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It’s been a few months since Catherine got the iPhone and I’ve still not changed my opinion that it’s a pretty poor phone. The ringer is too quiet and lack of ring profiles a real pain.

However the mobile web browsing is very good, and there are some good apps available. So, for my birthday Catherine got me an iPod Touch 64Gb. The iPod Touch is essentially an iPhone without cellular data, gps, or camera. I’m not fussed about the camera, but the GPS would have been nice. I understand the iPhone uses an integrated Cell/WiFi/GPS chipset so that probably explains the absense.

One immediate problem I didn’t expect is that disk mode is no longer available meaning I can’t use the device as a backup for my Aperture data – so a 32Gb device would have been more suitable. However it’s unlikely I’ll run out of storage space before the battery dies. I’ve got over 6000 photos and all my music and still have 50Gb free.

Happily I can share purchased apps with Catherine too so the apps I bought for her iPhone will work on my iPod.

So it turns out I’m happy with the iPod, and this post was written on the WordPress App!

The email issues with the iPhone are mostly resolved as gmail now supports push mail, it’s not reliable yet but it’s getting there. I do wish it showed the number of new messages somewhere on the lock screen though.

The last no-go problem with the iPhone is the fact that Manx Telecom don’t offer a UK data roaming bolt on like they do with the Blackberry. Not getting email is an inconvenience, but not getting up to date weather data for flying or skiing is a big deal. The data can be used in the UK but costs are excessive.

The UK cell network “Three” now offer a wireless 3G dongle called the MiFi that would allow all my wireless devices including the Blackberry, iPod, Netbook and iPhone to use a shared data connection, and it’s available on pay as you go. Hopefully once the cost drops a bit it will be an ideal solution for trips to the UK. A portable WiFi access point has really interesting potential.

Maybe there will be a new iPhone software version fixing the other issues before my Blackberry contract finishes in December 2010, but then maybe the Palm Pre will be a better phone….

(sore thumbs)

Catherine got an iPhone 3G on Saturday to replace her Blackberry Curve. Had it been me, I would have returned it on Sunday…

The media features are, as you would expect from an iPod derivative, excellent. Music and Videos can be selected easily using the touch screen and the screen itself is excellent once you’ve accepted the fingerprints as inevitable.

That’s where the positives end I’m afraid.

As a mobile phone, and mobile email device, the Blackberry is vastly superior to the iPhone. For example, to make a call to Catherine on the Blackberry I take the phone out of the cover (automatically unlocking the keyboard), then press and hold C and the speeddial happens. With the iPhone, remove from case, manually unlock, click on Phone, Click on Favourites, Click on Catherine.

It’s worse if I have to dial a number or choose from the contacts. With the Blackberry I can just start typing from the home screen, the Blackberry will automatically display a list of matching names, and will also present the potential number to dial should any of they keys pressed also be number buttons. For example, if I push the D/5 button, then E/2, then R/3 it will offer to dial 523 and present a list of all names with DER in them. I just choose what I want from this list and it dials. The iPhone doesn’t have this ability so I have to go into Phone, then either choose keypad, contacts, favourites, recent, then on contacts I’ve got to scroll through the list.  It’s totally backwards compared to the elegant simplicity of the Blackberry. Single handed operation of the iPhone may be possible with some practice, but it’s still harder to use than the Blackberry.

Email is very poor too on the iPhone. No push email from Gmail, and no way of seeing if a message has been recieved without unlocking the phone. The Blackberry has a flashing alert light. The iPhone can try and recieve emails once every 15 minutes, but after having near instant Blackberry email, this seems like a backwards step, and also appears to eat the battery.

One other immediate weakness came to light, and that is the iPhone has no apparent support for ring profiles. My Blackberry has profiles for Quiet, Normal, Phone Only (no email alerts, just sms and phone calls), Off and Vibrate.  The iPhone has none of this, just a ring / don’t ring option.

I leave my phone on overnight by my bedside incase any our systems at work have a failure (we have automatic SMS notification), but by using “Phone Only” profile, the automatic emails from my bank, and the occasional spam message don’t give an audio alert.  To change profile in the Blackberry is a single click, to accomplish the same thing on the iPhone only acheivable through the settings menu.

I’m sure the iPhone is as good a device as is possible without a keyboard. It is certainly much better than the Windows Mobile smartphones, but the problem is a mobile phone needs a keyboard, and if it’s a full qwerty keyboard, so much the better.

I should point out I do actually like Apple products. We have had three OS X computers and I think OS X is a fantastic operating system. Aperture 2 is one program I probably couldn’t do without now. Some of the apps for the iPhone look really good too.

I just really wish the iPhone was better at being a phone.