Posted in Misc | Posted on 12-09-2007 | 2,448 views
Thanks to grateful client and a user of some of my applications. this week I got both the iPhone and the iPod Touch. Even though I love high tech stuff, I've never been a big cell phone guy. I spend most of my time at home, so cell phones just don't do a lot for me. But I spent a lot of time traveling this year and I'm definitely using my cell more. When the iPhone came in on Thursday, I plugged it in. iTunes launched and the set up process began. Now I was already an ATT customer so it may have been easier for me, but I have to say, the setup was the absolute coolest thing I've seen in a long time. I basically entered my phone number, answered a few questions, and five minutes later it was done. My Razor reported that it was unregistered and my iPhone was working - all with my old number. I had no idea it worked that easily. (Again though - I assume it isn't quite as easy if you don't have ATT already.)
After being impressed by that - I was then a bit surprised by some of the choices Apple made for working with the phone. You can't drag music or pictures to it. You have to sync playlists or photo albums. That's just plain silly. I'm not a big playlist guy. If I want to play a Britney Spears album, I'm not going to make a playlist, I'll just find her in the library. I've heard rumors the next update will improve this, but again I was pretty surprised.
Once you get your media on the phone though, it looks beautiful. I filled mine with pics of the kids which lets me show them off when I travel. I've copied one video so far (Superman - Doomsday), and the quality is perfect, except a bit quiet. (But that may be more my DVD rip then anything else.)
I've played less with the iPod Touch, but it's pretty much the same. The iPod Touch though lets you copy individual songs (didn't try pictures). It also seems a bit thinner, which makes sense.
And no - I haven't tried to jail break either of them. While I'm tempted to - I'm just too much of a wimp to do so. About the only 'hack' I'm considering is the ring tone hack, which from what I saw is just a file rename, no firmware munging.
One thing I have been thinking about though Ray. I have been wanting to create an iPhone interface for ColdFusionBloggers.org. I have to pick my son up from school a couple days a week which equates to sitting in my truck for about 40 minutes with nothing to do so i usually spend that time catching up on posts. I think a native iphone interface would make browsing it much faster since you wouldnt have to download all the images and the js that makes the ajax possible.
Maybe we could get together and come up with something.
Go tho this page http://www.ebaspace.com/2007/08/20/create-iphone-a...
to get a workable iPhone/Touch template !!
I use it already with my Flex/CF8 erp application to give the inventory people in the warehouse a portable WIFI enabled inventory lookup tool. Works like a charm !!
I too had the same wimp-ish perspective on jailbreaking the iPhone until I saw the one-click hack. You can read more about my experience on jailbreaking my iPhone at the URL that follows. Also mentioned in the URL is a really nifty $15 ringtone application (iToner) that does not hack your phone at all. It has worked for me on both 1.1.1 and the current 1.1.2 iPhone firmware. Cheers.
http://www.trajiklyhip.com/blog/index.cfm/2007/10/...
I've actually had a really bad experience with it so far, constant crashing and pausing, almost impressively-bad battery life, and 800 other things I won't go into, so I'm excited to see what you think of yours a few weeks in. It was also my first Apple-brand mp3 player and I have to say I was really disappointed with the general look and feel of the iPod functionality as well as the audio quality (to be fair, I haven't tried it with any extra-purchase headphones, just the ones that come with it. I would've, but my professional-grade headphones don't fit in the non-standard jack obv.)
Keep us updated as to what you think and any great / poor experiences you have with it.
http://www.marketcircle.com/iphoney/
@david
If you would spend 1/4 of the time taking it back to have it checked out as you do complaining about it on everyones blogs then you would probably get it fixed. Not to be a jerk but you obviously have a bad one which does happen. Apple is rated #1 in customer support for a reason.
On your headphone... yes it kinda sucks but get a $5 adaptor and use your good headphones.
on ipod part... I do partially agree... the ipod is my least favorite part of the iphone. Personally I like the old ipods a lot better mostly for the wheel when im laying in bed or driving. The audio quality is good if your source is good. I thought at first that the sound quality wasnt as good but what I ended up figuring out was that the old ipods werent as good but the ipod touch/iphone as it sounded a bit "tinnish" but when I put higher quality rips on there they really came to life and there was a major difference and then put the same higher quality rips on old ipod and they sounded like the lower quality ones.
Quick FYI, I type LITERALLY 800,000 wpm so it takes me about 14 seconds to write a 500 page blog comment. Also, I was unaware that the only kind of welcome comments on blogs were those agreeing with the poster. Now I know, and will act accordingly.
All of the mp3 files on my iPhone were purchased off of iTunes, so I'd assume the quality would be fine.
I'll take my iPhone into a store this week and update. I would bet my next paycheck that I'll either be dismissed on the spot or be offered a replacement for some incredible near-purchase-price fee, or MAYBE even have the luxury of waiting a few weeks phoneless while they send mine in for repairs.
I'll update soon! I'm excited to see what happens!
I understand that you don't have to agree with the post but I have now seen you on several blogs posting all these huge posts about how bad your life is with the iphone. I am sorry but you just sound like a complainer.
If my iphone didnt work I would take it back to an apple store and pretty much guarantee that I would walk out with a new one with probably no hassles at all. Would I bet my paycheck on it over what you think you will get.. absolutely
I can see you having problems though because people like you have problems no matter what, they will probably give you a new one and you will complain about it.
"All of the mp3 files on my iPhone were purchased off of iTunes, so I'd assume the quality would be fine."
Itunes files are fine but if like you say and are listening to them with the basic earbud then of course its not going to sound like a $300 pair of earbuds. I am a musician and have done 4 studio albums and have a pretty damn good ear and I would put an ipod up against just about any other portable devise out there.
"Setup for me took over an hour"
If it took you over an hour then I wonder if you should even have a phone..
Ya know I wasn't trying be a jerk but going blog to blog writing huge posts about how terrible yours is isn't going to help it get better. If all iphones were truly as bad as you say yours is don't ya think it would be pretty big news and they wouldn't be selling any at all and not the fasting selling mobile phone of all time?
Apple customer service is amazing, hell i'm writing this to you on a mbp that apple gave me because I broke my imac and they upgraded me to a $1700 more expensive computer for no special reason. Your phone is under warranty if it is bad they will replace it.
There are going to be bad ones....
Please tell how the transfer of music is "so dumb"?
Personally i love it, I plug it in and it transfers, yeah boy that IS dumb!!!
On my old sanza's i could plug it in and then open up the drive and then open up the folder then drop songs in. Now I have heard a lot of people say how great this is and it is if you have got about 10 songs on there but when you have say 30,000 songs then drag n drop aint so great as you need a file system to keep it in order and itunes does that pretty damn well.
@david
I just saw this guys comment on a comment section of an article:
"I recently took my iPhone with a minor problem to an Apple store. WIth a simple explanation of the problem and a couple of questions later, the on-site expert replaced the phone at no charge and I was on my way in less than 1/2 hour. With the simplicity of using the Apple stores for one-on-one support when you’re in your warrantee period, it amazes me that anyone with a Mac under warrantee has anything to complain about. Apple is very quick to want to help make it work and have shown that they will support their products 100%"
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