Switching To the iPhone - 2 Weeks Later

Last Friday, after years of frustration with Sprint, and seeing the busted Palm Pre in action, I decided to give the iPhone a try. I had many concerns about switching... mostly because of AT&T network but I had some other valid concerns as well. To refer to my phone as a phone is kind of silly. I actually talk on the device probably less then 5% of the time. I rarely take phone calls and even more rarely make them. I use a service called phonetag to transcribe all voice mails to email and send them to me which I then reply in email. With my Sprint phones over the years I have used my "smart phones" mostly for texting and emailing. I never really browsed the internet with them. The lack of css/js support mixed with phone CPU speed and network speed just made it worthless. I have been receiving so many emails about switching to the iPhone since my post about me leaving sprint that I decided to do a little mini review discussing my concerns and what I have found. Please keep in mind its only been 2 weeks (almost) and I will write a 90 day review or so and probably have some things to bitch about then. The Cost While this was not a big concern to me it was with the commentators in my leaving Sprint post. Lots of people were saying that our company would be paying a lot more for the iPhone plans then with what we had with Sprint. Surprisingly we will be saving about $3,000 per year with At&t over Sprint. We are on a shared business plan with rollover minutes and the cost savings is pretty substantial. I am fairly certain they do not have a similar thing on Sprint because we were always asking our reps if we should move to a better plan and they always said we had the best one so either they were lying to us or they can't compete price wise. Network Coverage Network Coverage was far and away my biggest concern in switching from Spring to At&t. I don't talk much but when I do talk its important and the rumors of dropped calls really frightened me. When I purchased the iPhone the salesman at the At&t store said that here in Lincoln Nebraska we actually have some of the best iPhone data speeds in the world being they JUST rolled out new hardware not to long ago. I still was not fully convinced so I started talking to other customers as they were walking in to trade in their iPhones for new ones. The testimonials from the customers was enough to make me take the leap and get one. At my house is supposed to be a "Dead Zone" which I wasn't thrilled about but I have to say the phone works great there. I get 2-3 bars at worst and have never missed a call yet. The same is true for my office which is only a block away from my house. I am still leery though and have no delusions that the coverage will be perfect. Even some of my friends who are the biggest Mactards have told me to expect some dropped calls. Like I said though so far so good. I have gone around rural Nebraska and the AT&T coverage is as good as Sprints.... if not better to my surprise. Battery The battery life was my 2nd biggest concern about switching to the iPhone. I would say the battery life for regular use is as good as the Blackberry. When I first got the iPhone I could not stop playing some of the tower defense games and they wore it down pretty fast... but what do you expect. I picked up a battery extender/charger to travel with me. Keyboard Another concern was the keyboard. Ever since my first "smart phone" I have always really enjoyed having a full keyboard on my phone. I was really worried about what the touch screen would be like. But just like what everyone told me it would take less then a week to be good with the touch screen keyboard. I wish every application let you type in landscape mode. I am considerably faster in landscape mode versus normal but maybe that will improve. I am happy with the keyboard and I LOVE the auto correct. Applications Unreal.. just totally completely unreal. Lets not even get into 3rd party apps. I will just cover the Apple ones for now: 1) Mail - The mail app rocks and has awesome integration with Gmail hosted email. Just like the blackberry it does support PUSH if you use their delivery service (.me) BUT also just like the blackberry if you do use the PUSH service it creates some complications with IMAP. We are using GMAIL for our domain and the integration works awesome with the mail application. 2) Photos - I cant tell you how many times I see people and they ask to see pictures of my kids. And I never have them... or if I did have them on the blackberry (on the couple MB of storage it had) they were very very very bad quality. I have over 10,000 pictures on my iPhone at full quality dating back over 8 years. This takes up less then 1% of the space on my iPhone and its really nice to have when I want to show someone something. 3) Safari - Probably the most impressive default application. Apple really outdid themselves with this web browsing application on the iPhone. Usability This device replaced many things for me. And I don't mean some bullshit "in theory it can do it" I am actively replacing these items.

• iPod - The 3GS also has a built in Nike+ receiver which is awesome for workouts.
• Portable movie player - With the large 32gb storage capacity I can store tons of dvd-rips for viewing while traveling.
• My Laptop - Sure it has not TOTALLY replaced my there are very few things that I can't do with my iPhone.
• Dictaphone - With the Voxie iPhone application I can record myself and send it to myself, to my secretary, or to be transcribed by their professional transcription services. THIS ROCKS. I can now just talk into my iphone and get emailed text for blog posts or whatever else I want.
• Camera - Yea I hear you... "but $hoe every phone has a camera", but seriously how many times have you actually had a photo printed and framed with your .5mp camera phone. I dunno what the mp was on the blackberry but it was shit. I went to our nanny's wedding last weekend and I took photos with the 3gs while my wife used our cannon 8mp point and shoot. I would say my photos turned out every bit as good as my wifes if not better. Here is one photo I took with my iPhone of the happy couple with my kids:

6 - Flip Video Camera - With the iPhone I can record nice video and directly upload to youtube. The quality is good enough for youtube so why do I need a flip anymore? Checkout this video from last weekend getting my toenails painted with my daughter (I gotta learn to get my finger out of the way): Sure I am not going to be up for any best picture nominations anytime soon but seriously its plenty good enough for the stuff I am playing with. If you are thinking bout getting an iPhone I would first encourage you to talk with other AT&T subscribers in your area. If the service is good to go then go for it! There is a 30 day window you can return it and get a full refund should it not be everything you thought it was. If money is a problem you can always sign up to win one of 2 iPhone 3GS's being given away by Brian Norgard!