The 81-day experiment

The 81-day-experiment continues with the Apple iPhone--Day #9, it is truly the web at your fingertips, and what is missing!

This is the last day of the 9 day experiment from the Apple iPhone. This is the time to summarize my findings. Even though I will do so today, I will continue to work with the Apple iPhone for some time, and continue to report my observations on the 81-day-experiment blog.

The touch screen is quite an innovation, the ability to manipulate the screen pages, in a way that mimics paper pages, is very natural and very practical.

Flipping pages in the Weather application is a nice example. Another nice visual effect is in the notes application where flipping pages mimics how we flip pages in a real notepad.

When it comes to the keyboard, the keyboard is a pleasure to work with. It didn’t take much time to get used to it. The correction feature is quite useful. So let us say I type 'Thos' instead of 'This', the iPhone will suggest 'This', and I can just press the space bar to accept it.

The magnifying glass, which appears when you press and hold on an area on the touchscreen, allows you to easily and accurately position the cursor in the statement or inside a word.

Now let us talk about browsing and maps, these are areas where the iPhone takes the smartphone concept and applications to the next level. Again the multi-page browsing is quite useful, not to mention the 'pinching open' and 'pinching close' to zoom in and zoom out, and the ability to just move the page content around to seem different areas of the page. It is truly the web at your finger tips.

And do you miss your iPod? Well, not really because with the iPhone, you get the best of both worlds. So if you don’t have tens of thousands of songs and photos and videos, the iPhone can be your one and only device.

So what is the Apple iPhone missing?

I have talked to users who are not going to get the iPhone because it is not a 3G phone, and others because it does not have a Task list, or because it doesn’t allow you to edit documents, and others because it doesn’t record voice and video, and yet others because it is offered only by Cingular which is now AT&T. Other things that the iPhone doesn’t do is provide GPS capabilities out of the box.

It is likely that over time, the above issues will be addressed. The question is when, and for now, the question is 'how do they play in your decision to get the iPhone or not'?

Another aspect that we haven’t talked about yet is how the iPhone works with backend server applications or not (such as Exchange and Lotus Notes), and how it handles security, both issues being important for corporate users. The general theme we are hearing now is that these are the weakpoints of the iPhone. I might try to sync my iPhone with a Microsoft Exchange account to see what happens. So keep an eye on the 81-day-experiment blog to get the updates.

So is the iPhone a business phone? I am sure this will be the debate of the century until either the iPhone becomes clearly a business phone addressing the backend server and sercurity issues, or until it is clearly declared as a pro-sumer phone that many business users will use, but not necessarily the big corporation types. Or you may see these types have the blackberry in one pocket, and after hours, pull the iPhone from the other pocket.

The 81-day-experiment continues with the Apple iPhone—Day #8, iPod functionality, YouTube on the go, Google Gmail, and what is missing!

The iPhone accompanied me today to a nice hike with a group of friends in the Half-Moon-Bay Hills, and it did its job of documenting the hike, tracking the time (serving as a watch), and at times, serving as an iPod. Knowing that there was no wireless reception in the wilderness, the wireless features weren’t very helpful.

YouTube on-the-go with the Apple iPhone

When back in civilization, the YouTube videos, or at least 10,000 of them or so, are just a few taps away when you have the Apple iPhone. The YouTube button is on the home screen, and tapping it brings a list of the most viewed YouTube videos. You can easily switch to the featured videos, the bookmarked videos, or search for videos.

When you tap on a video, the video starts downloading and it takes a few seconds before it starts playing. You may have seen this popular YouTube video (titled “Evolution of Dance”). When watching it, I can tap on the screen to get the controls displayed, and then pause, rewind, forward, or bookmark, or even e-mail the link to someone.

Setting up Google Mail (Gmail) on the iPhone

This is as easy as 123. It consists pretty much of entering your user name and password and voila! The iPhone now allows you to view your Gmail e-mail messages and send e-mails. I setup the “Delete From Server” setting to “When removed from inbox”, however this setting doesn’t seem to stick. When I exit the settings screen it seems to get reset to “Never”, and when I deleted a Gmail e-mail message on the iPhone, it did not got deleted from the Gmail server. So not sure what is going on there.

