My iPhone sustained its first battle scar this morning, as it took a sickening dive to the pavement. My headphone cord caught the buckle on my computer bag, launching the iPhone out of its holster. It made a gut wrenching hollow noise as it hit the ground, but once I was sure the screen was alright (and it is 100% alright) I was regaled with the sound of music through the earbuds. So, this thing can take a spill. I will not be allowing it to do it again, however.

Instead of a complete rundown of the last few days with the iPhone, I thought I might post a few small observations. In short this thing really lives up to (most of) its hype, and is a really compelling and enjoyable device to use.

• Speaker volume. It’s just not loud enough. Neither is the ringer really, and it may shed a little light on just how Apple thinks of the iPhone: as an iPod first and all the other things in descending order from there. I say this because using the phone while you have the earbuds on is a perfect experience in terms of sound levels. When the iPhone is in the car seat next to you and the AC is blasting and NPR is on, though, keep an eye out for calls.
• The interface is even better than you think. Using your fingers to navigate through screens of data feels perfectly natural. I’ve not had one single person, regardless of age or experience level, be stumped about how things work. I do need to explain the home button a little, but after that they’re off to the races. I’m still marvelling over the little details, like the recent calls screen; there’s so much in just that one small screen that’s communicated so effectively, and all without clutter or having to tap into other screens.
• I am going to drop this thing. It’s just a matter of time. The bead blasted finish is just not enough to hold onto.
• Prepare to be mobbed. Everyone is writing about this right now, but be prepared to give spontaneous iPhone demos at Starbuck’s and the grocery store and the bar, or anywhere else you try and take a phone call.
• The camera is really pretty good. Don’t go ditching your Canon DSLR just yet, but it’s more than enough for the occasional snap in terms of color and sharpness. No dedicated shutter button on the device (only a “soft button”) is a pain, though.
• I have no idea what the “right” way is to carry this thing. My old phone, a Samsung A900, would have cost around $129 had it not been a gift from my lovely wife. You can see for yourself how much an iPhone will set you back. My point of course is that carrying the iPhone around with is sort of a scary affair, and there are some places I would just not be interested in taking it–like the beach or something. Maybe folks with Treos or Blackberrys feel similar?

All in all, good stuff. Where’s the 1.1 update? I want more stuff to tinker with.

After some handwringing and discussion, the iPhone came home with us on Saturday afternoon. I’ve had one full day to live with it–enough time to form that blissful first opinion, and here it is.

First of all, the buying experience associated with buying an iPhone is exhilarating. The overwhelming media blitz for this thing makes buying one feel more like buying a Lexus than a wireless phone. As I stood in line with three other people buying them, we were gazed upon by other Apple Store patrons. It was frankly a little unnerving. Also, each phone is packaged deliberately differently than the iPods, and is even given to you to take home in a specially designed cardboard “bag” with black ribbon drawstrings. Carrying it through the mall I realized just how different it would be using the iPhone: anyone under the age of 30 was peering down at it surreptitiously as I passed.

I: Activation

Despite the horror stories circulating after the release on the 29th, my iPhone activation took about 5 minutes including the “paperwork” and sync. The iTunes-based setup worked without a hitch, and I noticed that mine had even shipped with a full battery. I dropped a few albums on it and got ready to poke around a bit.

II: First details

The device itself is stunning. The iPhone is more diminutive than even its PR suggests, and it’s thinner than my 30 GB iPod 5G. It feels good in the hand, it at times a little awkward to hold. The screen is razor sharp and exceptionally bright, and displayed photos with startling sharpness. In the first ten minutes out of the box I was speeding through the UI with ease, zooming photos with the “pinch” for the amusement of my wife.

