A couple weeks after getting an iPhone in mid-February, I wrote up a few thoughts on the new phone. I thought that I’d add a few thoughts now that I’ve had more time to get used to the phone and really integrate it into my life.
In short I love the iPhone more now than then. I’ve used a smartphone since getting a Motorola MPx220 that ran Windows Mobile back around 2004. The iPhone works better than any phone I’ve had for just about everything. With every other smartphone I’ve owned I’ve restarted it at least every once a week. I have probably restarted the iPhone a couple of times in four months. Using the phone just feels natural.
I really think that apps do much to improve the experience. Without apps, the iPhone would just be a nice phone and not as useful as it’s become. Actually the apps are half the story and the other part would be data. Before I just used data for email and web browsing. Now I use data all the time for Twitter, maps, and really everything.
Most of the concerns that I mentioned in my first post still bother me. I did figure out how to get the alerts the way that I wanted, but I still feel it could be more flexible. Six years of having phones that managed being silent or making noise when appropriate spoiled me. I still find myself forgetting to set the phone to vibrate or, more often, forgetting to turn sound back on after a meeting. One feature my earlier phone had was the ability to set the phone to be silent for a set period of time when you could estimate how long you’d want quiet such as when going into a restaurant or movie and then it would turn sound back on automatically. I’d like to see that option.
The texting interface has grown on me. I’m using texting more now and I’m not sure if the iPhone has led to more texting or if my greater texting led to me getting more used to the iPhone interface.
I decided to Jailbreak my phone and will be looking at the Cydia store to round off some of the rough edges. Will report on what I find then.