We just released a iPhone game called iWhack where you get to “hammer home” the success of iPhone by whacking Steve Balmer (Microsoft CEO and iPhone critic) every time he pops up on the screen.

http://fun4iPhone.com

More fun to come!

In Midtown Manhattan and need a block by block directory of the city? Check out Frederick James to find any business on any block. Works great on the iPhone when landscape view.

Staci, Don’t you miss being able to search your contacts?  That’s probably the thing I miss the most on the iPhone, having switched over from a Windows Mobile device (Cingular 2125).  But, the screen size and quality, are what make me willing to make tradeoffs from what I had before.  I posted a bunch of what I thought were design weaknesses in the interface here on my blog:
http://rake.sh/blog/2007/07/02/top-10-mistakes-in-the-apple-iphone-interface/

i’ve been using my iphone for about 3 days now and am totally over the moon.  there were a couple small hiccups adding all my contacts and various email accounts now that i’ve got it all setup and personalized, i’m a very happy camper.  all the quibbles i’ve heard from people are so completely minor in the face of how useful and drop dead gorgeous this device is.  this is definitely no stutter step or partial release IMHO.  this is the real deal.  everything i’ve done with it so far from bluetoothing into other devices to complex phone calls (3 way merge, conference phone patch in, etc.) has been so much easier than any other handset…it isn’t even really an apples (ahem) to apples comparison.  other devices simply aren’t as useful to me as this one is.

Nice write up. Regarding your comment, “—no step down (at least none that I’ve seen go into action) to formatted-for-mobile pages when the speed isn’t good enough”—be sure to check out http://mobile.maxim.com on your iPhone. Definitely a better user experience than trying to browse the full-blown web site. Not sure about the promise of the “real internet” on the iPhone. Seems better suited to well-developed mobile web (i.e., WAP) sites.

Thanks, Russell. I know I can look for mobile sites on my own—and i will take a look at yours—but it would be nice to get the wap/mobile site automatically instead of blank space.

Jim, so glad you’ve been able to get it to work with your bluetooth devices. I’ll keep trying. I do think this is by its nature an unfinished product and I expect a fair amount of fixes and changes. I’ve urged a few people who aren’t compelled to be early adapters to wait with that in mind. I also think some things are likely to stay since they appear to be philosophical as much as technological.

Rakesh, I haven’t even come close to exploiting the contact app—unlike a friend who wants to know why he can’t have more than 1,099 contacts. I would miss the search option I currently have; it’s a huge help.

Typing is virtually impossible.  If you use a mobile device for authoring email or extensive IM conversations, skip the iPhone.

I came from a Treo 650 that served me well for almost 3 years (though the 4 way key pad no longer registered up clicks) and various other keys on they keyboard were beginning to fail as well.  Browsing the web on the Treo was something I could live with, but it wasn’t enjoyable.  The sound quality on calls was horrible and I was constantly flummoxed by missing features in the phone app that seemed like they should be standard (for instance there was no way to get to the numbered/lettered keypad during a call).  Finally it was incredibly crash prone.  And not in the an app crashes but you can still use the phone kind of way.  It would crash and have to completely reboot at least 3 or 4 times a week. 

The iPhone does have some missing elements. 

A combined inbox for all accounts would be nice, or at least a way to merge the accounts into a single view similar to how Mail.app works on OS X.

I want the mail app to alert me to all IMAP folders that receive new emails and not just the inbox. 

For that matter I want some finer control over how the alerts work in general.  (I had my Treo vibrate a different numbers of times for different alerts so I didn’t have to look at the phone unless it was the type of alert I knew required my attention|). 

I want a good dictionary on the phone.  (Yeah I can go online for this but it isn’t the same and not nearly as fast).

I want an SSH client (I do web development and this ability saved my but a few times on my Treo despite the incredibly slow responsiveness of the Treo apps that do this)

I want to be able to play some games.

But overall the iPhone completely blows away my old Treo.

Sound quality in calls is very good.

I can actually hear the other person when using the speaker phone feature (My Treo was so quiet I basically couldn’t use it as a speaker phone).

The browser is a joy to use (I love the intelligent zoom) and even seems to gracefully handle sites with a fluid width (like this one).

The two apps I was least interested in, Youtube and Maps, have turned out to be way more fun and useful (respectively) than I thought they would be.

The calendar app does almost everything I want it to and it is much easier to add events than it was on my Treo.  I would like a way to have to have it continually bug me about events until I respond though.  As a backup you can have it alert you at different intervals which is what I have it doing now instead.  I would also like to be able to have event alerts turned on as a default.  The list view is great and more informative than the similar view in my Treo’s calendar.

I have not noticed a crash.  Though a few people have seen the browser crash, I have not, yet.  In either case the phone seems to gracefully crash and continue working without the need to reboot.

Is it worth it in comparison?  I think so.  I spent almost the same amount on my Treo when I bought it 2.5 years ago and the interface and functionality is mostly years ahead of the current Treo offerings which haven’t changed much in all that time.

I have a suspicion that Apple will eventually release a real third party SDK.  And they have already said they will be releasing updates and improvements to the current software.  With this in mind I also suspect that most if not all of my current issues with the phone will be resolved.

I’m not ecstatic about the phone as some people are.  It isn’t going to result in world peace.  It isn’t going to change my life.  But it is pretty cool.  It is fun to use.  And it does work very well.  I’m glad I bought it and have happily put my Treo and it’s broken keypad to rest.

I’m not sure I agree with you Staci in labeling it an Alpha (Though I agree some potentially important features are missing depending on a person’s needs). 

Rather I get the impression the Apple engineers simply left out features rather than have them in there in a buggy state.  That they did this is actually the sign of a finished product and a development team that realizes the need for things to be stable outweighs the need for features (something the Treo engineers could learn from).  Instead of an Alpha version I’d call it iPhone version 1.0.  I’m looking forward to version 1.2 as long as it stays as stable and usable as version 1.0 has been.  :)

Responding to Russell and Staci on how to get a good mobile content experience - “the full web” works well for some sites, sure, but the “heavy” sites are not delivering a great experience on the iPhone. 

Most users don’t know to type m.site.com so AdMob is recommending that site publishers use device detection and serve xHTML for the iPhone.  The experience is fast on the AT&T network and on WiFi and the pages look great.  For more detail on device detection go to WURFL and for more detail on recommended mobile site implementation go to http://www.admob.com.

I am quoting Jamie poitra.. absolutely, not only that but Apple likes to leave the doors open to third party developers it’s a very smart strategy, by not packing the device with all the features in the world they leave this to other developers just like the accessories giving you the choice on what is essential or not

>>Rather I get the impression the Apple engineers simply left out features >>rather than have them in there in a buggy state.