femminista: thoughts of a feminist rhetorician

Okay. So perhaps I exaggerate. Still, I have to say that the iPhone pretty much rocks. And, in spite of the fact that my partner has repeatedly warned me that when my iPhone gains sentience and tries to kill me not to come crying to him because he told me so (I recently introduced him to BSG and now he thinks that even the toaster is looking at him funny), I'm keeping it.

On a more serious note, here's my brief review of the iPhone thus far. First of all, getting the iPhone was absolutely the easiest transaction that I have ever experienced with a wireless provider. I purchased the new 16GB iPhone from our local AT&T store. (iPhones can only be purchased through Apple or AT&T--website or "official" stores only. In other words, while your local AT&T licensed store can hook you up with a new phone number and wireless account, they can't sell you an iPhone.) And that's it. I didn't even open the package while I was there. Since I already have an acct and phone number, the rest of the activation process could be accomplished online. Through iTiunes! Okay, perhaps this has been common knowledge and I've simply missed it, but I was pretty surprised. (Also, I now understand how an iPhone would be a perfect Christmas gift.) So, I ran the rest of my errands and headed home to undergo what I was sure would be a lengthy and annoying process of setting up my phone.

It was remarkably easy. I hooked the iPhone up to my MacBook Pro using the provided usb cable. (The iPhone uses the same adapter type as the iPod.) After opening iTunes, my laptop immediately recognized the iPhone and took me through the short process of activating it. Basically, all you need is your phone number, your name, and the last four digitsof your social security number. I entered the information and chose an iPhone data plan, which, btw, is cheaper than my previous Blackberry plan. Once the iPhone synced with the information in my iCal, Mail, and Address Book apps, I was able to disconnect and start exploring my new toy, err, I mean tool.

The touch interface is excellent and well-calibrated. Using the touch screen keyboard was surprisingly easy. When you tap the letter of your choice, the key enlarges allowing you to verify the accuracy of your typing even when entering encoded data. So, when I logged into my home wifi network, I was able to see that I was entering the correct characters even though the login box only shows astericks. Granted, I have fairly small fingers, but it seems as though they've calibrated the touch sensors so that they will function as well for those with larger hands. Although it's impossible to touch only one key without touching those surrounding it, the interface is calibrated to sense where the mosty pressure is being applied. This is quite different from other similar touch screen interfaces that I've used. The enlarge function makes it easy to read the screen. My one complaint is the scroll function. On a computer, you scroll down to read the screen that is below your current view, but in the iPhone the page scrolls down when you move your finger up. Basically, you're moving the screen with your finger following the logic of the face to face world whereas on a computer you don't use your controller on the screen but on the scroll bar. It's a bit difficult to get used to, but it's a minor issue.

So far the most annoying issue has nothing to do with the interface. The iPhone uses a different type of SIM card, so I can't use my old SIM card which has all of my information and, according to the AT&T rep that I bought the phone from, the easiest way to transfer the information is manually. On the bright side, this gives me the opportunity to start fresh, reentering only the numbers that I use frequently and discarding all of the unneeded numbers. It's a very zen, spring-cleaning, aura-cleansing kind of thing to do.

So far, I'm happy with my iPhone, but it's only been twenty four hours, so I'll let you know how it goes.