one, as i’m not much of an early adopter. heck, my first iPod was a 4th gen.
also, maybe i’m in the minority, but the iPod part of the iPhone, while it looks much better and nicer than anything available on any current iPods, interests me very little in having it on my phone. plus, my Pearl + Nano together are still smaller than an iPhone, and i like being able to bring one without the other if i so choose.
btw, look at all the smudgest on that baby already! I’m anal enough about the small screen on my Pearl!
Posted 01 Jul 2007 at 23:43 ¶The iPhune is evil dude!
Posted 03 Jul 2007 at 23:35 ¶Haven’t you heard about the iRiots?
http://fakesteveballmer.blogspot.com
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