What is the Apple iPhone missing?

One thing the Apple iPhone is NOT missing is charm. Another thing that it is NOT missing is a number of breakthroughs in its user interface, and some amazing ready to use applications. So what else could you ask for?

I have talked to users who are not going to get the iPhone because it is not a 3G phone, and others because it does not have a Task list, or because it doesn’t allow you to edit documents. We will have more about this tomorrow.

For now, here are some more pictures from the Half-Moon Bay hills

 

The 81-day-experiment continues with the Apple iPhone—Day #7, Google search and maps, Calendar, City Art in San Francisco

One of the main benefits of having a smartphone is having access to information while on-the-go? Not  just contacts and calendar information, but a “world wide web” of information. That is what smartphones are for.

After attending an opening at the City Art Gallery in San Francisco tonight, we wanted to find the address and directions to the Parea Wine Bar in the Mission area. With the iPhone and Google, that was only a few taps away. The Google search helped us find the address and the map. Zooming in to the street details was easy by “pinching open” a couple of times.

Searching the web and finding maps using smartphones is not new and I have actually done this with many of the smartphones I have reviewed in the 81-day-experiment (Treo 700p, 700w, Motorola Q, BlackBerry Pearl, T-Mobile MDA, BlackBerry 8700, Nokia E62, Cingular 3125, aT-Mobile Dash, BlackBerry 8800, and Samsung BlackJack). However, what is new is the ease with which it is done and the ability to manipulate the information and make it usable.

The iPhone Calendar

My iPhone Calendar is now synchronized with my Outlook Calendar. When I tap the Calendar icon from the iPhone home screen, I can see my appointments and schedule new ones. I am now in the month view. I can switch to the Day view or the list view and I can add an appointment by tapping the “+” button, and then typing the appointment information. As soon as I tap on one of the fields, the keyboard gets displayed. I can then set the start and end date and time, with an interface that looks like the “slot machine” that we saw a few days ago in the alarm clock. I can make the appointment recurring, and set a reminder, and most importantly add a note.

The Calendar interface is easy to use and is likely to satisfy the needs of most users. More about this later in the experiment.

More pictures taken with the Apple iPhone at the City Art Gallery. By the way, you can “pinch open” here too to zoom in on the picture, and you can “pinch closed” to zoom out. And if you turn the iPhone sideways, the picture orientation is automatically adjusted, and if you want to play a slide show, just tap the slide show button.

The 81-day-experiment continues with the Apple iPhone—Day #6, music, music videos, podcasting, and the next generation Apple iPhone

It does have an iPod button after all (one of the buttons on the home screen), it even looks like an iPod, and it does hook to iTunes just like an iPod, and it plays music, music videos, movies, podcasts, and you name it. In other words it is a super-set of the iPod, That is what the Apple iPhone is.

The one things the Apple iPhone doesn’t have, when compared to the iPod, is the 60 GB storage capacity. So you won’t be able to put all of the 10,000 songs and music videos and movies in your Apple iPhone, but probably enough of them to keep you entertained and informed while on the go.

That is exactly what I did today. I loaded some of my favorite CD’s in iTunes, and some music videos, and a few podcasts, and when I synchronized my iPhone, not only my contacts and calendar got synchronized, but now my iPhone is a fully functional iPod as well.

As I was listening to my NPR podcast, I got a phone call. The podcast audio stopped automatically, and the phone started ringing, and when I finished my phone call, the podcast audio automatically and smoothly resumed playing--the world as you would expect it to be.

It may be too early to start thinking about the next generation of the iPhone, but these days one cannot help but think ahead. What the next generation iPhone needs is:

- More providers (so we can choose the provider that provides the best service in our area—not likely to be AT&T/Cingular in the San Francisco area)

- More bandwidth (so we can load Webpages and maps faster and really take over the web)

- More storage (so we can consolidate and have all our content in one place)

- More applications (while the iPhone comes with a rich set of user friendly applications, it seems that some key applications did not make it in the first cut, or maybe I haven’t run into them yet, such as recording voice notes, recording video clips, managing task lists).

