iphone vs mytouch

I can't compare the two since I haven't owned or used both of them. But I have an iPhone. I will attempt to be impartial in describing what I like and what I wish they would enable / improve. Keep in mind that for almost an entire decade my experience with cell phone was exclusively limited to "penny phones." Those phones that are free or cost only a penny when you open an account. For that reason, anything about data service, texting, functionality might be very elemental to more experienced phone users. Also, I have the iPhone 3G and not the 3Gs.

What I like:
- There's an app for that. Seriously. Though there are some really lame apps out there, there are some really neat ones.
- There's an app for that (pt 2). Instead of having the predefined applications, I can add any app I want. The odds that two iPhone users will have the exact same apps is statistically possible, but mind-numbingly improbable. Tailor it and make it your own.
- Integration with Microsoft Outlook data. I can sync it with my Outlook calendar, contacts, and Notes.
- It works. I'm easy to please. When presented with something, I just want it to work as advertised. The iPhone really surprised me in that regards. Not just in that it simply works, but . . .
- Some apps interrelate. When I'm in Contacts and I tap an address, the Maps app pops up showing the location and asking if I want directions from where I am. When I tap a phone number the dialer comes up. Videos linked to YouTube open the YouTube app and play. The list goes on. I like that.
- The transitions are neat. Again, I'm easy to please but for my own work I dwell on the little things, the things most people ignore. I like the zoom out / zoom in affect the iPhone uses. It's a smoother transition that just jumping from screen to screen.
- One handed use. When I'm standing in line somewhere, I can pull the iPhone out of my pocket and do just about anything with my right thumb. I can operate almost all apps with one hand.
- Typing. Thanks to the rotating screen, I can type faster on my iPhone than many of my friends can type on a full-sized keyboard. In landscape mode, the buttons enlarge making them easier to hit. With the key toggle button, I can quickly flip through numbers, special characters and punctuation.
- My mom can work it. I have to explain to my mom how to update Firefox every time she gets the notice and that's pretty easy. The last time I was at my parents' house my mom picked it up and after a brief overview of apps and tapping, she was surfing the web, browsing pictures, zooming in and zooming out. I wasn't about to let her update my Facebook status but it wouldn't have been but a few minutes before she would have figured it out.
- Screen. I'm new to data service so being able to provide navigation when riding in my friend's car was pretty cool to me. What makes it cooler is that the screen is large and clear. This makes apps look better, makes picture viewing easier and nicer, and even watching movies on YouTube better.

What I wish they would enhance / enable:
- Integration with Microsoft Outlook Data. I know that I listed it above but what you will see missing from that is Mail. It's a corporate decision, but I can't sync my mail. My old Dell Axim could sync with my local mailbox without the need for access to the Outlook Exchange server. I don't know why the iPhone couldn't do something similar.
- AutoSync / AutoUpdate. Thinking about my Axim, I miss the AutoSync feature in which items automatically synced when something was changed. The iPhone requires syncing through iTunes and there is no AutoUpdate feature. You can have it sync on connection but if you accept a meeting request thirty seconds later you must force another sync.
- A Main Screen. I miss my Axim and the Home Screen showing my calendar, number of emails in my Inbox, and a ToDo list. The iPhone doesn't have this. I have to open each app separately.
- Backer. Backer is an app that only runs on jailbreaked iPhones. Backer allows the running of background apps. That is, multiple apps running at the same time. You will notice other phone manufacturers touting the ability of their OS to run multiple apps at the same time. That's a direct dig on Apple. The functionality exists as witnessed by anyone who listened to the iPod functionality while doing anything else or talking on the phone wile looking up a contact. Every third-party app is not allowed to tap into the Background functionality. I have to wonder if Apple will open that up due to competition.


That's about it for me. I'm sure I can think of more if I really concentrate.

Make sure you check out C|Net and Retrevo for relatively independent reviews.

 

Tony's post pretty much mimes what I would say. I'm amazed how quickly the iPhone became something I was dependent upon. And yet it's easy enough to use that my 5 year old can navigate to the "Pocket God" game (she thinks it's a career training tool I think!).

