iPhone Raving Fan

Yesterday, much to my surprise, I got an iPhone. My son stood in line at our local AT&T store for four hours so I could get one. My wife, Doug, and son arranged this this scheme. I had no clue that this was going on behind my back. For the whole week leading up to the release, my wife was very adamant that I was not going to get one. I was devastated. I've always had a long history with Apple in being an early adopter of their innovations. BTW - I still have my Apple Newton.

Here was the scheme. About 4:30 my son called me at work and told me that his car broke down and asked me to come to help. He told me the location and I left immediately. I arrived about 4:45. The location he gave me was at a local strip mall. When I arrived, I could not find his car. I was wondering through the parking lot when I got his call. I asked him where he was. "Look over by the AT&T store", he said. I looked over there and saw him standing in line with several people. At this point, I still didn't get it. I walked over where he was standing in line. All of sudden it dawned on me. I was so surprised. My wife enjoyed seeing me squirm all week.

Starbucks meets iPhone

The AT&T store is across from a Starbucks. About every half hour, Starbucks employees would bring free refreshments out to everyone. Their orange mango ice tea is awesome. I found a new drink.

The Purchase

Just before the doors opened, the manager of the AT&T store came out to explain to everyone standing in line how they were going to process the crowd. They only allowed six people in at a time so they could provide personal service. As each person went into the store, they were greeted by an AT&T employee. The employee explained how the activation would work and then took the buyer to the iPhone accessory rack. By the time the buyer picked out their accessories they were taken to the the cash register. At the cash register, they asked you if you wanted to go through the credit check. Doing this saved time during the activation. Once the credit check came back, the buyer purchased the iPhone and they were on their way out. This process took approximately twenty minutes. Very efficient!

The Activation

Completely painless. Just before the launch, Apple release iTunes 7.3. This release had the iPhone activation program. Since I use a MAC, I get these updates automatically so it was ready to go.

The packaging is an incredible. When you look at the iPhone box, it's very small. The box itself is similar to a box you would get when purchasing a watch. Subtle and different. There are no manuals. Just one little pullout titled "Finger Tips". It's front and back with instructions on how to operate. Each instruction is only one paragraph long. One thing that I noticed that you normally don't see. The pullout was written in English only. Didn't see other languages versions.

Once I docked my phone, iTunes immediately was started. The activation was so painless. Made me realize how much unnecessary time has been spent in the past activating phones. There were only four screens. Two of them were disclosures. It asked me if I had a pre-qualified credit number. I entered the number, asked some additional information and it was done. Got my number. Then, heard a small bell ring on the iPhone. The iPhone told me that the phone was activated and ready to use. Once the phone was activated, I set it up to sync my songs, videos, and pictures. All in all, the activation took less than twenty minutes.

This is the Web

All of my bookmarks from my MAC was transferred. To see if Apple's commercial was true..."it's not a slimmed down Internet", I started browsing. They're right! It's not a slimmed down version. I immediately went to our credit union's website. I was able to navigate with ease. Since you have limited screen size on the iPhone, you can zoom in and zoom out on any web page by simply pinching your fingers inward to zoom in and outward to zoom out. I have not logged into our home banking site yet. Stay tuned!

This is your IPod

It's an iPod but better. You can see navigate through you albums by swiping your finger to the left or right.

I downloaded my first TV Show (The Office). The quality of the video was absolutely amazing. Simply move your rotate the iPhone on it's side and you have a wider picture.

This is your Phone

I've always been a big fan of Blackberry's phone interface. I loved the click wheel. It's the mouse alternative. I didn't think you could get much better. Who would thought the finger would be better. You can easily build your favorites with a few taps of the finger. You can quickly scan through your contacts using a couple different approaches. When you tap on the phone, your contacts are immediately displayed. You can swipe your finger though contacts and it uses a rolodex approach. It quickly rummages through all your contacts. Just tap to stop. The longer the swipe the more contacts it scans through. To the right, you'll see a vertical bar containing the alphabet. Just tap on that and by holding your finger down and simply moving your finger down the letters will take you from "A" to "B" quickly.

This is your Mail

Supports .MAC, GMAIl, YAHOO, and AOL out of the box. Exchange is supported if you have IMAP. I'm told that we will not support IMAP on Exchnage. Therefore, I will have to use outlook's web outlook interface. I'm good with that. I hope that Apple will beef up it's support on Exchange. They will win the corporate world over if they do this.

One thing to keep in mind is that the iPhone is not a BlackBerry. Blackberry's claim to fame is their ability to push emails as opposed to pulling them like most PDA's do. iPhone is a pull. You can configure the phone to check your email at various intervals.

Overall Rating

The good news is that the iPhone has lived up to it's hype and then some. It's simple, elegant, slim, and most importantly fun. The bad news is that a year from now we're all going to be saying...."oh no! Not another iPhone story".