Tomorrow, I get an iPhone

"What? I thought he said he was waiting for the iPhone 5 to come out!" you say!

Alas, no; for you see a friend of mine has agreed to sell me his *mint condition* White 16GB Apple iPhone 3G (no, not the 3GS) for £150, which is significantly below market value.

I figured I'd use this opportunity to get a hands-on feel for the iPhone system and ecosystem and see how well I put up with the iTunes software on my desktop, and how well it fits in with my existing Exchange setup and AD infrastructure.

My phone for the past year is a humble Nokia 5030, its only selling point is a built-in FM tuner and external loudspeaker. Prior to that I used Windows Mobile devices, including my PDA (which I still use to this date, but the earphone jack has worn out which limits its use as my MP3 player, which it's done so well these past 5 years).

I'm used to Windows Mobile and it's so undemanding on the host system: I started off in 2001 when devices came with Serial Cables for synchronising because not everyone had USB (including myself, embarassingly). Even now, 10 years later, the desktop ActiveSync software is fast and light (but not necessarily bug-free, I have lots if issues with bad synchronisation with my devices, but that's besides the point).

I like how WinMo devices can access the Internet via the host PC and use that connection to synchronise, and how the ActiveSync software (for XP) and the Sync Center in Vista/7 aren't "heavy" compared to iTunes.

As I understand it, the iPhone cannot connect to the Internet via iTunes, it has to use Wi-Fi or the cellular connection, which messes me around because I don't have Wi-Fi in here, and the only iPhone tarrif I can really afford offers 500MB/month transfer, which isn't much to play with, especially given I get large emails often. I don't know how expensive (in terms of data) it is to synchronise a maibox.

(At the same time, I've done some research and it seems the same is true of Windows Phone 7; no host computer internet access, and you have to install the Zune software, there's no Sync Center support for Windows Phone 7, wth?!).

Anyway, the plan is that I'll have the phone until June of 2011, at which point the iPhone 5 and updated Windows Phone 7 will be out. I'll then be able to better judge if the iPhone is a fit for me, or if I'm better off with some other platform. I've tried Android (my sister has one) and it just feels like a 'cheap iOS' in some ways. If there is a better phone for me I should have no problems offloading the white iPhone onto eBay and making a profit whilst I'm at it.

I'll post updates in this thread to see how things go.

iPhone 3G + iOS 4 drove me nuts in the last few weeks of owing one, very slow, very laggy, was glad to be rid of it.  Never seen the same issues with the 3GS or even the 3G on iOS 3.

Anyway, the exchange sync can be set to only sync the headers or first nKb of a message to keep you data usage down, overall it's very light weight and doubt it will make much of a dent on 500Mb even for a heavy user.

Why not just buy a dirt cheap Wi-Fi hub rather than jump through all the other hoops?

£150 for an old iPhone 3G? What does the 3GS cost over there? I'm not sure what is hiding the the details, but in the U.S. you can get a 3GS for $99USD, with a two year contract. 

I'm with PerfectPhase, with the sentiment of sticking with iOS 3.

EDIT: The $99 rate is for the 8GB model.

-Josh

@JoshRoss: In Japan you can get an iPhone 4 16GB for $0 with a 2 year contract. Might be the contract is more expensive though (regardless, it's the cheapest plan they have no matter what phone you buy, except you are required to also get the unlimited packet plan with an iPhone).

150 pounds does seem very steap for a 3G. And yes, iOS4 on the 3G is slow, though I never had the level of problems with it that some other people have reported.

1 hour ago, JoshRoss wrote

£150 for an old iPhone 3G? What does the 3GS cost over there? I'm not sure what is hiding the the details, but in the U.S. you can get a 3GS for $99USD, with a two year contract. 

How bout it being because he's buying it outright from a friend, not on a contract, as it clearly says in his post.

1 hour ago, W3bbo wrote

I like how WinMo devices can access the Internet via the host PC

Windows Phone 7 does this for me, i can access intranet sites whilst plugged into my PC at work.

If you are running iPhone 3G, do not ever update OS later than iPhone4's launch date. My bro installed the update and it is now a iPhoneCrap.

I should make a thread about getting a WinPh7, I fogot.

2 hours ago, Max Power wrote

*snip*  

Windows Phone 7 does this for me, i can access intranet sites whilst plugged into my PC at work.

How does this work? I haven't tried it. Would be interesting to know.

Nokia 6210 - 10+ years old, still working fine, it rings, I answer.

@W3bbo:

Congratulations man!

4 hours ago, magicalclick wrote

*snip*

How does this work? I haven't tried it. Would be interesting to know.

You plug your device into your computer, and if the Zune desktop software is running with your phone synced, then you can access the Intranet/Internet, using the USB cable.

