Dbkguy

Apple released the iPhone firmware 2.01 update today. Very little information on the update was posted other than “bug fixes” was noted. In order to update your iPhone you will need to connect your phone up to iTunes and update your firmware.

I’ve updated my phone, but haven’t had much chance to test it yet. It’s been taking forever to backup my phone. It’s been taking an extremely long time to back up. I suspect another update will be coming out soon after this one.

Ok, so now that I have had my iPhone 3G for awhile now, I thought I would post a little review update with my opinions on some of the good things, bad things, and wishes.

1. I still love my iPhone. Best phone I have ever had.
2. My iPhone used to crash a lot, but now that the apps are getting updated, it is happening less. Apple is working on an update too I hear.
3. I’ve had it for a couple of weeks now and I still have trouble with the keyboard. I guess I have fat thumbs. It is getting better. I find I have to hit the keys a little to the left of where I think it should be.
4. Why don’t they have a busy re-dial function or even a redial function.
5. Battery life isn’t bad unless you use the phone a lot and I leave WiFi and 3G on all the time.
6. Speed is definitely better on WiFi.
7. AT&T reception is not as good as I had it with Sprint/Nextel.
8. I find I have to turn the phone off and restart it at times when apps don’t work or the GPS function stops working.
9. The Google GPS map app when showing your position is to close up. Sometimes I want a broader view of where I am and where I am going when not using the route function.
10. The apps on iTunes have at least doubled in numbers and are definitely getting better.
11. I have two e-mail accounts I monitor. It takes to many taps to switch between each to check e-mail.
12. I miss cut and paste.
13 I wish flash was available for the iPhone.
14. I wish qik was in the app store.
15. I miss not being able to do videos.
16. Sometimes the iPhone seems to slow or there is a delay before you can tap things. Can be bothersome or frustrating at times.
17. MobileMe Service is nice but where is an app for the files section, or photos section?
18. Why does MobleMe strip out the geo data on pics.
20. I have trouble with MobleMe not responding with firefox especially when I use the calendar or photos section on the web I’ll put an entry in and then it stops working, so I have to refresh.
21. WiFi needs more settings options. Like don’t ask me to connect to secure networks all the time when away form my own network.
22. I’m sure battery management is good, but I think they could do better, if not make the controls more accessible.
23. The key on the side that shuts of the ringer is always turning off the ringer on me when in my pocket.
24. Syncing the iPhone takes a long time. First it has to back up your phone before it can do anything else.
25. Voice dialing would be a big plus.
26. I think the speaker phone, and ringer needs to be louder. I often miss hearing calls when the phone is in my pocket. It vibrates, but very short and if you don’t notice it you miss the call.
27. Why can’t I save a voice mail?
28. I really like visual voice mail.
29. Why can’t I add a contact from an e-mail I just received or am I missing something.
30. Where are the apps to read a Word file, Excel, etc? My guess there still under development.
31. I like the camera on the iPhone. It’s actually better than what I had. Could use a flash though.
32. You can’t queue photos and stuff to be uploaded. If you upload a pic you have to wait till it’s uploaded to do another.
33. Sometimes I would like to send a pic or video with sms messaging.
34. The GPS really comes in handy when trying to find a place that I am not familiar with.
35. I can be on my laptop playing WOW and have the AIM app running on my iPhone at the same time.
36. I find I use my iPhone a lot more for everything but calling another person.
37. I noticed I don’t play the games much.
38. It would be nice if they built in a bar code reader. Some have managed to use the camera, but a real bar code reader would be a great feature. You could do inventory, use it at the grocery store, and maybe do internet searches base on what it reads.
39. Pownce, Twitteriffic, MySpace, FaceBook, and other social apps. I find I use these services more now that there handy. I don’t have to pull out my laptop to access these sites.
40. I find I use my laptop less now that I have an iPhone.
41. The App Store was a great idea. I love a central place to find all the apps.
42. They need a whats new on the iPhone for the App Store.
43. 3G seems to work well, but if you get a bad WiFi connection, it doesn’t have the smarts to switch back to 3G.
44. MobileMe seems to be missing some basic functions.
45. Why is the todos hidden in the calendar on MobileMe?
46. MobileMe has gotten better, but I feel it has a way to go to be more useful.
47. You can only sync bookmarks to Safari. Why not Firefox too?
48. I’m looking for a good iPhone holder to use in my Van.
49. Definitely get a car charger for the iPhone.
50. It would be nice to have a option to not autolock when pluged in to a power source.
51. Why do you have to move my icons around everytime a app is updated?
52. Why does it seem to loose my settings for an app everytime it’s updated?
53. Why is it so hard to move an icon to a different page?
54. Is it possible to only have 2G on when the phone is in sleep mode? Might help save battery power.
55. It would be nice to have a physical button to push for the camera.
56. A better camera would be nice while I’m at it.