I'm not familiar with all the programs that Tony's talking about, but want to comment a bit where it comes to syncing and e-mail. There are ways, in the sub-menus, to force Pushes at any frequency you wish, you can fetch, or manually update...all customizable. There may be some functions (the ones Tony's talking about?) that can't do that, again, I'm not an expert on those, so I'm not sure. But they do work with my google calendar, which updates the calendar on the phone and vis versa.

Also, I have my e-mails, my wife's e-mail, all synced to my iPhone (aol). While it doesn't tell me how many I have until I open it, it only takes a few seconds.

CONS:
1)Battery life--it's a compromise to keep the size small, but depending upon what features you're using it can be frustratingly short...keep a charge cord with you wherever you go. If you could bring an extra battery and swap it out, that would be fine, but that's not possible either.

2)No memory expansion slot--annoying IMO. I'd love to be able to pop in an SD card with extra music, pictures, whatever, or transfer my stuff to said card from the phone.

I suppose I don't know what I'm missing by not being able to run multiple apps at once...but it hasn't been a problem for me...maybe just b/c I can't hold more than one thing in my head at a time!

 

The AutoUpdate I refer to was part of Microsoft ActiveSync. It sits in the Windows System Tray. As soon as I made a change in my calendar, for example, I would see the ActiveSync icon spin and the Axim would have that addition.

And yeah, I have five email accounts that I track on my iPhone. Evan, there's a number on my icon when I have unread email. Yours doesn't?

Did you have to enter your corporate Exchange server address in the iPhone when setting this up or does it pull only what's on your desktop? With my Axim, I could do either but since I didn't know my Exchange Server's address, I just synced the mail I had local.


Another thing I forgot to mention was Data storage. It's a rather trivial thing perhaps, but I would like to be able to treat my iPhone as an external hard drive. I realize that it's not built for that, but sometimes it would be mighty handy. On the other hand, remember what I said about "there's an app for that"? Though I haven't found one I like and in doing research I found that if you jailbreak an iPhone you can use Windows Explorer on it but you didn't hear that form me.

Another thing I like is that I can have multiple calendars all tracking on the same time line. I can either choose to show them all and see where overlaps exist or I can view them one at a time. I find this very handy when there are professional and personal things and I don't want to have to populate my work calender with personal things.

 

That was, I think, Day 2 of ownership. The friendly gentleman informed me that we do not support iPhone mail syncing. I was hoping there was another way that I was missing.

Then again, it's not something I should be pursuing. I mean, it's not like I WANT to carry my work around with me.

 

The iPhone is amazingly intuitive. I've only had to look up how to do a few things. It automatically selects wifi vs 3G, BT is a breeze, customizing takes a few taps. I'd never used an iPhone before getting mine and was installing apps, moving stuff around, setting up e-mail, etc. in minutes.

B/C I had an older ATT phone it took a bit to get my iPhone activated, but if you're coming to it fresh it'll be all set for you. I also had to get a new iPhone b/c of a battery charging problem, but customer support from Apple was fantastic, and it took less than an hour to set up the new phone EXACTLY the way my previous phone had been set up via iTunes...only thing I had to do was put in passwords.

Photo quality is what you'd expect from a cell phone. They're usable. In good light they're fairly sharp and contrasty, in poor light they're crap. You have to learn how to hold it steady when shooting b/c it seems to be pretty motion sensitive. The video is fun to have as well.

I enjoy streaming my music via BT to a wireless headset that I can wear with my bike helmet when I ride my e-bike around, then I can also answer calls via that headset. The phone rides in the wire basket on the front.

Reading Priuschat is difficult since Danny hasn't worked out the kinks for the Priuschat mobile for the iPhone yet, but most other sites are a breeze to access.

 

As I said above, my mom was able to figure out how to work my iPhone very quickly. It is very intuitive. When I was setting it up at home, it was going through the screens and one of them said something like, "hey, there are some wireless networks. Which one is yours?" When I selected it, I got a field for entering my WIP code and *BAM* I'm in. It sounds so trivial but when I set up my wireless network from a PC perspective there were drivers and settings and confusion and manuals involved. My wife's MacBook was equally as easy.

As for pictures, here's Wrigley at night.