The General iPhone Thread and FAQ

[chiguy]

	Quote:	robban
	I've been using Sennheiser CX300s and these are comparable, though I've switched eq settings to bass booster from acoustic due to the increased treble - not sure if that's because the Sennheisers are a bit old, mind.

I use Sennheisers for working out and I also need to use the bass booster to get decent sound. Are all Sennheisers so bright sounding? Sorry for the slight off-topic tangent...

[led_zepp]

Sorry but this thread is just too long to search and read all posts.

My questions to the iphone 3G owners (happy or sad ones):

1. Is it really worth it to buy an iPhone 3G, as opposed to say a Nokia N95? It is "sexy" but that's it?

2. Which plan from Swisscom is best, since I do not really need to surf and I have an existing swisscom simcard and line

3. How easy is it to buy a (619chf) prepaid swisscom black 16Gb? any idea where in ZH?

4. My colleague just received his prepaid swisscom white 16Gb...that's why my interest.

Thanks
Zepp

[dawiz]

	Quote:	led_zepp
	1. Is it really worth it to buy an iPhone 3G, as opposed to say a Nokia N95? It is "sexy" but that's it? 2. Which plan from Swisscom is best, since I do not really need to surf and I have an existing swisscom simcard and line

Would I buy it again if I had the choice between it and a Nokia N95? Any day. Would I buy it again if I had the choice between it an HTC Touch Pro or a Blackberry Bold? Not sure.

The iPhone 3G has a great interface. Until now, however, it has been extremely unstable for many (myself included). There'll be a firmware upgrade tomorrow night which, according to apple, should fix both the short battery life and the instability issues. I'll believe it when I see it.

As for the plan: i went with a Liberty Grande but after having used it for 2 months, I'd say a Mezzo would have been enough.

You're saying that you won't be surfing with the phone - in that case, no, don't get it. But don't get an N95, either - instead get a cheap normal phone that's good for placing calls and doesn't have all the internet clutter.

peter

[cyrus]

I wouldn't go back to anything else, I love the thing. I use it to surf all the time, the browser does keep crashing, but at least it's a clean crash, and I can immediately go back to the page I was looking at. I'll see what the update brings.

Having the intergated iPod means one less thing in the pocket.

The battery life hasn't been a problem, I just charge it every night, and use it all day.

[krlock3]

I certainly hope that the new in ear headphones are fully compatible with the iphone!!!

I think that apple should ditch the standard headphones in any case.

[Ed Pummelon]

	Quote:	krlock3
	I certainly hope that the new in ear headphones are fully compatible with the iphone!!! I think that apple should ditch the standard headphones in any case.

Me too, but I've got a feeling they won't be.

Apple headphones have been lousy quality for years and it's good to see they are finally trying to address this, but I simply don't see the point of not making them compatible with the iPhone. I'll be interested to read reviews on the performance of the new ones...

[led_zepp]

Ok....I've bought it 20 mins ago! (no q, no fuss, no elbowing or tents)

16Gb Black, 619chf (prepaid card, 24mths simlock) from a Swisscom shop.

Will play with it for the next few days....
Who has the code to break the sim lock? I do use a swisscom abo...though. (from employer company handy account, will it work with 3G settings?)

Zepp

[dawiz]

	Quote:	led_zepp
	Who has the code to break the sim lock? I do use a swisscom abo...though. (from employer company handy account, will it work with 3G settings?) Zepp

Unless you're willing to use one of the SIM-cloning / spoofing hardware solutions that can be detected by your provider and that are illegal to use in almost every country in the world, you can't unlock it at the moment. There's no software unlock for the 3G at this time.

Apart from that: have fun with your new iPhone 3G!

peter

[led_zepp]

	Quote:	dawiz
	.......: have fun with your new iPhone 3G! peter

Hi

May I ask if I should activate the phone with my prepaid card? (via iTunes, no chance from inside my office network)

Will I unintentionally lock my iphone to this simcard only?

I intend to use my ordinary swisscom card (quite an old one) eventually. (company tariff)
I was told that i can use any swisscom simcard, is this true?

