I got one... sort of. I bought one for my wife. And trust me when I tell you it is even cooler than the appears in the commercials. I was going to wait for the next generation version to come out, but I might just go ahead and get one.
There was no line at the AT&T store at 7AM yesterday morning when I stopped at Starbucks for coffee (they're right next to each other) on my way to work, so I decided I would check back at lunch. There was no line at lunch time either, so I ran home to drop off my computer and went back. In that 30 minutes, a line of 6 people had formed.
So, at 12:30, I began my wait... and stupid me, I didn't bring a chair. DOH! The people (mostly male, middle age folks) in line with me were really nice, which certainly helped the time to pass more quickly... until about the last 1/2 hour, that seemed to take forever! :-)
When the time came, they let in the first 6 people in line, one for each of the employees in the store. I was number 7 in line, so I had to wait a little longer... but only about 5 minutes, til the first person came out.
I got my wife the 8 gig model, a couple of accessories and I was on my way home.
I took out her laptop, downloaded and installed the new iTunes, and then got forced to update MAC OS... which sucked.... I just wanted to get that phone set up to play!
After 30 minutes of software downloads and installs, I had the iPhone in the cradle and I was setting it up... the process was smooth, and we were done in just minutes.
Copied over her music and contacts and finally got to start playing around!!!
As I mentioned, the iPhone is incredibly cool... totally living up to the hype. Here are some notes:
- The iPod functionality is awesome, cover flow is great, however, the standard list is phenomenal as well. A little flick of the finger and you're scrolling through gobs of music (I put about 4 gigs on there)
- Scrolling through a list, at first, seemed backwards. I wanted to run my finger down the screen to get to the bottom of the list - just like you "scroll" down using a scroll bar, but it is the more natural gesture of flicking up to move the unwanted stuff out of your way.
- Setting up Wi-Fi took litterally 2 seconds: I opened the mail application and was prompted for our WPA key, entered it, and boom. Connected.
- I set up the local weather in about 1/2 second... simply by entering our zip code. There was almost no latency in getting the updated 5-day forecast for our city. It took me only a second or two to figure out how to delete the default cities weather forecast. Simply touching a red circle next to the city name revealed a delete button... very smooth.
- Navigating the maps was incredibly cool. Starting with two fingers together on the screen, just slide them away from each other in whatever direction you want the map magnified. I was able to drill into our city in a matter of a couple of gestures.
- There are no "close" icons or buttons, you just return to the main screen with the main navigation button on the device.
- I changed a couple of the default settings, which were quick and easy to do.
- The keyboard, which might take some getting used to, is very cool. The visual feedback when you press a letter or number is great - although, when you are entering a password and can't see the text you've entered, the visual indicators of the letters you've typed should stay visible for a little longer.
- One of the coolest things is a little ".com" keyboard button. You type in a URL in the browser and click one button to complete the address... that is wicked cool.
- I have my iTunes set to manually sync with my iPod, a feature I couldn't seem to find or accomplish with the iPhone. I'm going to have to investigate this one a little more. There was an option to only sync checked items or only sync certain playlists, so that might be the way to do it.
There are so many little things that make the iPhone praiseworthy... the whole time I was playing last night, a line just kept running through my head: touching is believing.
It is evident that they spent time truly understanding the main tasks people need to complete with a mobile device. The buttons for the main tasks are big and obvious... my wife kept remarking that they built it for someone who hates technology, like her.
