[matthew]

I'll admit it – I bought a new iPhone this morning. If you define the act loosely, I may have even "lined up" for it. (Does fifteen seconds waiting outside of the store with five people count?)

It's a big change from my old Blackberry; mostly positive - great web browser, very fast, never locks up – but not all of it has been painless. (How do I mark all email messages as read? How do I make it display my email address on the lock screen?)

And as I type this, I'm also going through some of my 'lakefill' photos to put onto the phone. I'm expecting that having the iPhone will give me a good way to 'live with' a set of photos for a while, which is an important part of editing and selecting a series for me. The screen's too small for it to be worth showing to other people, but it's far better than the contact sheets that I used to print out and shuffle around.

[shuttertalk]

The camera on the iphone is surprisingly good. I had the old 3GS version before jumping over to Android midway through this year. My wife has the iphone 4.

Enjoy your new toy! Say hi to Siri for me

[Kombisaurus]

Congrats Matt.
I also have a 4S on order (pre-ordered through my phone provider, no idea when it will actually arrive).

Actually I'm a little surprised nobody has mentioned it on shuttertalk before now. The new camera on the iPhone 4S is one of the key features. A quick look at the stats on Flickr show how much impact the iPhone 4 has had on digital photography with the masses, and the 4S will allow the photo quality to go up a notch.
http://www.gottabemobile.com/2011/10/04/...mpressive/

Apart from the obvious fact people always have a phone with them, I think the connectivity and convenience of having things like iCloud and Flickr built right into the camera are what set smart phone cameras apart from traditional cameras, and it's great to see manufacturers taking the image quality of camera phones seriously.

of course... some people get a bit too excited and take things too far...
http://www.cultofmac.com/120824/the-ipho...t-gallery/
http://photojojo.com/store/awesomeness/i...slr-mount/

I'll be interested to hear your thoughts on it Matt. Not just the camera, the whole phone. That is if you're not too busy chatting to Siri.

[EnglishBob]

Never had an Iphone, never even played with one... still got my 2nd Blackberry.

[Toad]

Bloody Hell - any major upgrade to the best device ever made is reason for discussion.

The iPhone is on a 2 generation upgrade cycleL 4 upgrades to 5 - 3GS upgrades to 4GS.

Bob - get one = seriously - its a super device.

[Pavel]

iPhone cost ($ 649) + Data plan for a year (~ $1000) = Nikon D300 (when new) with a kit lens. The Nikon has a pretty good camera on it too, but there is no data plan.

[matthew]

I have to say that Siri is pretty cool but strangely limited. The location functions that are so heavily promoted – "where's the nearest restaurant" and so on – only works in America. My tendency to mumble doesn't help the speech recognition, and just for fun I switched it to the Australian language, and I made no sense to it at all. There are also some strange limitations on it: it can set a timer or alarm, but not start the stopwatch, even though they're all in the Clock application. But in general I've been impressed. I've been using it to set alarms and select music to play, and it's a nice alternative to making specific selections through the touch screen. The voice dictation that accompanies it is also pretty good for accuracy and speed, but it remains to be seen if error-correction for it or for typing is faster. :/

The iPhone really has had an incredible impact on how people use cameras – Penny has an iPhone 4 as well, and has rarely felt the need for anything better. I'm not sure what I'll do with the camera on mine, except for using it for photos that I want to send right away, which isn't likely to happen very often. I can see that it would be great for a huge number of people.

Adrian, I also pre-ordered my phone through one of the three wireless carriers here; on the launch day my place in line dropped from #2390-ish to #2210. Another day later I'm at #2110. But when I actually managed to get on the list, one week ago when they weren't shipping, I started at 2880. So basically nobody who's ahead of me in line has actually been shipped one of these phones – it's all from people dropping out. Walking into their store was the best thing I did.

Craig, I feel like a rat for fleeing a sinking ship – RIM is a Canadian company, after all. There are some things that I really miss about the `Berry, like the ability to call up a menu with options instead of trying to track down scattered buttons. Other things I've worked hard to restore, like the contact information on the lock screen. But generally I'm happy with the change. The difference between a mobile messaging device versus a small multi-function computer is huge, with positives and negatives for both.

