Last week I got an iPhone 3G for my birthday. I feel that I’ve been using it long enough now that I can give some thoughts about it. First thing I want to say is that I love the phone and I couldn’t see myself going back to any old phone at any time in the near future. But let’s talk about it in a little more detail.
I imagine most people already know about the iPhone’s basic functions because the old version has been out for so long and sold so well. But it’s mostly all new to me so I’m just going to go over some things real quick and try and hit on the new features.
My favorite way of contacting people is via text messaging. The texting on this phone is great. It’s a lot more like an IM in that it keeps your conversations seperate based on who you’re talking to. So you get a big list of what you’ve said with a person instead of just a big list of messages that you’ve sent to everyone. However, I’ve found that when I start a new conversation with someone the phone slows down really bad for a bit. Sometimes just closing the conversation and re-opening it will fix this, other times I reset the whole phone and then it’s fine. But the slow-down is really bad when it happens.
I also love having my email with me at all times. I’m not constantly getting important emails, so it’s only so important, but it’s a nice feature to have. Plus I can send and reply to emails wherever I am. The phone synced up with my gmail account in only seconds and can be set to push in 15, 30, 60 minute intervals or manually. Definitely haven’t had any problems with this aspect of it yet.
One of the new features of the 3G phone is the GPS. The GPS seems to be very accurate. I’ve hit it while driving and while just hanging out in my house. It does a great job of keeping up while driving and is very accurate. Down to the side of the street that you’re on. From there you can map directions from your current location to somewhere and view step by step instructions of how to get to you’re location.
It’s also great for finding things around you via google maps which is awesome because anywhere you are you can search for nearby food, movies or anything. It just makes life easier. Which I think is really the basis of why I enjoy the phone so much. It makes so many things so easy to do. On top of that it is now a reasonable price. I wouldn’t have bought one before (and didn’t) at $400, but I think $200 is perfect for it.
I don’t want to get to theh point where I’m just rambling on about the phone and little things. So I just want to say I give it my approval. The GPS is awesome and having the internet everywhere has proved helpful numerous times. The keyboard takes a little getting used to and I wish that it could be flipped when texting like it can while surfing the web because the keys are slightly bigger and much easier to use then. But you just have to learn to trust it, it’s pretty smart in figuring out what you meant to type.
An easy to use and very useful product. Good job Apple.