The 81-day-experiment continues with the Apple iPhone—Day #5, alarm clock, phone, photos, Apple Lisa

The typing is getting easier and easier. And talking about the “slot machine” effect that I described earlier, you actually get the full effect of a “slot machine” when you try to set the alarm clock on the Apple iPhone. Here you get the wheels and get to actually turn them and they give you the appropriate sound effect. When I was using the BlackJack, I hesitated setting up the alarm clock because it was too much work. The BlackBerry alarm clock was easier to work with. And now the iPhone alarm clock, just like the Apple iPhone overall, takes this functionality to the next level.

The Apple iPhone phone

After all, it is a phone, and it is supposed to do what phones do, and it is supposed to sound good. The phone features in the Apple iPhone are quite extensive and the feedback I got recently is that the sound is very clear. Before I even announced that I was talking using my new iPhone, I was asked if I got a new phone.

The iPhone stereo headset, which is identical to the iPod headset except that is has a small mic embedded in it, makes the phone experience even richer. But the wires can get in the way. I ordered once the Motorola S9 Bluetooth stereo headset, but it never arrived, and it is probably a good time to check on that order, and see how the Motorola S9 will do with the iPhone.

E-mail seems to occasionally forget my password

When I get to e-mail and the iPhone tries to connect and retrieve my e-mail, it seems to occasionally forget my password and give me an error message. Then when I go back to the settings and reenter my password, it seems to connects and retrieve e-mail successfully. Not sure what is going on here, but I will be working more extensively with the iPhone e-mail capabilities in the next few days, so maybe I will learn more about its settings and how to alleviate this issue.

The iPhone knows “where it stands”

If you flip the iPhone into a horizontal position, and you happen to be browsing the Web, viewing maps, or viewing photos for instance, the screen will automatically and quickly sense this switch, and adjust the view from portrait to landscape. This “acrobatic” capability doesn’t stop here. Now that the iPhone is in landscape position, if you turn it upside down, the display will automatically turn upside down as well, so that the picture is again in the correct position.

What is unique about the iPhone is the speed with which it senses the change in position, and the almost-immediate and smooth transition of the screen into the new position. If you have read my comments about the T-Mobile MDA when I was using it in the 81-day-experiment, you remember that one of my complaints about the T-Mobile MDA was the time it took for the display to switch to landscape after you open the keyboard. These few seconds, and occasionally more than just a few seconds, seemed like eternity when you in a hurry and ready to type something. With the iPhone, this won’t be an issue.

Viewing photos on the Apple iPhone

Double-tapping zooms in and double-tapping again zooms out. However, there is more to this. If you touch the screen with two fingers and then drag them away from each other, this will also zoom in, and you can continue to zoom in by repeating this. If you touch the screen with two fingers, and then drag them closer to each other, that will zoom out and continue to zoom out.

If you tap on the screen, the control buttons will show up, allowing you to move forward, backward, play a slide show, delete a picture, forward a picture, assign it to a contact, or use it as wallpaper. Tapping on the screen again will let go of the control buttons so you can see the picture undistributed and uncluttered just the way it was meant to be.

“Back to the future”

These times (the release of the Apple iPhone) remind me of my first encounter with the Apple Lisa in the 1980’s. At that time, we were using the DOS operating system, and suddenly the computer lab at the University of Michigan acquired these “funny-looking” machines with mice attached to them and a whole new user interface that went on to revolutionize the way we work with computers, and even shape the next 20+ years of personal computing. Will the iPhone revolutionize the way we work with smartphones and with computers? Will the next generation of computers have an iPhone-like touch pad where we can use our fingers to flip pages, scroll through pages, zoom in and zoom out, and produce the “slot machine” effect?