All in all I would not go back to my old phone and I look forward to more software updates, apps, improvements in MobileMe and the next version of iPhone.

Well my first impressions on the iPhone 3G is, wow this is a cool phone. After using it awhile, you realize the battery life sucks. Phone seems a little sluggish at times. You tap on a app and then you have to wait a bit before you can tap in the app. A lot of things don’t rotate to wide screen or vice versa. Also sometimes it seems like if would be nice if a app ran in the background while you do something else. Example, your using Twitteriffic and you need to check your e-mail or contacts and you have to exit the app first then go back. If a new post comes in while your doing this you will miss it until you start the app again. Really could use cut and paste. Why should I have to write something down to copy it some where else? A flash player would come in handy. I really like Safari’s full web page view on the iPhone. The keyboard takes some getting used to, but doesn’t bother me that there is no hardware keyboard. I found if someone calls you and they don’t leave voice mail it will leave a little token indicating you missed a call and it will highlight that person in red in the contacts list when you press on it. Very nice. The camera is good for me, you just have to have a steady hand and proper light. My old phone was a lot worse so this was an improvement. I have a 16 GB model and I can see me filling it rather easily.

App Store is really nice, but it needs improvement. A lot of the apps are pretty basic. Some crash as you use them and some don’t appear to work. This just may be because some that access services are just overwhelmed by the number of iPhone users. Every single time you download an app you have to enter in your password. This is a real pain. I have a long password. They definitely need some better apps. It would be nice if you could tap on the developers web site to get more info. The number of times an app has been downloaded is always zero. I posted a review of an app and it never showed up as far as I could see. The app store only shows you one view of you app. There could be many more views (pages), but you only get to see the one.

MobileMe, doesn’t seem to sync that fast as in the keynote. Again, this could be just because they are over whelmed again. There’s no MobileMe photo app on the iPhone. You have to go to the web site to see all your photos if not in the photo app. You can change your reply to for e-mail on Mobileme. I could really use that one sense I have all my e-mail accounts forwarded to MobileMe. I was just using the Calendar and it appears to lock up all the time. I have to refresh to get it working again. I use firefox 3 for my browser. Your 20 GB is split in half. Half for iDisk and the other half for everything else. I would like to see bookmarks for Firefox and not just Internet Explorer. I use Windows XP Pro. I hope to switch to a Macbook Pro someday. There is a To Do section in the calendar, but it’s rather hidden. I would like to see a more obvious help button or feature.

Still, I’d say the iPhone 3G is probably the best cell phone, smartphone, I have owned to date.

I was just on the apple.com site and I have been checking it regularly and Apple has now posted that the iPhone 3G will be going on sale on July 11th at 8 am.

Update: appleinsider.com has posted additional info that came out of the company’s retail meetings. Before you go you might want to check their site.

Apple has officially posted MobileMe pricing on their site. Yes, they did mention the price in the Keynote at WWDC08, but now there’s a little more information and it’s official.

Individual plan $99 One-year subscription
includes 20GB of combined email and file storage, 200GB of monthly data transfer, and full access to everything MobileMe has to offer.

Family Pack plan $149 One-year subscription
includes one individual account plus four Family Member accounts, each with its
own email address, 5GB of combined email and file storage, and 50GB of
monthly data transfer.

Extras

+20GB of storage for $49

+40GB of storage for $99

As reported on MacRumors.com

Apple posted a service status update on the .Mac service detailing the launching of the MobileMe Service between 6 pm and 12 am PT.

“MobileMe Launch
7/9/2008, 6pm-12am PT

MobileMe will be available as soon as possible during this maintenance window.”

They are also reporting that the MobileMe service which retails for $99/year will be on sale for iPhone or Mac buyers at $69 on July 11th.

Tom’s blog on FridgeDay.com has reported that the me.com e-mail servers have finally come on line within the last few hours.

If you have a .mac account you should be able to set it up and test it.

Gizmodo.com has also tested it and confirmed that e-mail can be sent and recieved using the me.com servers.

O2’s launch of iPhone 3G with pre-ordering on their web site was met with overwhelming demand. So much so that the web site crashed and pre-orders ran out of of their entire stock a short time later.

O2 says their will be plenty iPhones in the shops on Friday July 11th, but won’t say how many iPhones are available or were available for the pre-order launch.

Leo Laporte from the Twit Netwok, will be having 24 hours of iPhone 3G launch coverage on twitlive.tv. Steve Wozinack has been booked for Thurdsay evening.

Iphonegold.org has posted a cool iPhone time line graph the shows the progression of the iPhone from 1999 to present day.

Click on image to see a larger view of it on their site.