Pavel, I think the phrase you're looking for is "bah, humbug".

[EnglishBob]

If I'm completely honest, my main reason for staying with Blackberry is it's lack of a touch screen.... I hate touchscreens... fingerprints... OCD about them LOL.

[matthew]

I have to agree – I'm not a fan of touch-screens, and have never bought a device with one before. I like my buttons to stay in the same place, and don't want to have to look at what I'm using. Obviously a blackberry is pretty complicated, but there's a lot that can be done by feel, and I've never had to look at any of the iPods that I've owned – four of them so far – for any of their basic controls. With my iPhone, not only to I have to pay far more attention to its basic operation, but also it often doesn't behave consistently.

But I have found a pretty good screen protector with a slightly matte finish that either resists and/or disguises oily prints much better than the original glass.

And I already have two different cases for it. I love accessories.

[Kombisaurus]

I love those matte screen protectors on my iPad. Fingerprints and glare become non-issues.

Mat, like you I was a fan of the old "clickwheel" ipods (and the way they are easy to use without pulling out of my pocket) and missed this ability with a touchscreen, but the best investment I ever made was a pair of quality Etymotic canalphones with iphone controls. Fantastic sound quality and noise isolation, and it puts little tactile buttons up near your ear for transport and volume controls.

I must say, I never really understood the appeal of Blackberrys. But I know very little about them apart from that they're particularly good for messaging. They've always been a bit of an oddity in the Australian market I think, and thought of as a "business phone" rather than a "fun phone". Available to those who went looking for them, but never actively marketed.

[shuttertalk]

I agree with regards to buttons - the most input-friendly phone I've ever used is a Samsung Blackjack which ran windows mobile smartphone (kinda like a non-touchscreen pocket pc). It had a really great keyboard and scroll wheel, and I could enter text blazingly fast with two thumbs, all without looking.

The iPhone has really revolutionised the mobile computing world though and there's nothing like it for ease of use and intuitiveness. My 3 year old daughter has no problems navigating her way around it and playing her games.

[NT73]

If I'm completely honest, my main reason for staying with Blackberry is it's lack of a touch screen.... I hate touchscreens... fingerprints... OCD about them LOL.

You would love the chrome back of the iPod Touch then.

[matthew]

Adrian, it seems like Blackberries have very strong regional appeal. In Toronto they're quite popular; when I bought mine almost three years ago they outnumbered iPhones considerably. (iPhones, at the time, were just learning how to copy and paste text.) These days they're less frequent, but still outnumber non-Apple smartphones.

Apparently the recent three-day failure of Blackberry internet service corresponds to a 20% decline in traffic accidents in Dubai:
http://www.thenational.ae/news/uae-news/...police-say

Today Penny told me that I have only one week to go on (and on and on) about my new phone, and has declared that the time limit is retroactive to its purchase date, which hardly seems fair. My most recent addition is an application (I loathe the term "app") that tracks the weather radar and sends out alerts when it's raining within a certain distance of my location. It sends an alert that includes the percentage of the local area affected and the intensity of the precipitation. Awesome. No more of that "30% chance of scattered showers" nonsense for me.

[samuelarnold]

Many phone companies in the UK sold out of the 16GB version, so if it's that you ordered, the wait is going to be longer than either the 32GB or the 64GV versions.

Phones usually take between 3-5 working days to arrive (besides preorders taken at least 48 hours before launch, which are usually shipped out on launch day.)

You should receive it soon, and believe me, it's worth the wait!

[Zig]

I will one day learn to understand what on earth you're all talking about...I'm not being a grouchy Luddite here, rather quite in awe of what an adventure it sounds to have a mobile phone as an omnipresent and daily feature of one's everyday experience. I'd guess it's both expanding, liberating and enslaving, all at the same time. I'm not asking this as a question, as this would divert the thread's flow, I'm simply very struck by the impact of such devices. That they have affected the experience of STers whom I've come to "virtually know" over these years, reminds me that this phenomenon is a real and seemingly life(style)-changing one.