The 81-day-experiment continues with the Apple iPhone—Day #4, wiki page update, more browsing, hands position, and camera/photos

If you’ve attended our lunch & learn 2.0 webinar titled “Structured Wikis—the power of two” a few weeks ago (which was presented by Peter Thoeny, the founder of Twiki.org and co-founder of StructuredWikis LLC), you are probably familiar with Structured Wikis (called TWikis) and how they can serve not only as a collaboration tool for creating and sharing information, but also as a collaborative application development platform for incrementally automating processes, workflow, and data management.

So what does this have to do with the iPhone? Yesterday, Peter edited a TWiki page using the iPhone. “The Safari based browser works extremely well” indicated Peter, and obviously the keyboard and auto-correct feature helped. So not only the iPhone takes Web browsing to the next level (the ultimate on-the-go browsing machine, you might call it) but it keeps you well connected and fully functional with your Web applications.

The Web browsing features I described yesterday include the ability to double-tap and zoom in so you can easily read the small print, turning the Apple iPhone sideways so you get the wider view and the larger keyboard, and using the multi-page feature to load multiple pages and easily “flip” from one to the other (with these features, I can see some of the iPhone fans who were waiting in line at the Apple Store using the iPhone to do their Web browsing, even when they are at their desk!)

So how do you hold the Apple iPhone?

- Is it a one hand device? No really. Even though you might be able to get by with one hand in certain areas, when you Try to tap some of the options that are on the top of the screen, this may be a little too far to reach while holding the iPhone with one hand, and you may risk dropping it.

- Do you hold it in one hand and tap with the other? Maybe. This seems to be the most logical thing to do, and it works well. It does however prevent you from using both thumbs for typing which may slow you down during typing. Also, the hand that is tapping would be free-floating in the air without having an “anchor” on the device which may feel a little awkward at times.

- Do you hold it the BlackBerry way? Not quite. Well the iPhone is not wide enough to hold it with two hands like you would hold a BlackBerry (not the Pearl of course), and in addition, the center of gravity seems to be a little higher, so you may be risking having it flip over and fall from your hands. Furthermore, the screen is a touchscreen, and a sensitive one, so in the BlackBerry position, you are likely to be accidentally hitting the touchscreen with unwanted taps.

So have I found my ideal hands position on the iPhone?

I think this is still developing but for now, here are the hands positions that I am finding myself using:

For simple things, like quickly checking the weather, I use one hand, and that seems to work well. For more elaborate applications such as scanning e-mail, I hold the iPhone with one hand and tap with the other. When it comes to typing, I use a pseudo-BlackBerry position, with the hands overlapping in the back and letting the iPhone rest there (instead of really holding it), with the small finger of the right hand preventing the iPhone from falling down. This seems to free the thumbs for typing without relying on them to help hold the iPhone and therefore accidentally touching the touchscreen.

The Apple iPhone Camera

And what do you do when you have a camera? You take pictures. So below are some more of the pictures I have taken in the last few days in San Francisco as the iPhone accompanied me to social and business activities.

The 81-day-experiment continues with the Apple iPhone—Day #3, phone, browsing the web, hands position

Another day in San Francisco, but this ones started with the underground train having a mechanical problem, and us having to switch to the street train. The iPhone was there to document this. Then I took advantage of the commute time and used the iPhone to make a few calls. When I needed to take some notes while I am on the phone, I tapped the home button, and then the Note button, and typed some notes. The iPhone is even capable of retrieving or sending e-mail while you’re on the phone if you happen to be in an area where you have access to a WiFi network.

The Apple iPhone brings the Web to a whole new level

I don’t know about you, but browsing the Web from smartphones has “not” been one of my favorite things to do, because the Web browser interfaces on the smartphones I used so far have been, oh well, just “okay”. Obviously I have done plenty of Web browsing with the 9+ devices I used in the 81-day-experiment, but again that is out of necessity and not usually something to look forward to. Apple has redefined this browsing experience and this may be one of the main accomplishments of the Apple iPhone—bringing the Web experience to a whole new level just like the iPod brought the music experience to a whole new level.

