3G iPhone: One Week Review

July 19th, 2008

After a week of reasonably heavy 3G iPhone use, I’m ready to amend my previous “initial thoughts” review. Some of my concerns have subsided, while others remain.

The UI (keyboard) and one-hand use: I’m definitely getting better with the UI, specifically the keyboard, and using the phone with one hand.

I still have some little nit-picky issues with the UI:

  • Not sure why when you’re at the end of a list and continue to scroll beyond, there’s a “snap back” effect, or when you’re at the last screen of apps and try to go beyond. Seems pointless. Similar behavior occurs on web pages where you can pull it to the left or the right when there’s nothing beyond any of the edges.
  • No cut and paste. Makes sending links via Twitter or pasting stuff into emails very difficult.
  • I have noticed a bit of a lag at times when I open the contact list to make a phone call. There’s a brief pause before you can interact with the list.

But in general, as I get more comfortable with the device and how to navigate it, it’s feeling more like home and I’m enjoying it more and more.

Coverage: I still can’t get reception in parts of our apartment, but everywhere else, namely San Francisco proper and even on the CalTrain, the “EDGE” coverage has been totally fine. 3G doesn’t seem to be as ubiquitous as I initially thought it would be, however. So my strategy has been to rely on EDGE and fall back to WiFi whenever possible, and not count on 3G.

Issues remaining: Battery life has been iffy, although performance improves immensely by turning many services off:

  • Go to Settings > Fetch New Data. Turn Push off. Set Fetch to Manually.
  • Go to Settings > Wi-Fi. Turn Wi-Fi off when not in use. Turn Ask to Join Networks off.
  • Go to Settings > General > Network. Turn Enable 3G off when not in use.
  • Go to Settings > General > Bluetooth. Turn Bluetooth off when not in use.
  • Go to Settings > General. Turn Location Services off when not in use.

Basically when all this stuff is off, my phone lasted a full work day an then some with sporadic use. My plan is to turn these functions on one by one to see which ones really kill the battery. I have feeling it will be the 3G and GPS.

Anyhow, my concerns about the battery are fading as I get more familiar with the device and how much I’ll actually use it on a daily basis.

Overall I’m very happy with the 3G iPhone. A huge reason are the apps which I’ll discuss in a future post. Plus, the device and its implications for mobile computing has me reconsidering my blogging workflow. I may be making some changes to the layout on this site to feature the “mobile-microblogging” side of the iPhone via Twitter. Stay tuned…

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Viewing 4 Comments

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    The fact that you're almost never getting 3G leads me to think that the 3G radio is definitely eating your battery more than it normally would. I get a strong 3G signal most of the day, and my battery is not dying that fast, even with all my services on.

    Having said that, 3G is nowhere near as ubiquitous, even here in the city, as it should be. There are parts of downtown where I get bumped to EDGE, let alone in the outlying neighborhoods. AT&T needs to get on that.

    GPS has been shown to be the biggest battery drain, from other articles I've read. I hate to turn it off, because so many cool ape depend on it, but I may have to eventually.

    Totally agree on the sluggishness issues. The Original iPhone did not have this problem. Sometimes, when I hit Contacts, it'll just get stuck for several seconds. Unacceptable. Hope there's a fix soon. Can't be a third-party app, since they can't run in the background. My guess is that it's related to Push.

    I actually like the rubber band effect. Let's you know that you're at the end of a page, and also let's you know your input was accepted. Otherwise, you might think the touch screen wasn't reading you.
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    Yeah it could be the 3g or possibly the gps. Some apps may turn on the
    location and it remains on. But right now the battery is lasting long
    enough to where I'm satisfied.

    Interesting that you noticed sluggishness also, hope a 2.0.1 update
    will fix that.
    • ^
    • v
    Keep looking on it as I very interested to get a iphone.
    • ^
    • v
    Finally the much awaited and rumoured iPhone 3G has been released and I think this phone is fabulous indeed! The new 3G connection will be roughly 2.8 times as fast as the Edge wireless connection on the original iPhone. Also support for GPS hardware, a curved all-plastic backing and a flush headphone jack rather than the recessed jack makes this iPhone the best of all phone for me.
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