Walter Hutchens’ Blog

Yes, I bought one last week. I just happened to move back to the U.S. from China only two days after the iPhone’s debut. My Treo 650 is pretty beat up but still works and is unlocked (meaning it is carrier independent, unlike most US handsets). I could have just gotten a SIM card from a US carrier and continued to use my old Treo, but I thought I’d take advantage of the coincidence of the iPhone coming out the same week I moved back to America (and consequently was not under any existing cellular contract).

I bought mine at the Apple Store in Birmingham, Alabama (at a shopping center called the Summit). There were lots of people looking at the phones on July 2 around 1-2 pm when I was in the store, but there were no lines. However, I apparently bought the last 8 GB model they had in stock.

The set-up was a breeze. I read about some people having problems, but I wasn’t trying to transfer an existing number and had a credit card whose billing address matched the place for which I wanted a phone number. It was a snap. (How annoying, though, that AT&T imposes a $36 activation fee when I performed the activation at home myself! Surely my fair share of their costs and even generous profits in creating the set-up system was, if spread over the number of people buying iPhones just that first week, tiny! Carrier rapaciousness—makes me cheer for their speedy demise!)

Overall, I like the phone. I am not utterly rhapsodic about it, but I am generally happy with it. I adore the browsing experience and the “multi-touch” interface. Also, it’s really nice to have a WIFI-enabled device. I like the ability to play widescreen videos on its small but vivid little display, and the iTunes integration is nice (though unfortunately it is meditated through a PC, not accomplished directly between an iPhone and iTunes store).

My list of desired iPhone improvements resembles the lists others have produced:

1. 3G networking speed
2. Ability to run Flash (a lot of my photo albums have been created with the Flash-dependent AutoViewer template—I can’t see them on my iPhone!)
3. Bluetooth or USB external keyboard
4. Ability to create or at least edit MS Office documents
5. FM radio receiver
6. MicroSD or other slot for memory expansion
7. Ability to mount it as an external HD so that I can drag stuff to it without going through iTunes
8. Unlocked version so I could put a local SIM card in it when I return to China
9. Ability to run third-party apps like my Treo and Windows Mobile Devices allow
10. VOIP client, so I could make free calls over the net.
11. Better photo controls. The built-in app is very nice. It lets you pinch imported images to shrink or expand them, and flicking your finger scrolls through stored images. The lush screen makes it a delight to look at saved images. But the control over stored images is very limited. I can’t for instance resize an image. That’s a drag for using the iphone as a mobile blogging device.
12. Ability to run Wenlin, Pleco-Dict or another Chinese language dictionary
13. Some type of Chinese input method (it displays Chinese websites and email fine, but I can’t input characters)
14. Better camera, with video recording ability
15. Some kind of kickstand on the back so I could prop it up easily to watch videos
16. Good handwriting recognition (having none is better than having bad HRW, but after using a Tablet PC I know how good HRW could be and would love to have that ability on my iPhone)
17. Searchable “data soup” like my Newton had back in the mid-1990s
18. Ability to purchase and download from iTunes directly, using just the device itself, not through PC or Mac synching
19. User-replaceable battery
20. Standard headphone jack.

Many of these things will probably be added via software updates or in soon-to-be-released “next generation” iPhones. Yes, I’ll probably be a sucker and buy a new one then, too.

Some missing features are no doubt missing because of Apple’s impervious “we know best; leave us in control” attitude. That’s one reason they are the minority platform. I assume certain other features are missing because of objections from AT&T. If the iPhone ran Skype it would obviously reduce customers’ reliance on AT&T. If the iPhone ran Java some customers would play online games, testing just how “unlimited” the unlimited AT&T data plan really is. I imagine when the AT&T monopoly over the iPhone ends its capabilities will suddenly improve (or at least when it is pried away from control of all US carriers; they seem to extort more and impose more draconian restrictions than carriers get away with elsewhere in the world . . . after living in China I detest the whole idea of having my phone locked to one carrier—it is especially galling in the case of the iPhone where AT&T hasn’t subsidized the price of the phone!).

I had, as Walt Mossberg put it, “deep initial skepticism” about the iPhone’s virtual keypad, but like Mossberg and most other people, I’m more neutral after using it. I tend to hit the wrong characters when trying to hit the extreme right edge, but it’s usable for SMS texting or short emails. I wish there was a PocketWord equivalent and an external keyboard I could use to pound out longer messages or blog entries.

For now, the things I like most are the iPhone’s:

1. Best web browsing experience I’ve ever had on any non-PC device
2. Multi-touch interface—pinching in and out to shrink and expand web sites and photos—works great!
3. Gorgeous screen—high res, lush colors, plenty bright. Videos and images look stunning on the iPhone’s display.
4. Widescreen video ability. I didn’t have a video iPod before, just a Nano and clip-on Shuffle. Now I can carry around with me downloaded shows, video podcasts and my own home-made videos, like my daughter’s piano recitals, and see them in 16:9 (or thereabouts) format.
5. WIFI. I’ve had a number of PDAs and smartphones, but this is the first one I’ve had with WIFI. Don’t ever want another device without it!
6. Ability to carry podcasts with me, including video podcasts (I load them via the iPhone’s computer-mediated iTunes integration). This means I can listen to non-mainstream, non-mass media when I’m stuck in line or commuting.
7. Integrated email client. Engadget complained about the particulars of this, but it works fine for me. I don’t use Micrsoft’s ActiveSynch so don’t need that or other forms of “push” email, either—I can open the iPhone mail client when I want to read mail!
8. Better camera than my Treo 650 (not saying much!)

New York Times technology columnist David Pouge’s humorous take on the iPhone hype:

Engadget’s exhaustive iPhone coverage is here.