Zepp

[dawiz]

	Quote:	led_zepp
	May I ask if I should activate the phone with my prepaid card? (via iTunes, no chance from inside my office network)

I wouldn't activate it with the prepaid card if it's your intention to use it with a different card. You can activate up to 3 SIM-cards on your phone - but if you're planning on selling the phone later and there are already 2 cards activated for it, the buyer might run into trouble eventually

peter

[Gav]

	Quote:	led_zepp
	Sorry but this thread is just too long to search and read all posts. My questions to the iphone 3G owners (happy or sad ones): 1. Is it really worth it to buy an iPhone 3G, as opposed to say a Nokia N95? It is "sexy" but that's it? 2. Which plan from Swisscom is best, since I do not really need to surf and I have an existing swisscom simcard and line 3. How easy is it to buy a (619chf) prepaid swisscom black 16Gb? any idea where in ZH? 4. My colleague just received his prepaid swisscom white 16Gb...that's why my interest. Thanks Zepp

Speaking as someone who has been using a Windows Mobile 6 phone for a year (with a PocketPC 2002 PDA for 3 years before that) and also has a Nokia E50 phone, from work, running Symbian S60 (same OS as an N95) then I can safely say the iPhone urinates all over them from a very great height. Yes, I got an iPhone 3G a few days ago.

It's hands down the most impressive piece of electronic wizardry I've ever seen. It's like it fell through a wormhole from 5 years in the future or something.

You have phone, email, web, video, music, games - all in one really, really well designed package.

I'm not a fan of iTunes and the various restrictions that Apple has placed on the phone (no full bluetooth support, limitations on apps, no cut and paste, strict locking to SIM) but even as it stands, it's far ahead of any competition.

I just got my iPhone two weeks ago, first time in my life that I actually pay for a phone instead of going with the company provided one. I even paid quite a lot for it as I had to get it without any service plan (CHF 619). After using it for two weeks :

- The good :

The phone is reasonably small yet the screen size is very good. The soft keyboard is excellent once you get used to it.

Setup process & phone management through iTunes are simple, it automatically imported mail settings for my two IMAP accounts (Work & private), sync'ed my calendars & contacts.

VPN to work setup was done in a matter of seconds.

Applications are launching very quickly, you barely see any screen redraws.

Navigating the phone using the touchscreen and UI features is very intuitive.

Overall usability is excellent, a lot of the features and small details that make a lot sense, well that's the typical Apple experience transposed to a phone.

I haven't had to complain about network coverage issues except when in the train, where it will switch between 3G and EDGE quite often ... but I know this is an issue with Swisscom's network not being great in that area. 3G is actually pretty fast when available.

Mail & Safari are excellent, much better than any other comparable applications available on other phones.

Visual voicemail makes it really easy to go through your voice mailbox without having to remember the operator keypad commands to skip, save or delete messages.

Some of the third party applications (like Omnifocus) are really excellent and make the iPhone a great business tool. Quite a few free or very cheap useful apps.

A-GPS is really quick in finding my position, sensitivity is excellent as I can even get GPS from under the roof of my house.

I'm not buying only the current iPhone but know that I'll get plenty of updates and new features from Apple & third parties, whereas other manufacturers (Nokia/Symbian I'm looking at you !) would have you to buy another phone to get an updated OS & built in applications.

It is not only a great phone but an iPod too ! 16 GB of storage will allow for plenty of music & podcasts on it.


- The bad :

Most of the applications on the App Store are crap, either useless or working badly, not worth the $0.99 often asked for.

Battery life if using the phone will be not more than two days, for me it is not an issue as I am always able to charge using the USB cable but that's not the phone I'd take with me for a week camping trip ...

Included accessories : no dock, cheap earphones

This would not be an issue in the US but I had to create an iTunes store account using my credit card (from Switzerland), now the App Store will only show me apps available for Switzerland (some are missing when comparing to the US store) and I'll only get the reviews from the Swiss customers (very few, most of them in German that I can't read). Am now using http://iphonexe.com/apps/ as an alternative.

