My Crazy iPhone Adventure

When I purchased my iPhone a month ago, I was forced to sign up as a pre-paid Pick Your Plan customer with AT&T or put down a deposit (which was quite large). The pre-pay plans were acceptable and reasonably priced, but the problem was any time I did anything with my phone, I got an alert telling me how much the last transaction cost and what my remaining balance was. With unlimited text, unlimited data, and unlimited nights and weekends, most of these alerts told me that the last transaction was $0.00. With Yahoo! Push Email, the problem was quite literally multiplied, as something on the back end was causing these messages to appear even when I wasn’t actually using the phone.

So, Friday I went into the nearest AT&T Store and told them I would like to pay the deposit and get a contract. I paid my deposit and was given a pre-approved credit code to enter into iTunes. I plugged my iPhone in and…it synced as usual. I went back and got a new SIM, and tried again – this time I couldn’t replace a line or add a line because I was a pre-paid user. I went back on Saturday and explained the situation to them. Apparently the rep who handled me on Friday didn’t apply my deposit to my current pre-paid account, instead he treated it as though I was a new customer or a new iPhone customer. After roughly 2 and a half hours on Saturday, it was decided that the only thing to do would be to activate a new line with a new phone number.

I returned home and tried the activation process again, and this time the pre-approval number wasn’t being recognized. Now I was really pissed, so I stormed back into the AT&T store and demanded they either make it work or give me my money back. Still no luck, but the rep I had been dealing with all day did his best and was very nice about the whole thing. Finally, I went back home to try one more time. This time, I noticed that my city was listed in my iTunes account with ‘Heights’ spelled out. On my driver’s license, it’s abbreviated as ‘Hts.’ I tried again with this change, and success! 4 letters made all the difference.

Ok, so maybe that’s not really crazy, but after a few hours in that store I started feeling that the whole situation was a little wonky. I will say that despite the SNAFU that resulted in this whole mess in the first place, AT&T’s customer service was great – although the rep had to hang up on someone once or twice in the midst of being transferred between about 9 different departments at AT&T. What a weekend, now I have to tell about 75 people that I have another new number for the second time in a month.

And Justice for All

Paris Hilton loses $60 million inheritance.

Barron Hilton (yes, that is his first name) has apparently removed her from the will (or at least her $60 mil) after years of embarrassing behavior, culminating in her 23-day stay in the big house.

Apple – apple is outsmarting the iphone’s competition (martellaro scores the bullseye) – AAPL – InvestorVillage

Via InvestorVillage: John Martellaro has a post about the iPhone and why it’s going to dramatically change the mobile landscape. His point is that what’s revolutionary isn’t what the iPhone does, but what it could do with OS X and with the infrastructure Apple has with the iPhone. He seems to echo a comment I’ve heard before; that people hate their mobile phones, there just isn’t a better alternative. He points out the activation process, which users perform in their own homes through iTunes. He also brings up something which I hadn’t previously thought of that much – that the iPhone isn’t an enterprise device, and that trying to jam it into the enterprise space would’ve been a mistake on Apple’s part. Apple’s not really an enterprise company, not in the way that RIM or Microsoft is, Apple is a for-everyone-else company, and the best thing for them to do is to slowly change the culture outside of the enterprise and eventually the enterprise will catch up.

Now I’m One of the Cool People

So, after telling you why I wanted an iPhone, I got one this past Friday (that’s iDay +7). I chose one of the pre-paid plans, and I got a new number.

This device is amazing, truly. I’ve shown several people, and even the ones who said they would never pay $500 for a cell phone either say “I want one” or “That is so cool!” and honestly, it is. Sure, a Blackberry or a Treo can do the things an iPhone does and then some, and sure touchscreens aren’t exactly new, but the way Apple has managed to make this thing work is incredible.

The interface is, in a word, gorgeous. Apple has some of the best interface artists in the business. Even the battery charging icon looks fantastic, with subtle highlights and the trademark Apple reflection. Strangely, however, the ‘menubar’ – which consists of the signal/Wi-Fi strength indicator and the battery status icon – is not consistent across all of the various applications on the phone. On the home screen it’s black and white, as it is in Stocks, Weather, Calculator, and Notes. In the Photos menu it is dark grey and lighter-grey, and in the rest of the apps it is recognizable as the OS X menubar.

