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Customization
Though I was excited to explore the iPhone and I wanted to try out the various applications, I knew that many required Internet access, so my first task was to get the iPhone logged onto my WiFi network. This led me to the Settings button, where I discovered all sorts of fascinating things.

Unlike a Mac, where each application has its own Preferences menu option, on the iPhone major apps like Mail and Photo set their preferences within Settings. This can be a slightly confusing. For instance, if you're within Mail and you want to add another account, you tend to poke around in Mail looking for a New Account button. But mail accounts are established within Settings, a completely different application. On the positive side, this does keep the other apps simpler, since it removes confusing configuration options.

Settings is a simple vertically-scrolling list of categories, such as WiFi, Sounds, Brightness, Wallpaper, General, Mail, Phone, Safari, iPod, and Photos. Tapping one of these brings up a separate configuration screen for modifying related settings. Most of these are obvious and simple. For instance, Sounds let you choose ringtones, turn vibration on or off, and establish other kinds of audio alerts (like if the iPhone should alert you to new email or text messages).

There are two other interesting settings on the Settings pane, however. One is Airplane Mode, a simple on/off toggle that enables/disables all radio signals (cellular phone, WiFi, Bluetooth) for airplane travel. Airplane Mode is also handy if your iPhone is interferring with a radio broadcast (my iHome iPod speaker system does make occasional sounds when the iPhone is near it).

The other interesting option is the Usage tab, which gives you statistics about your iPhone's battery life, call time, and the amount of data you've sent and received via AT&T's Edge network. (WiFi traffic is not monitored.)

Networking
On this first day, however, my main interest wasn't setting my wallpaper or choosing an appropriate ringtone, but getting WiFi network access. The WiFi tab lets you turn WiFi on or off (off saves battery power) and to choose to ask before joining a network. All available networks are shown in a neat list with a standard Airport radiating radio wave icon indicating signal strength and a lock icon if the network requires a password. This is a nice touch as it turns the iPhone into a handy (but expensive) WiFi detector.

My network is password protected, so when I tapped on it in the list, it asked me for my password. I had to find my password on my laptop (I have it written in a file there) and typed it in. The password field types only bullets (•) so you can't see what you are typing. On a computer with a keyboard that isn't such a big problem, but on an error-prone virtual keyboard, I would rather have at least an option to display the password as you type it. (Fortunately, you only have to enter a WiFi password once: iPhone will remember it and just automatically log onto the known network in the future.)

After my password was accepted, I was off to test web browsing. Sure enough, it worked! I was able to surf the Internet. It was not particularly speedy, especially sites with lots of photos, but it was not bad. I went to a few sites and then tested out other applications, such as the Weather and Stock widgets, and then You Tube.

I've never been the greatest You Tube fan (it's too much work to wade through tons of crap to get one or two modestly entertaining clips), but I was curious to see how it would work on the iPhone. Well, let's just say I was not impressed. It was horribly slow, taking a minute or longer before the video would even start to play. The video quality was mediocre, too, with noticeable jaggies and blurry movement. I was not impressed.

It was only a half hour or so later, as I was continuing my exploration of the iPhone, that I happened to notice an "E" icon at the top of my iPhone right next to the AT&T signal-strength bars. "What is that?" I wondered. "Edge," said my mind, and I thought, "Oh! I bet that's the signal strength of the Edge network." But there were no bars, which puzzled me. I had full strength cellular, so shouldn't I have full strength Edge?

Then it occurred to me that perhaps the icon didn't show signal strength; maybe it was a mere on/off indicator. Almost simultaneously I thought of my WiFi signal, and wondered why I didn't see a WiFi signal indicator. That got me thinking. I had been uncertain if the password I'd entered for my network was correct. It has seemed to work, but had it?

I went back to Settings and immediately saw the WiFi line reading "Not connected." I tapped the button and after a moment of scanning, saw my Belkin network displayed with great strength and a lock icon. When I selected it, I was asked for a password again, which made me think that the password I'd used previously was the wrong one. I checked my laptop and found a file called "Belkin Password" which contained a 26-character hex password -- nothing close to what I'd entered before. I carefully typed in the long series of letters and numbers on the iPhone, hoping I wouldn't make a mistake and have to do it again.

Fortunately, when I finished, the WiFi tab said "Belkin54g" which is the name of my network. When I went back to Home (the main iPhone screen), the "E" icon was gone, replaced by the familiar Airport icon showing full WiFi strength.

So all along I'd been surfing the web and testing the iPhone using the Edge network! I quickly brought up Safari and was impressed at how quickly the pages rendered. Not as fast as my MacBook, but certainly useable. But Edge hadn't been that bad. (Note: I am in an area with good Edge coverage, according to AT&T's maps.)

Then I remembered YouTube and tried that again. Night and day! What a difference WiFi makes. Videos started up in seconds, not minutes, and the video quality was startling, almost as good as iTunes videos. For streaming video, the results were impressive.

I'd been mildly worried about the speed of the Edge network -- from the way people described it, it sounded terrible, like 1200 baud dial-up or something. But for most things it's not bad at all. It's similar to hitting a slow website when you're on broadband. For email and other kinds of data (Stock or Weather widget) it's fine. The only thing that it really sucks for is downloading large amounts of data, such as a YouTube video or a big email attachment. The fact that I was using Edge and thinking I was on WiFi should tell you something!

In fact, when I was at my uncle's house for July 4th, his WiFi signal was so weak I was only getting one bar, and I finally turned off WiFi and used Edge as it was significantly faster!

Sure, surfing picture-heavy web pages is probably not a good idea on the iPhone if you're limited to an Edge connection, but for the most common uses of roaming Internet access it's great. For instance, checking movie times, using Google Maps (the satellite view is sluggish via Edge), looking up something on Internet Movie Database, or sending an email.

I love having Internet access anywhere. While Edge is slower than WiFi, unless you're dreadfully in a hurry, it's not bad at all. A page that takes five or ten seconds to display on a desktop might take 30 seconds via Edge. Is 30 seconds that big a deal? If you're used to faster connections via another cellular network it might be -- but for the majority of iPhone buyers this is their first chance using a cellular data connection and I think they'll be delighted just to do it, even if it's not the fastest.

Next: In Part 5, Marc plays with Google Maps on the iPhone.

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