Some kind of wireless sync (bluetooth or wifi) would have been nice

No proper GPS navigation application yet (including voice turn by turn directions like Tomtom does)


- The ugly :

No tethering .... Swisscom allows it with its data plan, but Apple prevents it

No real multi tasking, applications stop running while in the background. This is especially painful for IM apps that you'd want to keep connected when doing other tasks.

I will have to buy another iPhone pretty soon, my GF is so jealous of mine ;-)

[led_zepp]

Ok Day 1 with the new iPhone.
Great, it looks good and sexy and everyone in the office loves it! (all secretly also want one now, i think the beer iPint did the trick)

Now one question: how to synch Outlook (just calendar) with iPhone. Outlook is "office and locked" in the PC, no synch tool allowed.

I researched a bit and found a "indirect" way". First export the Outlook Calender entries, upload to gmail calendar and access it via Safari.
Not elegant but feasible for day 1.
Anyone's got a better idea? (PC at work is locked, no installs allowed)

Also, hotmail is not support unless via Pop3, dont really want to buy/pay anything to Bill. Cannot even forward the hotmail emails now, to other than their own domains. S-h-it! Da-mm!
Ok ok izymail, getmail,....all not elegant too.

lets see for the next 2 weeks, if I still play with it, or my son takes over it. he is in kindergarten and was amazed to see the new toy yesterday evening, showing his fav youtube cartoons.

He made me promise to show him more, tonight and over the weekend.
God bless children! Wonderful!

Zepp

[Castro]

led_zepp, I have the same issues as you. I can't install iTunes on my work PC (or any other s'ware). However I do have a crappy work Ipaq which I can use to sync with Outlook. I then take my Ipaq home and sync that with the Outlook on my home PC using activesync and a spare cradle.... then I sync the iPhone to my home PC and voila.

Bit of a faff, but unless I can install some sort of sync software on my work PC its the best I can hope for.

[HTD]

@castro/led_zepp don't you guys have an exchange server in the office?

[krlock3]

	Quote:
	Apple has released iPhone Software 2.1, delivering a range of bug fixes and much improved battery life. To get the update you must connect your iPhone to your computer using iTunes 8 and follow the on-screen instructions. The update is a 238MB download. The update includes: - Decrease in call set-up failures and dropped calls - Significantly better battery life for most users - Dramatically reduced time to backup to iTunes - Improved email reliability, notably fetching email from POP and Exchange accounts - Faster installation of 3rd party applications - Fixed bugs causing hangs and crashes for users with lots of third party applications - Improved performance in text messaging - Faster loading and searching of contacts - Improved accuracy of the 3G signal strength display - Repeat alert up to two additional times for incoming text messages - Option to wipe data after ten failed passcode attempts - Genius playlist creation

good job apple.

[Gav]

	Quote:	krlock3
	good job apple.

To be fair, most of this stuff is bug fixes or stuff that should have been there in the first place.

Still, considering it's Apple we're talking about at least they aren't charging users for it.

I love my iPhone but I'm under no illusions about Apple. They make MS look like the good guys. As long as they can deliver a product that's so far ahead of the opposition though, I'll stick with it.

[Ed Pummelon]

Anybody got it installed yet?

[Castro]

	Quote:	HTD
	@castro/led_zepp don't you guys have an exchange server in the office?

I'm not sure Outlook runs off an exchange server, right? However as for tinkering with any user settings/installing software etc.. its all been locked down by IT.

[dawiz]

	Quote:	Ed Pummelon
	Anybody got it installed yet?

yes, I installed it - works stable so far. I can say the following about it:

- installing apps is about 20 times faster now
- syncing is a crapload faster now
- they fixed the annoying German dictionary bug where the dictionary wouldn't learn short words. The words are still in the dictionary incorrectly (try entering "alle", for example), but after three attempts it actually learns the correct version now. It doesn't change "oder" into "öder" anymore, which is a big relief
- The phone tells me I have better reception now. That's not the case (still switching between 3G and EDGE all the time at home) - obviously Apple has simply changed how the phone indicates reception so that people will shut up

As for stability and battery life: won't know that until a couple of days from now.

All in all I'm glad Apple opted to pull the new features (like copy and paste and push notifications) in a last minute effort and decided to concentrate on fixing the stability issues.

peter