III: Wifi trials

Let’s start by admitting that EDGE is pathetic. Its download speeds approach dialup for most tasks, and are bearable really only for email. I’d hate to be forced to use the Google Maps app with anything other than pure wifi, which was my first struggle. I had a fair amount of difficulty getting the iPhone to see my Belkin 54G wireless router, and after three resets apiece I decided to walk down the street to see if iPhone could see my local coffee shop’s wifi. Inexplicably my router appeared as I rounded the stairs on our second floor, 30 feet from the router I’d previously been practically on top of. I’m still not certain what finally made the iPhone see my router, but it’s been seeing wireless networks all weekend now and joining them without complaint. Oh well. Being outside gave me a chance to sample call quality and the iPod feature.

IV: iPod and calls

As I bopped down to the coffee shop, I flipped through some albums in the iPod. Every aspect of the UI is gorgeous, even the plain vanilla (read: non-Cover Flow) list views. Menus float and glide as if real world objects, and there’s no detectable lag between finger gestures and the virtual controls. I settled on some Bjork to listen to, and seconds into the first track my wife called. The iPod seamlessly trimmed the volume down to zero, paused my music and asked me whether I wanted to take the call; being ever the UX developer I couldn’t resist a quick chuckle at the perfection that incoming call had triggered. In quick succession this tiny little gadget had made about five right decisions about my user experience. I accepted the call and was very pleased with the audio quality, especially over the included headset. I poked around the internet a bit over wifi, and was very pleased with Safari’s speed and responsiveness. Every mobile browser I’ve ever used has some quirks, but other than the lack of Flash support Safari doesn’t really have any. After a while you stop throwing websites at it expecting it to break or truncate your sites, a la Opera Mobile or the PSP browser. Soon, you’re just surfing and taking it for granted. Mission accomplished, Apple. Time for some email.

V: Email

When you sync iPhone for the first time, it attempts to copy your email accounts from Apple Mail. You’ll find that when you click (tap?) mail for the first time that it’s ready to go as long as there are working accounts on your Mac. Over wifi speed was excellent. There are a lot of complaints about the Mail app on iPhone, from the ordering of messages (new on top, and no you can’t change it) to the way it supports Gmail. None of those things bothered me as much as not being able to use the mail app in landscape mode like Safari. I’m hoping this works in future versions. Replying to mail is a breeze, and once you get used to the admittedly awkward keyboard you find you can tap out an email response with four or five complete (correctly spelled) sentences in about two minutes.

At the end of day one, I had sent an email browsed the web and even shot a picture or two. The camera is better than average, but still just a wireless phone camera lacking a few things–see number 1 here. I had yet to delve into some of the meatier apps like Google maps or the calendar. All that would happen on day two…

TO BE CONTINUED…

The stars and planets aligned today, and I found myself in the Apple store with my lovely new wife buying a lovely new iPhone. I’m exhausted from gazing upon the sheer glory of both today, but I promise a full report tomorrow replete with pictures. In a word: believe.

So, if you’ve had the misfortune of spending more than fifteen minutes around me lately my speech has probably sounded like the title of this post. For that, I would like to formally apologize. I had a three hour dream about the iPhone last night, a fact that actually makes me a little worried. It did make me some fried squid, in an apparent homage to the “calamari finder” television commercial.

But seriously, the iPhone fund is open for donations. I think we could make this a really funny internet meme. Like, there’ll be a picture of me looking sort of aloof and it will say, “I can has iphone?” or “My iphone: let me show you it. My iphone.” Then udnerneath a link to paypal where you can send me your dollar. It’ll be great. My poor wife–whom I have driven thoroughly insane with this quest, and who deserves the largest apology–thanks you in advance.

And probably doesn’t think this is funny at all.

As we open wedding presents, he scoots around cleaning up all our mess. I swear it’s better than kids.

Our little robot from littlerobothead on Vimeo

When Apple announced the iPhone, lo these many months ago, anyone who cared a whit about consumer electronics was floored. Anytime Apple puts its hand to just about any problem, people get floored. Everyone I knew began to conspire about just how they would get an iPhone into their hands in June. As time stretched on, the hype machine slowed to a crawl; Apple talked about other products, focus shifted, and the iPhone took a backseat to other product news. That hype that had been buzzing in the backs of our heads like too much caffeine was replaced by other things, and the iPhone became old hat. This caused some speculation on my part, having been in marketing and advertising, about just how Apple would restart the hype machine when the need arose. I have to admit I may have underestimated Apple this time around.

