…the iPhone 3G.

Since buying the iPhone last week I’ve been asked a few questions by people who are considering purchasing but want to know my thoughts on it. I thought the best way to answer these was to put together a collection of these questions along with my answers so I can point them in this direction and hope that my experience and opinions will help them make up their minds.

What’s so different, physically, about the iPhone compared to the iPod touch?
I had never played with an iPhone before but I always expected it was very physically like an iPod touch, only with more features. I didn’t expect the feel of it to be that much different to the ‘touch’. However, I couldn’t ignore some of the things I’d read in Mac magazines over the past year where the article writer would remark how the screen had more clarity on the iPhone and just felt so very different to the iPod touch. I wanted to cover my eyes when I read that as I wanted to believe that the iPod touch was an iPhone without the ‘extras’. But, it most definitely is not just an iPod touch with more features. It’s probably the hardest thing to put into words, but when you hold one and use it then you can feel and see the quality of this. It feels much more robust than an iPod touch.

Why did you go for the 8GB and not the 16GB?
This is just a personal preference, I guess. I’ve never been into listening to music on a portable device and had very few songs on my iPod touch. I have even fewer on my iPhone - 0 to be precise and the earbuds are still wrapped up and untouched in the box! My iPhone will most definitely primarily be a phone to me, aswell as a web browsing/e-mail device and a camera. I don’t have the need for a huge amount of space for music/videos but if you listen to music on the move and like to carry your library around with you then 16GB is probably for you.

Do you wish you’d bought one earlier?
In all honesty, no I don’t. I think I picked a great time to buy when the iPhone software update 2.1 was a mere 24 hours away. I’ve been reading the many comments on how the iPhone was prone to dropped calls, huge back-up and sync times, aswell as causing people to completely restore it on more than one occasion. Those are the very reasons I held off as long as I did. I wanted my first iPhone experience to be as smooth as my Mac experiences and this didn’t disappoint.

What is the battery life like?
On Thursday before the 2.1 update arrived I noticed my battery falling after hardly extreme usage. On Friday when I installed 2.1 I noticed a significant improvement. I made a good few calls, sent text messages, checked e-mail, took photos and generally played around with it and the battery indicator was still on full.

Is 3G signal strong?
This will all depend on your location, but every time I’ve been out and about I have been pretty much on the full 5 bars. At home I have full 3G signal. I first put 3G to good use on Saturday evening when my o2 Broadband was briefly unavailable. The iPhone couldn’t have come at a better time.

What are the back-up and sync times like?
Astonishingly quick. Last night was my first back-up and sync since 2.1 on Friday. I had a few new apps to install and some new photos to sync. The entire back-up and sync process took less than 60 seconds. At first I thought it must have only transferred the photos and not bothered with the apps, but it had. The iPod touch used to take well over half an hour to complete this process, bearing in mind that I was using only approximately 2GB space on an 8GB device.

What’s your favourite iPhone feature?
One of the things I’ve done more than making phonecalls is send SMS messages. I don’t send hundreds per month but it’s often the easiest and most discreet way of contacting friends and family who aren’t in a place that they can hold a voice conversation. And I have to say SMS on the iPhone is just so incredibly pleasurable. I love the iChat look and sound. The way the conversations are laid out makes so much more sense than the way I’ve used text messaging on my past phones. I can see myself sending a lot more texts with the iPhone but I think I’d have to really push myself to get anywhere near the 500 inclusive texts on my £35 per month package.

Of course, I can’t just pick one feature. I also love having a camera on my phone that takes decent quality pictures. GPS is so much fun aswell. I tried this out over the weekend when I was out in the car (I wasn’t driving). I was so blown away by it’s speed at locating me after opening Google Maps and it’s accuracy throughout my journey. I didn’t need to find directions to a particular place but that’s the next thing I intend to throw at it to see whether it gets me to my destination in one piece.

Should I get MobileMe when I buy an iPhone?
If you want an e-mail address and much more that you can access on your iPhone, on your computer(s) and on any computer wherever you are then yes, definitely. I wasn’t an old .Mac subscriber but the features in MobileMe were just what I needed. When you have a couple of Macs and an iPhone (or iPod touch) then you want to have all your data on each, as up to date as possible without docking and syncing. MobileMe does this beautifully over “the cloud”. Gone are the days of docking for one piece of new data. I think £59 per year is well worth it. Aside from it being great for the iPhone I also love how my Safari bookmarks are synced across my iMac and PowerBook. That makes life so much easier and is the ideal accompaniment to the iPhone.

Is the iPhone 3G Dock worth the money?
£19 may sound a lot for a little chunk of plastic, but it’s a beautiful bed for the iPhone. It slides in so smooth. It would have been nice for the dock to have been included in the box when you buy the iPhone, but I personally think it’s well worth the money.

I can’t help but be sickeningly positive about everything. The whole upgrade process with o2 was quick and pain-free. It’s the swiftest handset upgrade I’ve been through, as of course no haggling over the handset cost or tariff was necessary Delivery took less than 24 hours, getting the iPhone out of the box and set up with my SIM was speedy so I could do what I’d been so looking forward to doing and that’s have a damn good play with it.