[shifuimam]

I'm waffling hardcore on this one.

I swore I wouldn't buy another new Apple product, but at the same time, it seems like there isn't another smartphone on the market that I'd end up using as much.

My employer gets 20% off all plans with AT&T - data and voice - which means that with discounts, 450 minutes a month plus unlimited data would run me about $63/mo after around 12% taxes...which amounts to $15 more a month than I'm paying now for 450 minutes and 500 SMS/MMS with Verizon.

I do have a few questions for all you iPhone owners:

Can the iPhone do voice dialing? I use that a lot with my current phone when I'm driving, so I don't have to look down and find a number.

How is the QWERTY interface for messaging? I'm a super fast typer on both thumb keyboards and normal ones, so I don't want to be held up by anything.

How long does the battery last on voice calls? I don't talk all the time, but once a week or so I call my mom and end up talking for an hour or more, and I'm not always able to plug my phone in. My current phone can stay on and unplugged for four to six days, and by the end of that it's still good for at least 45 minutes of talk time before it starts beeping at me to charge it.

Can I disable the 3G to save battery life, for instance when I'm traveling and don't need it enabled?

Those of you who have used other smartphones with SymbianOS, Palm OS, or Windows Mobile, how does the UI compare overall, particularly with email, messaging, and browsing the web?

How's the bluetooth for headsets? Does it disconnect a lot? Can I use a cheap piece with it?

And lastly, would you really truly genuinely, all Apple preference aside, recommend the iPhone? I'm really leaning toward getting one, but I'm just not sure and want more input from actual users. Please give me more than a "yes, get it" - I'd like some real life examples of why it's so much better than other options.

[mduell]

You have to look at the iPhone keyboard to use it; unlike a real keyboard you can't use it by touch.
The iPhone is the best phone web browser, but the messaging/email is behind Blackberry (UI snappyness, message delivery time, notification, real keyboard, etc.). I'm more of an email user than web user on my phone, so I went with the BB.

[Big-C]

Awesome that you get such a deal on ATT service; I get like 5% off. Whatever - I'll take it.

Voice Dialing:
It's not built into the phone as a feature, you would have to buy or use an app from the App Store. I tried one or two, and they weren't really hand's free; you had to touch the screen to run the app, then hold a button or something. I didn't bother and deleted the app. That was so long ago, that maybe someone else can answer with an update.

Qwerty interface:
I love it, and people who have never sent me a text message now text me regularly. I'm happy with my typing speed (25/30 wpm), so for me, it's fine. As you've probably read, testing it out in a store is only half the story; you have to get used to typing on the screen, and trusting that the OS will auto-correct your mistakes. Some like it (like me), and some disable this feature.

Battery:
I barely use 90 minutes a month, but my wife and I both have an iphone and they are the only phones in the house. We both charge over night, and don't run out of battery. My wife will talk to her mom in Iowa for maybe 45 minutes and it's never died.

3G:
You can enable/disable 3G in the settings. Same as location services, wifi, bluetooth.

Other Smartphones:
Before the iphone came out, I used windows mobile, and hated it. I switched to symbian, and while I liked it, it's (in my opinion) no comparison to using the iphone. The iphone is just so fast and easy to use. Someone recently asked me what I liked best about the iphone and what apps were best, I confessed that I think the OS and the little tricks you can do with it were the best feature. Apps are great of course, with the quality getting more and more sophisticated. People complain that there is a lot of junk, but so what - there is a lot of great stuff too. If the iphone ceased to be, I'd go back to symbian. Oh, I also hated blackberry's OS too, but again, all my experience is 2 years old now - maybe things are super great now.

Bluetooth Headset:
I have apple's headset, and it's pretty bad. I use it only in the car with the phone sitting literally 1.5' away and it works great. Otherwise, lots of static, and if I use it while walking, people can hear the wind and other noises, and they complain. So I only use it in the car with the window's rolled up. I haven't tried any other headsets with the iphone.

I would truly recommend it, and do so regularly. I was on vacation and used an app to create panorama's of Las Vegas strip and send them out to people from my iphone. I love how I can do 3-way calling because it tells me how to do so on the screen. I like how I can take a screenshot of anything and email it to myself. The ease of setting the opening screen picture allows me to jot down little reminders in the notepad, take a screenshot, and save it as the startup screen. Other phones can do all these things, but on the iphone, it's easy, and I spend less time forcing it to do things; instead it just does them.

I'm sure I'll get shot down because there's plenty that people have to complain about, but I am loving my phone and so do the people I know who have them.

Good luck! Heck - there's always a return period, so you can't go too far wrong...

[shifuimam]

I'm going to the AT&T store tonight or tomorrow to look at the phones - specifically the HTC Tilt, LG Incite, and the iPhone.

I'm interested in upgrading to a data plan more than anything. If I were still just looking at texting and voice, I'd get whatever cheap phone AT&T sells that doesn't look like crap. So, I'm definitely in the market for a smartphone.

What's most important to me is a usable UI, web browsing, email, and IM. We use Exchange at work, so I know I'll be able to get my mail from any of the above mentioned phones, although my calendar is more important for work (I don't really need to be getting work mail on my phone, since I'm generally at my desk all day). I would like to use gmail on it, though, particularly when I'm not at home or work. Email for me would be less about writing and more about reading, too, although it would replace text messaging for me.

Browsing is a big one, especially since I take the bus to and from work every day. It'll be a nice distraction. I need a good browser, which I know Windows Mobile doesn't normally provide - I read in one review that the Incite has a pretty good alternative browser.

So...yeah. We'll see...

[thechidz]

Id get an ipod touch and a blackberry

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

What's most important to me is a usable UI, web browsing, email, and IM. We use Exchange at work, so I know I'll be able to get my mail from any of the above mentioned phones, although my calendar is more important for work (I don't really need to be getting work mail on my phone, since I'm generally at my desk all day).

