One week with the new iPhone and I had promised to post my initial impressions.
For starters, I suppose the biggest plus is that I have an iPhone at all  , especially hearing the news of shortages around the country, which are rumored to last maybe another month.
It should be noted that I am somewhat merging both the iPhone and the 2.0 software review into one.
Pros:
3G Network - I am so happy to be able to leave the Edge network behind, I could care less if the 3G network drains my iPhone battery down to nothing. 
Integrated GPS - can anyone say GeoCaching? Also is very nice with GoogleMaps (especially if you are directionally challenged - not that I would know anything about that )
App Store - In my own defense, I will leave out the amount of money that I have spent on apps, but will admit to blogging far more useless information now that I have the Twitterific and Facebook iPhone apps installed. (And I will also leave out the amount of time sunk into playing Aurora Feint and Trism ).
Louder Speaker - There has been some debate about this around the net, but I can now hear my movies without having to practically insert the phone in my ear.
Better Network detection - Supposedly one of the reasons for the plastic back on the phone was for better coverage - seems to work for me.
Better Screenshot features - Can take easily take or capture Safari web browser images (via zooming in on the image and pressing and holding until the "Save" option comes up) or capture a screenshot of the whole screen.
Cons:
Slowness with the 2.0 software - There seem to be two main schools of thought (see comments in article) on this issue:
1.) Upgrading to the previously leaked firmware ( 5A347 as opposed to 5A345, which is the default firmware version that is installed on most phones )
2.) In the Settings --> Fetch New Data -->
Set Push to "Off" and Fetch to "Manually"
This seemed to work for me - definitely didn't notice the annoying several second lag when bringing up contacts and trying to select or search.
Update (7/22/08): Sadly this doesn't seem to work. 
Slowness with iTunes Sync - This seems to be an issue/feature? with the new software wanting to back up everything - supposedly after the first full successful backup incremental backups are supposed to be faster, but not seeing it at this end yet....
No Cut and Paste?!?! - Enough said on this one!
No Syncing of Notes?! - Fortunately thanks to the iPhone app Evernote, this isn't as much of an annoyance as it could have been.
AT&T charging an additional $5.00 for SMS messages - This is more of a complaint against AT&T then the iPhone per say, but it does feel like AT&T is doing a little bit of the old nickel-n-dime action here.
For another opinion on the 2.0 software, my coworker has weighed in with thoughts (twice ) - I should note that I installed the eBay mobile app purely on this recommendation, so if I go bankrupt from uncontrollable bidding, it is not my fault.  |  |
