I got my hands on the iPhone!

I couldn’t resist a little to trip to the Apple Store while in New York, to goggle at the iPhone. It was crazy, they had stacks and stacks of them with huge queues of sales people selling them with handheld card machines. Seriously, they must have been selling one a second.

Due to the difficulties in unlocking the iPhone reliably, I didn’t buy one to take back to the UK (You have NO idea how hard that was!) but I did have a play with it and it WAS fantastic…

It was smaller than I expected, and fit comfortably in the hand. The build quality was obviously high and the screen was gloriously deep and crisp.

Safari Browser
The first place I went was straight to the Safari browser, which using the instore wifi network was quick and snappy. The multi-touch display functioned fine, allowing me to scroll around the pages with my finger and to pinch to zoom in and out. Double tapping areas of text, allowed me to read stories while the rest of the page was loading, and holding the phone horizontally showed the pages in a wider format. When I visited this site however, the Flash parts did not function, but I imagine there will be a software update to address that at some point. While I was browsing and trying to fend off other interested parties from trying to get hold of the phone, I had the ironic luck to experience some downtime in the store’s wifi coverage. When this happened, I noticed an ‘E’ icon in the top bar of the phone which meant it was using AT&T’s EDGE network for the data. At this point the browser became very slow indeed. Perhaps I was trying to do too much, but even this site seemed frustratingly slow to load, and even crashed at least once, throwing me back to the main menu. I must say that until this moment I was still considering bringing a US iPhone back to the UK, but after wrestling with the EDGE network I was put off. I resolved to wait and see what happens in the UK (I have heard O2′s network may be marginally faster) or even for the iPhone v2 which I hope to be 3G… Overall despite the flaky performance of the EDGE network, the browser really was fine, it is by far the most advanced mobile internet experience, the true internet in every sense, rich and tactile, and a very powerful resource to have in your hand.

iPod
After playing around with the internet, I took the iPod for a spin. I found this to be a little more confusing due to being so familiar with the existing iPod interface. I got the hang of it pretty quickly though, the albums are displayed in a glorious cover flow view when the iPhone is turned landscape and tapping one spins it round to reveal the track list. There’s not much to say about the iPod really, it’s all there and it’s the same as the iPod touch from what I could see, although I did notice the iPhone played music out loud from it’s small speakers as no headphones were inserted. I don’t think the iPod does this, and I expect it will be the delight of every pubescent bus passenger for may years to come…

Email & Other Features
I had a quick look at the email application which was pretty impressive, although I didn’t send or receive any mail. There were sample mails in the inbox containing text and photos, which looked great. The calendar was a similar story, looking nice but being of no real use in the store, as well as weather and stocks. I didn’t try Google Maps as by this time the people behind me were almost frantic to get their hands on it too, so I thought I’d put them out of their misery and step aside…

So…?
Overall I was very impressed with the iPhone. I’d read and seen practically everything online about it before I got to the states, and let’s face it, I’ve been tracking the rumours for something like 10 years, so it held few surprises for me. I guess the main thing was that holding it in my hands, it was genuinely a very desirable product and it was all I could do to stop myself from leaving with one (legally!) It’s LOVELY and I’m sure it’s going to do very well when it’s launched in the UK in a matter of days now. I was trying to decide whether I was prepared to buy it in the US, in order to make a saving and use it on my existing network, but in the end I have decided to play it by the book, wait for the UK model and who knows, perhaps by April when my Orange contract ends, the iPhone v2 will be on the horizon…?