Thoughts On My iPhone - Is it for You?

I know this blog entry will be read by a lot of people. Not because I’m an especially controversial columnist but because I am about to use the magic word: iPhone. 

 The King Fish folks asked me to opine about this topic because I am the classic mobile gadget nut. Someone who has owned basically every Palm device since the original Palm Pilot. Plus, full disclosure, I am also a die-hard fan of technology from Apple. My mother used to work there. I used a Lisa before I got my hands on the first Macs. I’ve used an Apple III. I did an internship with Apple marketing services during university. So, I’m hooked. Yes, I am one of the people who was fuming last week because I paid way too much for my iPhone in early July. No, I did not wait in line for it. Yes, I will absolutely use my Apple store credit to get something else from Apple.

Like every iPhone owner, I also have become a defacto demo rep. I’ve been approached in airports, in the supermarket, in Starbucks. Interestingly, the main thing people ask to see is the gravity-sensing feature: how the iPhone screen flips from vertical to horizontal and back again depending on how you hold it in relationship to the ground. Even right now, it is so logical and so way-cool that it takes my breath away.

My mother discovered a feature I didn’t know about when I was in Hawaii a couple of weeks ago: How you can shrink or explode what is displayed on the screen simply by pinching your fingers together on the glass. I know, pretty obvious, but I started using my iPhone so quickly when I bought it that I really didn’t study the owners’ manual.

The main question people ask me, and the one you probably care about most, is how the iPhone behaves as a business tool.

My answer: about as well as the Mac.

For one thing, if you’re surgically attached to your BlackBerry or Treo, then the iPhone is definitely not for you. Thumbing isn’t so easy, although the virtual keyboard does become easier to use pretty quickly and the self-correcting feature is used pretty much regularly. But this is not a device meant for instant e-mail junkies.

Another thing that perplexes me: Why on earth must I return to the main screen every time I want to switch to a different application? I was so spoiled by the Treo’s quick access key, that this annoys me pretty much every time I pick the iPhone up.

The iPhone does basic e-mail pretty well, but I’m a free agent, so I don’t have corporate networks to contend with or set up. It does support IMAP, POP and Exchange servers, though, so a small business would probably have pretty good luck with it. One thing I haven’t figured out how to enable: accepting calendar requests or meeting invitations, which has been the bane of my existence over the roughly two months I’ve been using my HeathPhone. Of course, that’s more a function of the basic Macintosh e-mail client that I use, I suppose, and not necessarily the iPhone. I need to migrate to something better, but I haven’t had the time to research it.

One feature that I do believe will become requisite for other mobile smart phones: WiFi support. The ability to hop on and off networks at will, defaulting to my AT&T Edge service when necessary, is pretty compelling. The fact that it happens seamlessly is wonderful. This has implications for cutting voice communications costs. Imagine using the WiFi network available in one of your branch offices. Moreover, WiFi support means you can get to Web applications easily, if you’re willing to squint at the screen. Heck, WiFi has already shown up in the newest iPods, so you can see where this is going.

Using my iPhone, I’ve managed to submit entries to my GreenTech Pastures blog at ZDNet pretty easily, and I’ve even checked my checking account balance from the road. (My bookmarks have carried over from the Safari browser I use via the iTunes sync feature.) NetSuite pretty quickly came out with iPhone support for its business automation applications right after the product released, and some of my friends have pointed me to widget applications that I could use. One of those applications, www.flickim.com, provides instant messaging functionality (one of the things I miss most from using a Treo 650). Another application called Files2Phone from 1stWorks will let you grab documents, audio and other media files from your desktop remotely. One thing I long for: A way to put my To-Do list on my iPhone. Haven’t figured that out yet.

So, there definitely are innovators trying business-ify the iPhone around me. I’m not complaining. But there is a major caveat: I’m using two Macs to run my freelance business. I’m not so sure my iPhone would play so well if I lived in a Windows world.