In a direct matchup, here's how I would rate the iPhone vs. Blackberries in general (0 - 10 scale):

usable UI: iPhone 9.0 ; BB 7.0
web browsing: iPhone 9.5 ; BB 5.0
email: BB: 9.0 ; iPhone 6.0
IM: BB ? ; iPhone 4.0

For good web surfing, there really is no alternative to the iPhone right now.

Just don't get the BB Storm, it's a piece of sh!t.

-t

[shifuimam]

Originally Posted by thechidz 

Id get an ipod touch and a blackberry

I don't really need the music player as much as the other stuff, since I have (and love) an 8GB Zune.

I ended up getting it. I have 30 days to back out if I change my mind, at which point it's most likely that I'd just drop the data plan and get a regular phone (I'm sticking with AT&T either way at this point, because of the discount).

The keyboard is definitely taking some getting used to. I wish it had a landscape mode when composing email messages. I'll get a case soon...the padding will make it more comfortable when I'm typing on it.

I make phone calls so infrequently with my phone anymore that I'm not even all that concerned with that aspect of it.

I played with a BlackBerry and the LG Incite at the AT&T kiosk, and neither one was remotely as good as the iPhone in ease of use and, more importantly, browsing. I've never had an expensive phone before - I'm all freaked I'm going to break it! Anyhow, what's done is done. If voice calls are terribly annoying with it, I'll just buy a cheap GoPhone and stick my SIM card in there when I need to.

[shifuimam]

Incidentally, is there a way to export my contacts to my SIM card?

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

I wish it had a landscape mode when composing email messages.

Use the free app EasyWriter, or EasyWriter Pro for $ 0.99.

-t

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

Incidentally, is there a way to export my contacts to my SIM card?

No, not supported AFAIK.

On jailbroken iPhones, there are some solutions, which I never explored.

-t

[Maflynn]

I have both, a blackberry (I think its like a 8700 model, not the newest) and now a iPhone. I'm pretty pleased with the iPhone's keyboard and email offerings over my current (work provided) blackberry.

I am a little disappointed in the battery life, given that my BB last several days and its 2 years old and I need to work at it, to keep the iPhone going for more then a day, i.e., turning on airplane mode at night etc)

Overall, I think the iPhone is vastly superior to any smart phones and blackberry. You can't go wrong with an iPhone but you can certainly make a mistake in buying some of the other smart phone offerings.

Before I purchased the iPhone I did compare it with the BB storm and found that lacking a lot of ways, for instance the clicking touch screen is awful.

[Veltliner]

The iPhone is great, but I decided against it.

I want a phone that's small, so I go with a foldable.

Sure, I miss out on a lot of gadgets, and on the opportunity of running into people and buses while typing away on my phone.

[shifuimam]

One of my friends is totally sprung on the Storm. I think he's going to get an HTC Fuze to replace his current smartphone (Pantech Duo).

I'm not anti-MS by any stretch, but Windows Mobile just isn't what I need. It's great for business types who need things like Word and Excel support and don't really need things like Twitter and Flickr on a regular basis.

I didn't think the iPhone would succeed, when it was first announced and I started reading about it. Silly, silly me. I've discovered that if you want a smartphone without the complexity of an actual smartphone, the iPhone is perfect. The interface is ridiculously intuitive (I never have figured out why in WM, clicking the X on an app is like OS X and not like Windows - the process stays running in the background), and web browsing runs rings around Windows Mobile and Symbian (BlackBerries).

I've already been downloading a plethora of apps, jailbroke it so I could customize it more, and will be following the online info for hacking iTunes so that I can sync on multiple machines.

The typing really isn't too bad - I'm already adapting to it quite quickly. I think the only thing I'n not jazzed about so far is the lack of native voice dialing. I found a good free dialer app, but it's still not as handy as my old Motorola V325, where I could hit a button on the side to activate it.

Is there a way to lock the screen while on a call, so that I don't accidentally hit a button? I hung up on my mom this morning by accident, because i was carrying it in my hand and bumped the button on the screen.

I'm looking forward to developers hashing out the 2.2 firmware so that I can use a third-party app to upload music and stuff. I'm not a fan of iTunes at all. Other than that hitch, however, I'm thus far quite happy with it I never realized how awesome it is to be able to check my email from anywhere.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

Is there a way to lock the screen while on a call, so that I don't accidentally hit a button? I hung up on my mom this morning by accident, because i was carrying it in my hand and bumped the button on the screen.

There's a proximity sensor up near the speaker that switches the screen off when you hold the phone to your ear during a call. If you cover that up with your hand while on a call, that should work.

[Atheist]

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot 

There's a proximity sensor up near the speaker that switches the screen off when you hold the phone to your ear during a call. If you cover that up with your hand while on a call, that should work.

Better yet, just click the sleep/wake button and it will lock the screen.

[shifuimam]

Originally Posted by Atheist 

Better yet, just click the sleep/wake button and it will lock the screen.

Rad. I thought that might do it, but wasn't sure and didn't want to accidentally hang up on my mom again.

[turtle777]

Well, look a that. Seems like we have a new convert

-t

[shifuimam]

Not to Apple, believe me.

I'm going to be really pissed if this has a problem and I have to mail it off, since there's no Apple store up here in Lafayette.

Plus I hate iTunes, but no third-party apps work with the 2.2 firmware yet.

I'm not going to deny that this is the best casual/consumer smartphone on the market, though. Especially once it's jailbroken, and you can install extra unapproved apps.

[DCJ001]

Apple iPhone’s customer satisfaction more than double that of RIM’s BlackBerry Storm

http://macdailynews.com/index.php/we...omments/19492/