Call quality and volume is good – although I did have a few dropped calls and inexplicably a whole stretch of highway where I had a full signal but could not make any calls, even though I had been able to make calls on the same stretch going in the opposite direction a few hours earlier. The ringer volume is good, although the alert volumes are too low for me and cannot be independently set, only turned on or off. Also the vibrate mode seems weaker than on my A900, but with a belt clip it’s fine. Speaking of, I bought the Contour iSee for the iPhone and I’m really liking it. It’s completely clear plastic that has 4 pieces: a front plate and two back plates, one covering the antenna (which is under the black plastic on the phone) and a piece that covers the rest of the back of the phone, and a holster. I also have the iSee for the iPod Video. The only downside of these two is that dust and other crud can build up under the case and around the edges, meaning if you want to keep your device pristine and shiny it will need to be removed and cleaned. I also sprung for the Power Support Crystal Film, a translucent piece of…something that covers the front of the phone. Apparently it adheres via static cling, and once it’s on it’s tough to get off.

My favorite feature to show to people is the Maps. I bookmarked where I work (at a local country club) and load up the satellite view and zoom in – they love it. The camera is decent, better than my A900, but there’s no flash. Safari on the iPhone is fantastic, and the iPod really is the best one yet (can’t wait for those flash drives to hit 30GB). There are a few glitches here and there: sometimes sliding to unlock the phone doesn’t unlock it and throws it back into sleep mode, and sometimes when ending a call the phone automatically sleeps, but these aren’t annoying at all. The most annoying things are the damned prepaid account balance updates I keep receiving even when my phone isn’t doing anything. One of the forum members over at Cingular’s support forums said that disabling my Yahoo! email account may help, and so far it has, which is good considering this morning I had to dismiss almost 100 of these messages even though my phone was docked while I slept.

All in all, I’m incredibly impressed with the iPhone. Apple has truly raised the bar for mobile phones, and it will be a tough act for other manufacturers to follow. This is the most impressive mobile device I’ve ever seen, and using it is a pleasure. If you feel like splurging on something and don’t mind AT&T, I’d say go grab an iPhone.

iPhone Rumors Aplenty

I hope everyone enjoyed their holiday, I had to work. But, moving along, there’s some fresh iPhone rumors brewing across the tubes today. Engadget reports that T-Mobile will be the German carrier for the iPhone, and that it is expected to hit Deutschland on November 1. Orange is rumored to be the French carrier, and O2 in Jolly Ol’. More at AppleInsider.

Also from AppleInsider, a link to a Q&A on Walt Mossberg’s blog in which he says that Apple will roll out Flash support in an update coming “within the next couple of months.”

Finally, Newsvine user KSTAB seeded an article from iphonefaq.org which claims a gigantic update will be rolled out soon which will include iChat, custom ringtones, system-wide widescreen keyboard, Exchange support, and cut/copy/paste fuctionality, among others. One of the features mentioned is “better Leopard integration,” which makes me dubious of this as Leopard isn’t shipping until October. Then again, there’s no mention of when this update is coming, and it’s likely that we’ll see all of these features eventually, though probably not all at once.

Boing Boing: Allofmp3.com finally shut down by Russian authoritues

Via BoingBoing: Everyones favorite quasi-legal, uber-cheap mp3 site, AllofMP3, has officially been shut down. But not to worry – a new site, Mp3Sparks.com, which looks virtually identical, has sprung up to fill the void. We’ll see how long this one lasts.

Why I Want an iPhone

Yesterday I took a drive to my local Apple Store to play around with the iPhone. I had pretty much made my mind up to get one already, but I just had to hold one in my hand and slide my fingers across that gorgeous screen.

Reading reviews doesn’t hold a candle to actually holding it in your hand; Steve was right, it is wonderful. The screen is incredible, and the software is by and large quick and responsive (I couldn’t figure out how to bring up the Coverflow view in the iPod). Using it for all of the 10 minutes I was there cemented my desire.

So, why do I want one?

First and foremost: sync. $500 is a lot to pay for that, to be sure, but the only phones available from Sprint that might be able to sync with my Mac would be BlackBerrys or Treos, which can run anywhere from $100 less than the iPhone to $100 more than the 8 GB model. I’m not eligible for an upgrade for another few months, and if I did I’d have to renew my contract. Right now I have my contacts on my Samsung A900 and in Address Book, and updating either of the two is a manual procedure, and making mass changes can be time consuming. I have calendars in iCal and on Google Calendar, which I like because of the SMS functionality. But even this approach, with Spanning Sync as a go-between, is still a little hack-y for me, and having multiple calendars in GCal means, for me, a whole lot of SMS reminders for the same event (thank God for unlimited text). The point is, managing all of this information in two locations – well, one technically – is much easier than trying to manage it across multiple, often incompatible services.