@webbo You say Android feels like a cheap iOS yet your getting an iPhone as an opportunity to get a hands-on feel for the iPhone system and ecosystem.

ohhhh k.

So I've got the phone now.

Overall impressions, it blows the pants off my Windows Mobile 5 device, that's for sure (well, as far as the fluid user-experience goes... no more jittering and sluggish delays waiting for programs to load or even display icons).

iTunes isn't so bad on my desktop, though more complicated iTunes Store webpages are sluggish and the scrollbars are laggy, but I don't imagine I'll be spending much time here (I buy my music through Amazon).

But alas, there's a problem! I had to hack the MSI files to get them to install on my XPx64 computer. I eventually got the iPhone's drivers to install okay, but then I get this message:

"Please connect this iPhone to a computer running Windows Vista or a 32-bit version of Windows XP (Service Pack 2)."

Aaaaarrrghhhh.

There may be a workaround if I can get iTunes to install in a VirtualBox VM and if I can get USB forwarding working. I'll try that now and report back my findings.

(Otherwise it looks like I might be upgrading to Windows 7 on here... ooo-er!)

VirtualBox can't seem to get USB proxies working on my computer, apparently it's often due to motherboard drivers, and NVidia haven't released an update for my motherboard in 18 months.

I don't have the time right now to sort this out, but a compromise situation is to set up iTunes on my laptop rather than my desktop.

2 days ago, blowdart wrote

*snip*

Or you could just stop using an operating system that you know has little to no support from software and hardware manufacturers. Just a thought

CCCP wrecked DVD playback in WMP10 and my video overlay is all messed up, if I were running 7 I wouldn't have this problem.

So yeah...

In other news, I've comissioned someone to port Luna Element to DWM, so when that's done I'll move over

Oh, as for the iPhone, here's the story so far:

• I'm getting used to how the iPod works. I used to use PocketPlayer on my Axim, where I just loaded up all of the tracks into a single playlist (sorted by filepath) and just jumped to whatever file I was after. It might sound like a hassle to navigate, but it works well when you've only got 2GB of storage to work with (about 100 songs). Now that I have 16GB to play with I'm doing alright with simply playing by artist and playlist creation isn't too hard either.
• I got Exchange working for Mail, Contacts, and Calendar with only a few things needed to be updated at my end. I also learned I need to up the RAM on my Hyper-V mailserver.
• I've found free apps on iTunes for common tasks like Remote Desktop and Exchange Tasks and Notes (why doesn't WP7 support these OOB?), as well as a wide selection of free games that aren't too bad. I've no idea why Apple didn't include any token games on the iPhone like they did on all the other iProducts.
• I still haven't gotten used to the iPhone keyboard, even when using only my pinky I'm slower than I was with my stylus on WM. To that end, I have ordered a capacitative-touch stylus, it should arrive either tomorrow or on Sunday. I liked WM's keyboard gestures and having the numeric keys (and symbols) available without shifting. I also don't like how the iPhone's keyboard uses uppercase for both shifted and un-shifted keys, it means I have to glance at the shift key before I type.
• I do need to work on Excel spreadsheets on occasion and all the good spreadsheet programs that support Excel files cost money. I've put off buying one for now because I don't know how they work because the iPhone doesn't have any concept of "user storage" like WM does. I want to be able to get an XLS(X) from my desktop or laptop and transfer it to the iPhone and work on it there, and then transfer it back. It seems all these apps I've seen only work when online and require a DropBox account (or something similar). I have seen Sharepoint clients capable of viewing Excel files, but no word on whether or not they can edit them or not. I also don't have a Sharepoint server and installing one would probably overload my Hyper-V server (since Sharepoint doesn't sit well with running anything else on the same box, apparently). Does anyone have any advice in this area?
• As an aside, I find the SpringBoard icons a tad inconsistent. The Calendar app's icon auto-updates, which is fine (because it's the primary means of getting the current date), but the clock and weather apps don't (even though their icons appear to display actual information). I don't think updating either icon at hourly intervals would be that computationally expensive.
• And of course, the Today screen, which I find essential. I'll jailbreak the device eventually, but it's a no-brainer for Apple to implement such a simple system, I don't know why they don't just add it as another page of the homescreen like how they added the search feature.

Apparently Apple's Verizon iPhone ("VeriPhone?") is due to be announced on the 11th January. This may or may not be the iPhone with the different antennae we've seen lately.

If a lot of effort has gone into this Verizon phone then chances are any changes made for the iPhone 5 (if it exists) will be standard-fare, such as just more storage space and maybe battery life (as if 30 hours wasn't good enough) and no real new features.

...which gives Microsoft time to raise the WP7 hardware mandate to something to match Apple's. It's been 4 months now, where are the special SD cards required to boost internal storage? What of 330dpi displays and video cameras? How about a decent API?