[Toad]

Zig:

I can only speak from my own perspective. I have always been highly organized, and have been using a pocket day-timer where I wrote my appointments and lists of things to do, birthdays, etc for more years than I can remember. I would also carry a pen and a second little book with lists of phone numbers. Because I already used these things, an electronic PDA made total sense to me.

I was an early adapter of electronic PDAs. In the very early 90s, I bought a Psion 3a which allowed me to replace all of the little books and devices that I carried with a single unit that had advantages and applications of its own (such as a translator). That was replaced by a Psion 5, a Palm Vx, a Dell Axim X51, and then subsequently by an iPhone 3 - and currently by an iPhone 4.

I always maintained that having one would not make you organized though, and I was right. Owning one if you weren't already organized didn't mean much.

Of all of my devices, the iPhone was the first one that was actually pocket sized - before that they were briefcase sized. The iPhones also go way beyond previous devices in that they can be used as a camera, a GPS (another hobby of mine), an email device, etc. etc.

Once you exclude old timers like me from the equation, there are also hosts of new applications for these devices. People these days text and twitbook and make phone calls like mad. So it has come to pass that even if you are not naturally organized, there are many things that you can do with such a device - not only is it a mini computer, but it is also a communication device - much like a tricorder from Star Trek.

So yes - the iPhone has become an omnipresent part of life, and I have replaced so many devices and notebooks with it, that it has become a one-stop data device for me. For others it has become a mobile gaming device, book reader or communications center.

I'm rambling without conclusion. Hopefully, my experience helps to understand the phenomena a bit better.

[enviroguy]

OK, Ok, I'm convinced. I put myself on the waiting list for a 4S today. Can't wait to have a relationship with Siri.

....Dennis

[shuttertalk]

I was an early adapter of electronic PDAs. In the very early 90s, I bought a Psion 3a which allowed me to replace all of the little books and devices that I carried with a single unit that had advantages and applications of its own (such as a translator). That was replaced by a Psion 5, a Palm Vx, a Dell Axim X51, and then subsequently by an iPhone 3 - and currently by an iPhone 4.

Wow, we've almost tread the same path - I started off with a Palmpilot, then went iPaq, iPaq phone, Psion Revo, Psion 5, Palm Tungsten, Samsung Blackjack, Palm Centro, then iPhone 3GS and currently a Samsung Galaxy S2. I must say that my favourite (most productive) PDA was the Psion - that was one cleverly designed unit, and the touchtype keyboard was to die for.

I have nothing but respect for iPhones and the IOS though - it's super slick. Just noticed yesterday that someone's developed a Siri clone on Android - called Iris (Siri spelt backwards). Haha...

[matthew]

Zig, worried about disrupting a thread? Really? Isn't that what they're here for?

I was coming home on the intercity train today, which was travelling at150-160km/h, and I know that because I was using an application that provided the speed, heading, and a map based on the gps data. I spent the trip reading the news, watching a couple of movies that I bought the night before, listening to music, playing games, and checking in on Shuttertalk. All on my phone. While I was away I used it for maps and navigation, finding store hours, and checking in on Shuttertalk. I also set a couple of reminders on my calendar to keep track of the train numbers and travel times, and what automatically synced to my computer and my wife's phone. It was also my alarm clock.

Having an iPhone has been a very different experience from using a Blackberry, which is a much more limited and focused device with a different idea behind what it's useful for. I'm not so quick to type up emails on my iPhone, for one thing, and I still miss its structure.

Dennis, I'm shocked. I'll be very interested to hear what you think of it.
(Is Pavel next?)

Jules, I love how the Android reaction to Siri has shifted from "Voice Control? We Already Have That" to "We'll Make One Too." By the way, how are those patent-infrigement lawsuits that Apple's launched against Samsung, Motorola, and HTC going?

[shuttertalk]

Jules, I love how the Android reaction to Siri has shifted from "Voice Control? We Already Have That" to "We'll Make One Too." By the way, how are those patent-infrigement lawsuits that Apple's launched against Samsung, Motorola, and HTC going?