Next is service. Sprint is generally not that good in my area. I’ve never gotten service in my house – which is why I sprang for the unlimited text. I can’t even check voicemail on my own cell phone, I have to use the landline. In Conventry, an area my friends and I like to go hang out (read: drink), service was non-existent until quite literally two days ago. AT&T may be only slightly better, however with the Wi-Fi functionality of the iPhone, I can get pretty good coverage in my house, at work, and at school – the three places where I am most often.

My A900 is an ok handset, but it’s also a little wonky. Samsung swears up and down that the T9 dictionary can learn new words – it can’t. Trust me. It can play music, but that functionality is pretty crappy, especially compared to the 5th Gen iPod I own. The camera is worse than the iPhone’s 2 megapixel shooter, but the iPhone doesn’t do video. That’s ok with me, as my A900 can shoot video and I’ve never used it. The iPhone can’t do MMS, which means no more picture messages – but I could really care less, I figure that’s one less thing AT&T can charge me for (cause Sprint sho’ loves charging for it). The battery life on my current phone is ok, provided I leave it in my pocket all day. Even with some moderate texting and maybe listening to voicemail for a total of 10 minutes a day, I still have to charge the thing every night.

Steve Jobs and the commercials were right about the internet browsing on the iPhone – it’s gorgeous. Not so on my current phone, it’s hideous. I could check my email with my A900, but a more reasonable thing to do would be, as Merlin Mann says, stick fondu forks in my eyes. It’s that bad. I’m not a big email person, but having that function built right into the phone (and the free push from Yahoo!) means I may actually use email more.

And finally, I just plain want one. It’s my money after all, and I can do whatever I want with it. Maybe the iPhone lacks several features that are offered on other phones, but I don’t really care. Some of these will no doubt be updated, and sooner than we think if we believe AppleInsider, and some of these features (super-fast 3G browsing, Exchange support, super-duper camera, etc) I just plain don’t care about or don’t need at all. And that’s why I want an iPhone.

How Many iPhones Can $16,000 Get You?

Via Digg: The answer is: 1. A Texas women went to an AT&T store with $16,000 to buy as many iPhones as possible to sell on eBay. She paid the first person in line $800 for his spot, and was probably shocked, disappointed, and feeling stupid to learn that there is a one per customer limit. The guy she paid? He got his phone, and $800 to boot.

The US Military Wants You…To Be Simulated

Via Slashdot: The Department of Defense is bringing Neal Stephenson’s Metaverse one step closer to reality. The military is planning a massive simulation, dubbed the Sentient World Simulation, to predict the outcome of various scenarios. The system in place so far can simulate up to 62 nations, including Iraq and China, and mashes-up news, census data, climate events, and proprietary (read: top secret) military intel.

iPhone Launch Not Completely Flawless

I didn’t wait in line for a whole day. I don’t have $500 to drop on a cell phone. But hot damn, do I want an iPhone. I sincerely hope that I don’t need to tell you what the correlation between the uber-device from Apple and today is, so I won’t.

What I will say is that all is not quite well in iPhone land. Several users (myself included) are reporting problems with the latest, iPhone-ready version of iTunes – version 7.3. Upon launching iTunes, an error message appears saying “iTunes cannot save your library (error -50)” or something to that affect. I don’t quite know what this means: my music files are still on my drive, and all the latest episodes of various podcasts still appear in iTunes.

On a related note, users are also reporting problems activating their iPhone from iTunes. Either the validation codes they were given by AT&T aren’t working or the iPhone is simply not activating in iTunes. Apple will most likely (and hopefully) roll out 7.3.1 next week – otherwise people will be severely pissed; well, more pissed than they are after having just dropped at least $500 on a device that is at the moment utterly useless to them. Jump on over to Apple’s Support Forums for more info.

Also of note, if you order online from Apple, your phone will ship in “2-4 weeks.” Maybe Steve shouldn’t have given every Apple employee of a year or more a free iPhone.