iPhone

I’ve had every smart phone known to man, and some only the Chinese know about.
For the most part i’ve been a head of the curve when it comes to having phones that do cool things.
It wasn’t until recently I broke my latest windows mobile smart phone ( generic Chinese M88 MiPhone )
so I picked up an inexpensive 1st generation iPhone. To my surprise it really fits the bill.
I’m not sure why I hadn’t got one sooner. If it wasn’t for all Zippys talk about getting an iPhone I
probably still wouldn’t have one. We recently got her a 3rd Gen “S” iPhone and she loves it. So far I’m satisfied
enough to stop peering at the next palm, blackberry, android, or generic windows mobile phone. I like it.

How I use my iPhone

• Communicating – Email, SMS, and the occasional phone call. Works great for communicating.
• MP3 Player – I always liked the idea of using my phone as an mp3 player but before the iphone I never really did. Now I walk around with my Shure headphones wired up all the time. I love it. Between MP3s (music), Podcasts and Pandora I’m ingesting audio most all the time now. I even walk more places now to create an excuse to listen to a podcast or a few songs. ^_^
• Time Tracking & Billing – This is another use for smart phones I’ve wanted to but had never really fully utilized. Now I use “billings” and keep track of all my work hours very easily on the iPhone.
• Calendar / Schedule – Of course

I have yet to really mess with a lot of the apps out there. There are just too many and most of the time I’m too busy to do much more then review the latest top apps.

My T-Mobile Config

Settings -> General -> Network -> Cellular Data Network -> APN = epc.tmobile.com
that’s it and it works great.

The Apps I use

• Cydia – Free
  – Application Repository for jail broken iPhones
  Becuase the iTunes App store only offer -some- of the cool apps on the market.
• Billings – Free from iTunes
  - Time Tracking & Billing software.
  Unfortunately the desktop application this pairs with is only available on the mac but I really like how easy the app is to use on the iPhone. It takes a lot of the annoyance out of keeping track of my time.
• Pandora - Free from iTunes (Optional: Pandora One $36/year)
  - Streaming music to your iPhone.
  It works great on cell data networks at speeds as low as EVDO which works great for me. Or of course 802.11 wireless. I paid and subscribed to Pandora to remove the commercials and interruptions. C’mon, who doesn’t want to listen to -just- music they like?
• iPhoneModem – $9.99 from Cydia
  - Allows you to teather your iPhone to your Computer and use it as a modem.
  On the rare occasion my Alltell USB Aircard fails, this has already provided to be beneficial although I think it messed up my safari n’ chrome browsers by setting a proxy. Easy to overcome.
• Twitterrific – Free from iTunes
  - Twitter Client
  Yeah… I’m a sheep.
• Facebook – Free from iTunes
  - Mhm. I kill time here too.
• Flickr – Free from iTunes
  Photo sharing. I prefer to send all my pictures to Flickr rather than Facebook.
• Winterboard – Free from Cydia
  - Allows you to theme and customize the look and feel of your iPhone
  Who doesn’t like skins? I’m currently using Evil Green.
• Paypal – Free from iTunes
  - Yet another convenient portal for getting rid of money.
  I don’t really need or use this often, I just like having it. I can bet people $1 over stupid stuff and send/recieve funds instantly even if I don’t cary cash (which I rarely do) lol. Do I organize this under ‘game’ apps?
• GymBuddy – $2.99 from iTunes.
  - Easy to use Workout log.
  I like using this at the community center. I’ve never been too good at memorizing my routine or where I’m at with it. I don’t do max rep often since I work out in the morning.
• Google Mobile – Free from iTunes.
  – Voice search for localized results. Definitely a quick and easy way to find things.
  <3 teh goog.
• NetNewsWire – Free from iTunes.
  - Popular RSS Reader
  Since it syncs with my google reader account, it wins.
• Stanza – Free from iTunes.
  - Ebook reader. I don’t really use this often but it is nice having reading material when I get burnt out on audible information.
• BossPrefs – Free from Cydia
  - Extended preferences editor. I pretty much only use it to hide application icons for those I don’t use like stocks, voice recorder, etc. Works great.
• iBlacklist – Free / Pay from Cydia
  - Allows you to block or hide calls, SMS and MMS from whomever you like, or don’t like.
• Chess Free – Free from iTunes.
  - A simple, free Chess game.

What I like

• I like that it is snappy. I enjoyed the G1 Android when I had it but it simply wasn’t that fast. The screen didn’t slide like it temporarily glued to your finger
• It works & there is an app for everything. I enjoy the fact the apps don’t (or rarely) crash.
• I enjoy that I quickly found all the basic apps I like to use daily for entertainment and efficiency.
• I don’t feel like I’m going to break the phone. It feel sturdy. I did buy an inexpensive used one so I wouldn’t fear losing or breaking a $500 phone. I’m sick of burning hundreds of dollars becuase of a butterfingers move. I dropped the iPhone in the snow a bunch of times already, it’s a trooper.

What I don’t like

• Of course, not being an open system to develop on is a bit annoying.
• Having to jailbreak/crack the phone before use is a bit annoying but necessary.
• I know I have an older iPhone but it is much better off left plugged & charging as often as possible.
• There’s a small gliche with my iPhone I have yet to fix. I don’t want to meddle around with the internals too much until I figure out how to image the existing setup. I like it. ^_^
• Cellular Charges! This is just becuase both Zippy and I have 1,000 shared minutes, we both have unlimited text & multimedia messaging as well as unlimited data/internet. Our T-Mobile Family Plan costs us around $160/month. That’s not much for two phones with no real limitations but I’d appreciate a small reduction. The only thing our ‘Family Plan’ helps us with is shared minutes.