Life with iphone

My dear husband picked me up an iphone 3G yesterday, and I have to say I was thrilled. Believe it or not, the iphone is my first cellular phone EVER. It's not that I'm against cellphones, I've just never really wanted/needed one enough to get one. Now that I'm doing more blogging, though, I thought the iphone would be a perfect tool for working on the go.

For those of you who weren't aware of it already, the first generation of the iphone was not available in Canada due to some problems with Canada's leading wireless carrier, Rogers. In fact, Apple even threatened to pull the iphone 3G from Canadian stores at the beginning of this month because Rogers refused to offer an unlimited data plan to Canadian customers (for those of you who are not intimately acquainted with the capacity of Canadian wireless carriers to rip-off customers, they are a virtual/literal mafia that have been price gouging defenseless Canadian customers for years--another of the main reasons it's taken me this long to get a phone).

What I love about the iphone so far:

1. The touch screen keypad. This is actually a common complaint among reviewers of the iphone, but because I'm not used to regular cell phones key pads, I find the touch sceen easier to use.

2. The sleek design. I guess it's a given, but the phone is gorgeous and the display is easy to read and understand, even for someone like me who knows nothing about phones.

3. The precise mapping technology. Okay, so it's INCREDIBLY disturbing my phone can pinpoint the side of the BUILDING I live in using google maps (I'm looking at it as I type). But it's also really useful! You can get directions anywhere so easily it's not even funny. It's sort of pointless for me, since I don't drive and we have OnStar, but oh well. It's awfully cool. Maybe I can use it when I'm walking!

4. It's cheaper and does more! Now there's less reason than ever to buy an ipod touch.

5. The Stocks application rocks. Okay, so I don't even have a penny inveseted in the stock market at this time, but this application is easy to use and beautiful. I'm hooked.

Of course, me being me, although I'm in love with my iphone, I have a long list of improvements I would like to make (even after only a few hours of use). My biggest beefs with the iphone?

1. My number one frustration with the iphone would have to be the lack of copy/paste features.

I was really hoping to do a lot of blogging with my iphone, but without the ability to copy/paste, it simply takes too long to do any serious blogging (just try copying an url without copy/paste!), or even emailing. Apparently I am not alone in being frustrated with this aspect of the iphone, as this great post on macworld testifies. I don't really know what on earth apple was thinking when they left this feature out. Copy/paste is pretty much essential for folks who are heavy net users(the number one reason I bought the iphone in the first place).

What is apple doing about this? Not much. This has apparently been a major complaint since the first iphone was released. And while a third-party developer has created an application to copy text within the iphone's "note" application, this still doesn't solve the problem for those of us who want to be able to copy text on the web or within emails (the iphone won't let you transfer text within applications).

2. No external keyboard/mouse option. There are times when you want to be able to type on a keyboard and copy/paste with a mouse. If I could use a bluetooth external keyboard and mouse with my iphone, it could actually replace my laptop for pretty much everything. I understand they want to minimize clutter, but I really don't get why apple is not doing this.

3. Landscape/widescreen feature only works in some applications. You've probably seen that the iphone has a "widescreen" feature that self-adjusts to allow you to view webpages and video in widescreen by simply turning the screen. Cool, right? Well, it's nice, but it only works with certain applications. For example, while you can view the internet in widescreen, most of the menus are only visible in the vertical (narrow) view.

4. There's no video recording or zoom on the camera. I didn't expect it, but it would have been really nice to have, and a number of other new phones from Nokia, Samsung, LG and Motorola do this.

5. The battery doesn't last long in 3G mode. About 3 1/2 hours, to be precise, if you're just surfing. Working at a normal pace, with some phone calls thrown in and taking a few breaks, it could probably realistically last you all day. I've seen some users suggest turning off the 3G when you aren't using it to save battery power.

Bottom line? The iphone is beautiful and functional, but it won't be replacing your laptop any time soon.

iphone photo courtesy of apple.com