Haha, it's not an official app, just something that a third party developer cooked up and released. I had a brief play with it yesterday and it works pretty well. It's built on top of voice control (WHICH WE ALREADY HAVE ) but just borrows the "chat log" type interface and displays the "conversation" inline, as opposed to just going off and doing the requested command. I have no doubt that Siri is probably miles ahead in terms of being able to recognise and interpret casual speech and provide appropriate responses.

So... how are you enjoying the pull-down notification bar, which we've already had since ooo, let's see, 2008??

[matthew]

Well, Windows had Tablet PCs years ago, and Creative Labs had a hard-drive based music player on the market before the iPod came out. How are those two doing these days?

And yes, the notification bar is good. I also like the way I can set the camera's flash to serve as a makeshift notification light, similar to the LED that Blackberries have had forever. On my old Blackberry it would flash different colours depending on what type of message I'd received, and who it was from. On my iPhone, the light flashes. That's almost the same…

"Siri" is impressive; much better than the voice-dialing that I had on my MOTORAZR six years ago. Its speech recognition is pretty solid for common terms, but if I didn't mumble it might do even better. Being able to just say "Montréal Train Station" (it correctly supplied the accent) to enter text into the search bar was not only easier than typing it would have been on my Blackberry, but considering that I was pulling a suitcase and carrying a duffle bag at the time, anything other than voice dictation simply wouldn't have been feasible. The fact that it's location-aware and remembers context really does make a big difference.

Penny's considering buying one of Apple's Windows Tablet clones, but I want her to wait until they either announce Siri-compatability with the current model, or a new one that includes it.

[shuttertalk]

Well, Windows had Tablet PCs years ago, and Creative Labs had a hard-drive based music player on the market before the iPod came out. How are those two doing these days?

Well they'd probably be somewhere if Apple didn't sue every competitor that threatened it's market share... haha sorry, I couldn't resist.

Back on topic - if Apple releases an iPhone 5 next year I might take a look see and maybe jump back on the bandwagon.

[Toad]

I must say that my favourite (most productive) PDA was the Psion - that was one cleverly designed unit, and the touchtype keyboard was to die for.

I actually preferred the Psion 3a - even though it was less *advanced*, it was more usable in my opinion. Interesting to see the confessions of a couple of unrepentant gear heads extracted without torture....

I find it amazing that in my long winded description of what I do with my iPhone that I never mentioned the iPod functionality. Seems funny that the first key feature of the device (and one that I use everyday) gets lost in the shuffle of "add on" functionality.

[matthew]

Jules, as far as I know Apple's only suing Android, aka "the Free OS that has half of their device makers paying patent royalties to Microsoft." I have mixed feelings on those lawsuits, since I do want to see vibrant competition – Apple can't just rely on buying startups for all of its good ideas – but if I was Apple I'd be a little annoyed too. As for the Tablet PC OS that Microsoft built on top of Windows XP, it's too bad that it never had that crucial ninth year without competition before the iPad came along. It could have been their next break-through success, much like the Zune.

Robert, I'm not at all surprised that you didn't mention music. I find that the touch-screen interface on the iPhone makes it a pretty bad music player, and I'll still use my Shuffle whenever I want to be able to listen to more than a song or two, especially when traveling. The need to keep the information-laden device locked (and the pocket-dialing feature of the phone disabled) directly conflicts with the need to be able to easily skip a song after the device has sat unattended for a few minutes. And I still prefer physical buttons as I can use them without needing to look at the device, although the addition of two more buttons to the outside of the case could fix both problems. On my BB I could skip ahead or back by holding down the volume buttons; no such luck on the iPhone.

[matthew]

A few more thoughts now that I've had some more time:

• I've come to terms with the iPhone as a music player and turn the "auto lock" off whenever I'm going to be using it for a while. My blackberry would lock every time I put it back in its case, so managing this is a bit more work than I'm used to.

• Safari is responsive enough that I can delete spammers without having to go to a proper computer. Love it.

• I managed to go over my 500MB data limit within two weeks of buying the iPhone. My previous record with the blackberry was 50MB. The iPhone is less efficient, but I'm really just using it lots more.