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Other Apps
I'm up to part 10 in this series and I still haven't covered all the iPhone's built-in applications! Most of the others are sort of lightweight apps, but other than the extremely basic Calculator, most of the other apps are surprisingly powerful.

An important app to many is Calendar, which syncs to iCal (Mac) and Outlook (PC) and lets you keep track of appointments. I don't have many appointments, so this was not something I particularly needed, but if I did I can see how it'd be useful. While it doesn't seem too complicated, it is impressively deep. I especially like how you can set not just one but two reminders to trigger before the event (you can specify how long before the event the alarm goes off). Years ago I had a Palm I tried to use for scheduling but it wasn't too useful mainly because I didn't carry my Palm everywhere. But the iPhone, being a cell phone, means I'll always have it with me, so I can see the Calendar being much more useful to me.

Another app some people live by is SMS text messaging. This isn't something I've used much (my old cell phone made it extremely awkward to do). Apple's iPhone version is a beautiful iChat-like rendering of messages, so messages back and forth are displayed like a conversation. You can even have multiple "conversations" going on at once, each within their own window. This way you can continue a conversation over days or weeks, if you'd like. When you're finished with a conversation you can delete it.

The biggest disadvantage of messaging is typing using the iPhone virtual keyboard, which is not that bad. I think it's better than a hard keyboard, but then I hate phone keypad texting and I've never used a Blackberry or other mini-keyboard. For heavy texters used to a hard keyboard, the virtual keyboard may not be to their liking, but that's for each user to judge.

The real flaw with SMS isn't Apple's implementation but the fact that AT&T charges for messages. Standard iPhone accounts only come with 200 SMS messages a month, though you can add more for $10. I'd much rather see free texting or an iChat client on the iPhone. For younger people the iPhone's limited SMS might be a liability, as teens love SMS. (I talked to one father who told me he ended up with $90 text messaging bill when one of his kids went over his plan's message limit. Ouch!)

There's a Notes application for typing text. I wasn't sure what good this was as the notes don't sync to your main computer, but then I discovered there's a feature to turn a note into an email. Since the iPhone doesn't support copying and pasting text, this gives you a way to send the same text to multiple people. It might be useful for boiler-plate text, though it only sends it as a new message, not a reply.

Of the "little" applications, the most powerful is the unassuming World Clock app. It lets you add multiple clocks for different cities around the world and displays the local time. My uncle added Adelaide on mine as a test. He and his wife visited Australia a year or so ago and he knew that it's in a weird time zone -- it shows up a half hour off from the rest of the world, which he said is correct.

But more interesting to me than world clocks are the other features at the bottom of the window many people fail to notice. There's a handy Stopwatch, which works, well, like a stopwatch. More useful for me is Timer, which lets you create a countdown clock which plays a ringtone when it hits zero. (You can switch to other apps and do things on the iPhone and the counter will continue.) As a diabetic, I periodically have to test my blood sugar two hours after eating and when I dine out it's easy to forget the time, so this feature is extremely handy.

But it's the Alarm function that will impress most people. It lets you create multiple alarms that will go off at the time specified and play the ringtone you indicate. You can even set an alarm to repeat on a certain day of the week. (For more specific alarms, you can use the Calendar.) This is simple stuff but handy when you're traveling as you don't have to bring a clock with you.

Oh, It's Also an iPod!
I'd used my iPhone for days before I suddenly realized with a shock that I hadn't even tried the iPod functions! That's pretty funny when you think that the iPhone gets a good deal of its appeal via the iPod crowd, but the truth is that I already have several iPods and that aspect didn't interest me that much.

The iPhone is an iPod, but it feels more limited. I'm not sure it really is -- it seems to do just about everything a standard iPod does -- but it feels simpler, like something is missing. The interface is actually far superior. It took Apple to come up with something to beat the unbeatable click wheel. Scrolling song lists is amazing via touch, and touch control of volume, playhead, song rating, etc. is much easier.

Rotating the iPhone brings up the Cover Flow interface, where you can flip through your albums with a finger. This is cool and looks dramatic, but I have a few complaints. The biggest is that Cover Flow always shows your entire library. If you're in the middle of a playlist, it doesn't show just the albums for that playlist, which is a bit annoying and confusing. Also, in Cover Flow there is no playhead control -- you can pause or play the song but there's no fast forward or rewind. You only get those controls when the iPhone is vertical. That can be confusing.

I do like the configurable buttons of the main iPod screen, however. You click on the More button and then the Edit button and you are presented with buttons you can drag to the lower pane to configure the display with the options you prefer. There are buttons for showing Albums, Podcasts, Audiobooks, Genres, Composers, Compiliations, Playlists, Artists, Songs, and Videos. So if you listen to a lot of podcasts, just add a Podcast button for quick access to your podcasts. That is really cool and useful and easy.

I also like that you can start music playing and go do other things on the iPhone, such as surf the web, do email, browse photos, etc. If you get a call, of course, the music fades and pauses and resumes when you're done.

Videos are amazing on the iPhone. They only display in landscape (horizontal) view, but look glorious on the widescreen. Almost everyone I showed videos to were surprised at how watchable videos were. The quality was excellent and the built-in speakers mean you can listen without having to mess with headphones, which is much more natural for TV.

My only complaint about videos is that there still are not many options for playback -- you can pause and there's a playhead for rewind and skipping, but you can't do frame-by-frame advance or slow motion, which my PSP supports. I'm so used to such functions on my Tivo that I feel hampered with videos on the iPhone (and iPod).

I'm sure Apple will make a tweak or two to the iPhone's iPod features via software updates, but for the most part, it's like everything else on the device: it just works.

Next: In Part 11, Marc looks at the iPhone's most controversial feature, the virtual keyboard.

macopinion@designwrite.com

iPhone: First Impressions - Part 1 of 10
Buying the iPhone

iPhone: First Impressions - Part 2 Of 10
Activation and Syncing

iPhone: First Impressions - Part 3 of 10
Using the iPhone

iPhone: First Impressions - Part 4 of 10
Customization

iPhone: First Impressions - Part 5 of 10
Exploring the Applications

iPhone: First Impressions - Part 6 of 10
Exploring the Internet

iPhone: First Impressions Part 7 of 10
Exploring Photography on the iPhone

iPhone: First Impressions - Part 8 of 10
Working With eMail

iPhone: First Impressions - Part 9 of 10
Using the iPhone as a Phone

iPhone: First Impressions - Part 10 of 10
iPod on the iPhone