Hey, guess what. I bought an iPhone last week.
I wasn’t really planning on it, but you know who it is–you’re in the market for a smart phone, existing smart phones (the ones Sprint offers, anyway) suck, your contract has been up for months, you’re at the Apple Store at the Galleria, one of the geniuses explains how it’s really not that hard to switch carriers–and next thing you know, you’ve bought an iPhone.
And you know what? I like it. Quite a bit. I know it’s got its shortcomings. Here are some of my favorite things so far:
- Maps: The Google Maps implementation on the iPhone is great. Unlike the Palm version, it’s easy to get directions and actually follow them. I like having a list view for easy reference on the road, and the zoom out/zoom in feature is a nice touch to keep Point A in perspective with Point B.
- Web 2.0 applications: People who complained about the lack of an API aren’t quite getting the big picture. This is the way application development in general is going. I’m excited that the door is now open for longtime web developers like me to be able to develop top-notch software for handhelds (not to mention desktops), and that others are getting in on this as well. (37signals’ iPhone implementation of Ta-da List is excellent).
- It works with my Macs! Sure, the Missing Sync is pretty dang good at providing the Mac support Palm seems to not care about. There were still hoops to jump through, though, and straightening out conflicts was a regular activity. No more–now I plug in my iPhone and it syncs. No fuss, no muss. Awesome.
And yeah, there are a few little things I find lacking–but by and large, that’s what software updates are for. The way I see it if Apple had made this thing do everything people wanted right out of the gate, there would be that many more potential bugs to squash, and that many less new features down the road for people to ooh and ahh over. So I’ll let others whine and enjoy my iPhone.