I’ve seen the new iPhone commercials. The Church of Jobs is open for business once again.

First of all, few companies could generate this much hype to begin with. Whipping the gadget press into this much of a frenzy, six months before a product launches or even has FCC approval? Pure Apple. I dare say there are some others who could turn on the charm for their device—Nokia, maybe—but Apple is the only one who can restart the machine merely by showing you the product working. That’s it. No tricks. No celebrities dancing with it, or Oprah putting it under your chair. A static tight shot of the device. Doing stuff. And that’s the essence of it right there. Any idea that you want the public to eat up with a spoon needs to be, to some degree, self evident. It needs to elicit the response “I never knew I even needed this until now.” Apple has this ability by the truckload.

I. Create a hammer for a thousand nails

Palm used to have it. The Foleo I wrote about previously is a perfect example of something that we didn’t know we needed, realized. The difference is that the niche is so small, the branding so narrow, that it’s easy to talk yourself out of it. Palm used to have an undeniable product that was small and engaging. In the early days, even 3Com didn’t really have all the answers about what it was for. The marketing materials and box copy hinted at the obvious things, but most of the truly novel ways people used Palm Pilots had nothing to do with their creators and everything to do with an enthusiastic community. This is, to a degree, why non-cellphone technology products with narrowly defined uses don’t go over very well. We want to use our gadgets for things they were never intended for, because it makes us feel connected and involved in the experience even if we can’t code a line. The Foleo, to beat a dead horse, doesn’t allow for that unless you’re willing to mod your kernel to boot from flash memory and risk fragging your new lappy in the process. The iPhone, with the addition of a few indie developers, is the platform of choice for people who want to make their own solution to some problem Apple hasn’t even thought of yet.

II. People don’t really need heroes

The television ads for Windows 95, while expensive, didn’t really put asses in seats as they say on the carny circuit. Most of them, and most PC advertising thereafter, showed incredible feats of world saving prowess; saving your company a gazillion dollars, rescuing world economies, lashing once broken families together again over a broadband line and a webcam. There’s just one problem: people are scared they can’t operate that hero computer. How do I do those things, they wonder, staring in amazement at the latest Vista whizbang tech. I have no idea what I would do in front of that computer. With iPhone, Apple’s new ads suggest, you don’t have to be a hero. You just use a map to find calamari. There is more tech in this Lilliputian phone than your tiny mind can ever comprehend, the iPhone confidently whispers, but all you need to operate your little slice of it is your finger. Sure there’s a god mode on here somewhere, but that’s for your nephew the hacker. For you? We have email. No heroes. No manual. Delicious, calming email.

III. That undefinable quality

After using and loving anything with an Apple logo on it for almost 20 years, I freely admit that part of the charm is something I can’t define. Beyond a certain point, I don’t know why my iPod is better than some Creative Labs chunk of plastic. It’s the sum of the parts, the UI, the finish, the “privilege of ownership.” Whatever it is, people want it. It’s the same reason Target is outselling WalMart. It’s a quality that in many ways outstrips our ability to analyze it. Of course Target is cleaner, brighter, and nicer. But look at the carts: molded handles, big wheels with sealed bearings. Would this ever factor into the business plan of a company whose mission was to beat WalMart? Probably not. And yet here it is. That little change helps you know that not only are you not in Kansas anymore, but Kansas is a greasy spot on the highway compared to here. And going back to Kansas is something you’ll pay a premium not to have to do anymore.

Good products are, less good products do. I want the product that manages to wedge itself into my life in ways that I never thought of, that simply exists in my space with me. I don’t want a product that does lots of things, and explains them all to me in explicit detail in the manual and in three languages. Companies are learning this slowly, with guys like Apple, Dyson and Ikea leading them.

