How's iPhone? This is a question which have been asked since the world-wide release of iPhone. Lets ask the one who used it. Scott Conley of 14to9.org says





Things they got right

1. Can I rave enough about the multiple party conferencing? You can add three or more, making a genuine conference call without a bridge line.
   
2. The display is phenomenal. In sunlight, it's visible. In ordinary light, it's knock-down brilliant. Video, etc is unbelievably nice.
3. The magnifying glass is a nice feature. Even offset to account for your enormous finger.
   Flicking and the scrolling-too-far metaphors in general are excellent and intuitive.
4. The decision to put YouTube into its own interface.
5. The iTunes-driven interface. Pulling updates will be seamless and an enormous advantage for Apple in the marketplace

Things they got wrong

Keyboard really is awful. No question about it. Works well enough in ‘conversational’ contexts, like SMS and email, but in ‘literal’ contexts like Address Book entries and other form-based behaviors, it’s index-finger-or-bust. There’s a lot of configuration to start out with, so we’ll see where we’re at once the config work levels off. Would it have killed them to allow any application to run in landscape mode (like a Sidekick)- the wider keyboard is a huge difference, and the phone is easier to hold this way, as well.

Caps Lock is lost when going to the numbers/specials keys and back.
No excuse really for no speed dial. Favorites is not enough. Some kind of finger-scribble on the home page would be interesting.

Speakerphone speaker is too close to mic. Echo is common for other party.

Copy and paste? Does not exist.

Opportunities missed

1. Should have included that double-space-equals-period from RIM’s OS.
   


2. Lots of opportunities for efficiency/workflow improvements.
   


3. Contacts are only available through the ‘phone’ path.
   


4. Delete key? Not even a shift-backspace?
   


5. No Bluetooth sync is devastatingly disappointing to a guy who’s been waiting for the Apple Experience in phone ownership.
   


6. Mail inboxes don’t aggregate into a single ‘new mail’ view. This is a big deal if you have four email addresses for various work and play interests.
   


7. Could have used maybe one or two more physical buttons, perhaps around the perimeter or next to the home button. The ability to map these keys to some favorite functions or speed-dial would be a giant efficiency step.
   


8. Improved integration with Yahoo’s push email service. Jobs himself touted this aspect in the keynote, and it’s been totally glossed over in the setup and documentation, by both Apple and Yahoo. Anybody doing email, however, is going to be hungry for this feature to save some battery down the road.
   


9. The Mail client is a half-step too lightweight. There are no configuration options for ‘reply-to’ or other address masking, which would allow stronger use of the Yahoo! mail services. The whole ‘backfill-with-old-messages’ behavior is annoying.

Lets hope the release of an upgraded version of iPhone....

Also : iPhone Features, iPhone video

Labels: iPhone, mobile