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Exploring the Internet
Safari's probably my next favorite iPhone application. Having the full Web at your fingertips is so powerful and revolutionary it'll take me time to remember it is there. But already it is addicting. In the past week I can count a number of cool uses: settling arguments by instantly looking up things on Google, checking movie times to see if a matinee is available, finding restaurants (and calling for reservations), and finding a website and emailing the URL to a friend immediately instead of saying "I'll email you that link" and forgetting.

The "full Internet" access provided by Safari seems pretty complete to me. Sure, it doesn't do Flash, but I hate Flash, so that's not a problem (in fact, I've found many pages use Flash for ads, so they don't display on the iPhone, which is awesome). My only real complaints are that it crashes occasionally (it just disappears and you're back at the Home screen) and it doesn't cache pages very well so moving back and forth within your history requires a total reload of the page. For instance, I commonly view news aggregator type sites and I'll click on a link, read the story, then hit the "Back" button to return to the news page for the next link. On my Mac going back is instant, but the iPhone wants to reload that news page from scratch, which is annoying.

There's also no way to force a page to open in a new window, like you can on a full computer. But I was pleased to see that Safari on iPhone does support tabbed browsing: each web page you have open shows up as separate windows you can flip through with finger swipes.

I had previously thought that web browsing on such a small screen would be awkward, but it's astonishingly useful. Text is actually readable at microscopic sizes -- not easily readable but enough you can see button names and other info helpful for navigation and identifying what you want to enlarge. The pinch and stretch for zooming in and out of pages is brilliant, but the double-tap to zoom in is even better: remarkably intelligent it fits the text you tapped on to fill the screen just perfectly.

I do not know how Apple does it, but the touch detection of the iPhone is amazing. I can see a row of tiny links on a site, each mere pixels tall, but since it's a site I am familiar with I can tell which link I want to click. My finger is huge in comparision to the text -- it covers many lines. Yet somehow iPhone knows I meant to tap the third link or the second. It's almost like it's psychic. Occasionally it gets it wrong, but it's right so often it is scary.

The only navigation problem I encountered is that sometimes when I am trying to scroll a page with my finger, iPhone will think I am clicking on a link and it will open that page. I am now careful when I scroll to try to "grab" the screen in an empty area or an area void of links so I can scroll without clicking.

The auto-rotation feature of the iPhone really stands out for web surfing. It makes using the thing so natural. When I hit a blog where the text is narrow and tall, I simply rotate the thing vertical and double-tap the text to zoom it to fit. On another site, where the text is wide, just rotating the iPhone zooms it to fit the wide display and often that's enough to make it readable.

Occasionally it is necessary to scroll horizontally, something that's usually a pain (I hate it when text runs off the screen on the right), but on the iPhone it's not bad -- just keep your finger on the screen and slide it side to side as you read. The movement is a bit annoying and not recommended for long passages of text, but it's very useful for skimming, which is probably more what you'd be doing on the iPhone anyway.

I am deeply impressed by how well thought-out Safari (and other apps) on the iPhone are. They contain enough features to be tremendously useful, yet are remarkably simple and easy to use. Whenever I've ran into something I thought was a showstopper, I discovered Safari does support it.

For instance, at present there's no way to copy and paste text on the iPhone. I had a URL I wanted to email to someone and I thought this was horrible: what was I supposed to do, memorize this long complicated URL and type it in an email? What a pain! But when I clicked on the URL in Safari like I would for editing it, I noticed a "Share" button at the top left corner. Clicking this created a new email with the URL already in place. Safari even filled in the email's Subject line with the title of the web page! Sweet.

(Note that this does mean you have to rethink your "mail URL" workflow. You can't create your own email and add the URL to it. Instead, let Safari create the email with the URL and then you can add additional text to the email before you send it.)

The first time I needed to fill out a web form I was surprised and delighted: Safari split the screen so the upper half showed the web page I was on and where I was editing while the lower half showed a zoomed-in closeup of the popup menu I was using. Then I was able to flick my finger through the list of choices. Radio buttons and other kinds of controls work the same way. Safari even places Previous and Next buttons to let you jump between fields, and there's a Done button for when you are finished with those fields but not necessarily ready to send off the page. Unfortunately, iPhone Safari does not support auto-fill, so you have to fill out forms manually each time. For a device with constrained typing ability, this is a severe oversight (one I'm sure will be corrected with a software update). iPhone should save you typing as much as it can.

You can even log in to secure websites (though Safari won't remember your user information like it will on a full computer, so you have to retype your info each time). This means you could check your bank balance while standing in line at the grocery store or order a book from Amazon while on the subway or at the beach. I got an AT&T bill sent to my iPhone's email where I clicked on the login URL to open the page in Safari. There I entered my user name and password and browsed my AT&T bill right there on my phone!

Next: In Part 7, Marc explores photography on the iPhone.

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