Ok so today is the iPhone launch. I did go and look at one. I did not stand in line. I even had every intention of buying one to use and review.
After waiting a few minutes a demo unit came available to try. The first thing I noticed was the feel of the phone. I definitely prefer the feel of the Dash. The iPhone feels more like my Motorola Q plastic and cheap. This actually surprised me as I thought it would be a more metallic feel like my iPod (yes I have a Nano and my first computer was an Apple II+).
Next I hit dial to get a dial pad and dial my wife's phone. I did have to hit the back button once as the last number was wrong. Apparently, the screen is sensitive and as my finger moved from one number to the next it picked up one of the numbers in between. I hit the dial button. And waited and waited. I figured that they had not activated the phone. So I hit end call. I then thought to myself the phone has a signal and the AT&T logo. I hit call again and after about 30 seconds my wife jumped as her phone rang.
Now comes the really bad news. Lag lag lag. She said hi and after a couple of seconds, I finally hear "hi" in the phone. OK, interesting that they have that much lag but I am definitely not surprised. Writing a radio stack is hard and writing a good one is even harder.
Now comes the next funny part. I look and look but do not see a way to get out of the phone application. Finally my wife hits the small depression on the front of the phone. Presto, I am back at the main menu - duh!
OK lets try music. So I hit the iTunes button and start scrolling through the music. I do have to say that I like the swipe gesture. I find a song and click it and I am rewarded with music coming from the phone. Sweet! But having finally found something to like, it was short lived. I found another song but rather than queue it up to play next it actually stopped the one currently playing and started playing the new one I touched. Hunting around I never did find a way to just queue the next song.
Next, I looked at the map feature. Unlike the Pharos for example the iPhone does not have GPS just Google Maps. And boy even on WiFi it was slow as I scrolled around. That was actually a comment from my wife. The interface at this point was clearly not as intuitive as an iPod as we could not find a way to zoom out or in.
I tried YouTube. It loaded the list of top videos pretty quickly. Then I clicked one. The video player came up in landscape mode. I clicked play and got a video going after a short wait. At that point my wife chimed in, definitely not at all like the ad. Like anyone should be surprised.
I played around with typing. By now another iPhone was available to try and my wife started playing around with it. The type was hard. I tried typing Redmond. I kept hitting the n but get the m. I finally had to over compensate to get it typed out. It definitely would take getting use to it.
While the store I was at had already sold out (they only had 40), another customer mentioned that the bigger AT&T store in the Redmond Town Center had some (supposedly 90). So if I wanted one I could get one. But by now I had seen everything I wanted to see. Both my wife and I were disappointed. Unlike the iPod which was easy to use and lives up to its hype. The phone was not going to live up to its super-hype but then usually nothing lives up to the hype remember the first iPhone oh I mean Razr from Motorola - http://www.apple.com/itunes/mobile/. Or the wheel thing the Segway - http://www.segway.com/.
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