You can easily switch the iPhone to a landscape position, and the webpage will adjust automatically. And now when you start typing a URL, you get a wide version of the keyboard which is a real treat. Once you type the desired URL and tap the Go button, the page is retrieved, and now the magic starts.

Double-tapping on the page will zoom in, and I “really” mean zoom in. So now you can actually see the details and read easily just like you would on a desktop screen. You can use your finger to move the page around and see more of the page content. You can tap on a hyperlink to activate it.

The Apple iPhone Multiple Pages capability

And it doesn’t stop with tapping and double-tapping. Now you want to browse yet another page. So you tap on the Multi-Page button, and then the New Page button, and type the new URL. At this point, both pages are loaded, and you can with your finger “flip the page”. Just like I described in the Weather application earlier, you can simply drag to the left or right to see the various webpages that you retrieved, zooming in and out by double-tapping and then double-tapping again, and dragging the page around to view the details.

After all, smartphones are devices we use on the go, and after all, the Web is our primary source of information, and making the web usable on the go is quite an accomplishment.

So how do you hold the Apple iPhone?

- Is it a one hand device? Not really.

- Do you hold it in one hand and tap with the other? Maybe.

- Do you use the BlackBerry way? Not quite, but possible.

- So have you found your ideal hands position? I am still experimenting.

More about this tomorrow!

The 81-day-experiment continues with the Apple iPhone—Day #2, synchronizing, e-mailing, weather reports

The day started with synchronizing the Apple iPhone to my Outlook contacts and calendars, and setting up e-mail. For now, I setup my POP e-mail inbox and later in the week, I will setup an Exchange account, and probably a Gmail account.

iTunes is the interface for synchronizing the iPhone with the desktop or laptop. It allows you to configure the synchronization settings for various applications including calendar, contacts, e-mail, music, photos, podcasts, videos, and more.

 

The Apple iPhone home button

Did I mention that there is one and only one “real” button on the Apple iPhone front screen? It is not actually a button, it is an inverted button, and it is the one that turns the screen back on when it is off, and the one that quickly takes you back to the home screen when you are navigating and using the iPhone applications. On the side of the Apple iPhone, you find the volume buttons, and the Ring/Silent switch which can turn all sounds off. On the top right side, you find the on/off button, which is also the Wake/Sleep button when you push it once.

The Apple iPhone e-mail application

From the home screen, I tapped on the e-mail button, to get to the e-mail application. The Apple iPhone then connects and retrieves the recent e-mails. Scrolling through the inbox is accomplished using your finger to drag up or down, slow or fast. You can give it a quick swipe down and let go, and the scrolling will continue--giving the effect of a “slot machine”. The feel of the touch screen and the visual feedback you get from the touch is indeed amazing.

When you tap on a message, it opens that message. Again, you drag your finger up or down to scroll within the message, and tap the reply button to reply, reply to all, or forward. When you are in the inbox, you can delete a message, by dragging your finger on it from left to right, and then tapping the red Delete button that gets displayed.

Composing an e-mail message

As soon as you start replying to a message, or hit the compose button to compose a new message, the keyboard appears and you can now address the message and type your content. Tapping the “+” symbol gives you immediate access to the contacts list and allows you to select a contact. The keyboard allows you to type your message.

The Apple iPhone weather application

Today, I added San Francisco to the default list which included Cupertino and New York. Now I can easily switch between these cities weather reports by dragging my finger to the right or left to get to the previous or next report.

More touchscreen findings

- The dragging of the finger up or down to scroll.

- The “slot machine” effect when scrolling through a long list of e-mails for instance.

- The sliding of the weather pages (sideways in this case) which is similar to flipping paper pages.

The Apple iPhone is quite responsive

What makes the Apple iPhone even more unique and pleasant is its speed and responsiveness. The device seems to be keeping up with the demands of this user friendly interface, and able to deliver the response quickly and smoothly. The few delays I have experienced so far were minor and were Internet related. The iPhone uses the Edge speed which is reasonably fast for normal operations but could use some boost for more bandwidth hungry applications—this may be taken care of if/when a 3G iPhone gets released.