After relative radio silence for a while, Palm has announced its newest device. The Palm Foleo is billed as a “smartphone companion”, and allows users of Palm’s popular Treo devices (and maybe others) to wirelessly sync all the stuff they have on their phones onto something a little easier to type on and read from. The Foleo sports a 10″ LCD, full size QWERTY keyboard and lots of other features for road warriors who do tons of email with a Treo-type device.

And I have to admit: this seems like a really nice sub-notebook for the very narrow demographic its intended for. It’s small, light, and has zero-startup time so you can rapidly check your email in line at the airport or in the back of a taxi and stow it away. However, I think it’s also susceptible to the “but where’s the” treatment from everyone else. I think a smart way to get around that stigma would be to do what Palm will likely do and aim this thing squarely at the same folks who buy Treos—corporate types with a huge need for constant email access.

But with all its neat features, even when aimed precisely at the domain where it might succeed, it reminds me of some other miracle convergence products that came and went with little fanfare—The 3Com Audrey, and to a lesser extent the PowerBook 2400.

When the Powerbook 2400 debuted in 1997, it was the ultimate subnote: fast, full(ish) sized keyboard, 10.4″ display. It was a huge hit in places like Japan where tiny laptops are still all the rage. In the states, however, where laptops of the day came with every option onboard or hot swappable the 2400 suffered and was cancelled a mere 8 months after its release. Something about trading in your peripherals for a tiny footprint, coupled with having to lug around a separate floppy drive and CD-ROM drive (and their attendant custom tether cable) was not so appealing. And I’m not saying that the Foleo is the same; but something about the brains of the computer being attached to your hip while all the display capability is in your briefcase seems a little schizophrenic to me.

The release of the Foleo is not the end of the story though, it’s the beginning. It’s an opportunity for Apple or some crazy Chinese manufacturer to release a tiny, flash based laptop that does everything a MacBook does but with zero startup time and a DVD drive. Slap a $799 price tag on it, take a $50 loss on each unit and you’re good to go. You’ve built a market on subnotes that only bloggers will buy that adds to your coolness factor, and pads your market cap nicely.

Now that I’ve sold my iPod Nano 2G along with my PowerBook G4, my thoughts naturally turn to what will replace it. And after rolling my eyes at the thought of the Shuffle I was presented with one recently, and found myself loving iPods all over again. I’m not sure why, but there’s something about getting surprised by this tiny little gadget that makes the experience fun again. In DC I existed between Apple’s earbuds and put miles on my New Balances with my iPod. It held my entire music library and allowed me to play the occasional movie file if need be. But it was all about the commute on public transportation there; now that I’m driving myself to work every morning watching videos is out of the question, as is searching through 5,000 mp3s.
And I really thought there must be tons of people out there with long commutes who thanked Apple and Sony daily for these gadgets that could entertain them with tiny movie clips. I was wrong. So now I’m thinking: yeah, a video iPod would be pretty kick-ass, but beyond the coolness of mere ownership I have no use for such an item. Will it be an engineering marvel? Of course. Just look at Apple.com to see some of the sheer genius these guys are capable of. For further proof, crack open a shippin (or even discontinued) Mac and look inside. Macs aren’t engineered so much as birthed. So the birth of the viPod will be cool, and I’ll belly up.
Until then I’m marveling at this Shuffle and how it manages to illicit hell yeahs from me every time I use it. ~

Such Great Heights Macs

There’s a bit of a flap going on in some circles over that commercial and this Postal Service video, and the similarities thereof. And I must say that there are some really remarkable similarities. This is what happens, I think, when technology becomes such an enabler in the creative process; it becomes more and more likely that two pieces of art will overlap in some ways because the time from concept to reality is so short. The tone of both pieces is what seems so similar to me. The notion of “love in the clean room” is such a space age concept with its hints of loneliness and, dare I say it, sterility.
Oddly, were it not for Apple’s products there would be no Dntel and therefore no Postal Service. And talk about getting mileage out of a record. Give Up came out in the last weeks of the Carter administration, and it’s still going strong.