Despite us being a non-Apple-centric household (me with my Linux boxen and Benjamin with his XP machine) we’re one step closer to being Apple fans with the purchase of two iPhones this weekend. Luckily we only had to wait 1.5 hours in line to get a 16GB white iPhone for Benjamin and an 8GB black one for me. With a bit of trickery we were even able to keep our Austin phone numbers despite changing carriers.
Thus far we love them and I’ve only found one bug thus far — a record low and impressive considering I’m a professional tester. Interestingly enough I use my iPhone more to browse the internet and check my email than I do for texting or calling. In fact, I’ve yet to make a single call on the phone after purchasing it on Saturday night.
For a time Benjamin was looking into upgrading to the Sprint’s iPhone-competitor the Instinct. I told him I’d rather switch carriers and go with the real thing than purchase Sprint’s attempt. With Apple’s UI experience, customer service reputation, and the fact that they’ve opened up development of 3rd-party applications the decision seemed fairly easy to me. Besides, Apple has had an entire year to refine their device and Sprint’s will be a rev 1 with all the shortcomings that accompany it. Both my brother and Benjamin’s best friend have an Instinct so eventually we’ll get to compare the two to see if I was correct.
I’m looking forward to open source developers running wild with the iPhone SDK and creating slews of free applications. Pidgin and OpenSSH are the top two on my wishlist. Rumor has it that IBM is working on a version of Lotus Notes for the iPhone to which I only laugh. Meanwhile the new iPhone includes a connector for Microsoft Exchange to woo corporate users over. Neither such beast will find residence on my device – the iPhone connects quite happily to my IMAP server right out of the box.
Digital Ramblings 