Thread: Apple iPhone

Enthusiasm surrounding the iPhone launch faded when Vodafone and Airtel announced the price that would accompany. Add to that the fact that it was operator locked. But we had the world's most desired phone and so we decided to get to the core of this Apple. The Apple iPhone 3G is available in black (8116GB) and white (16GB). The brushed metal back of the phone has been substituted with curved glossy plastic.

Much has been said about its 3G ability, but we will have to wait a bit longer to get the full impact here in India. This left Wi-Fi and EDGE as our only browsing options. The phone has a built-in GPS receiver with A-GPS support (which uses data gathered from nearby cellphone towers to triangulate your position and, in conjunction with the onboard GPS chips, get a much faster fix). This did a fair job and locking the signal took a mere 15 to 25 seconds, unlike other GPS phones which normally took 5 minutes. The Google Maps software, however, still does not support turn by turn navigation, so it's still not as good as a full¬fledged GPS device. We hope more apps are developed in the near future for better navigational experience. Bluetooth support is still restricted to mono headset only; and we can't use it for streaming stereo audio or transferring files.

The good news for corporate users is that it supports Microsoft Exchange Server. Now, we can delete or move more than one, but there is still no search option. We can also view office documents like PDF but there is no editing option. The CopyjPaste function is still missing here. The threaded messaging is intuitive but message forwarding, MMS and deleting a single message are not an option. We cannot understand why Apple hasn't included these features, as they are standard across all cell phones available in the market, and indeed, for many years even.



The Indian App and iTunes Stores are accessible either from iTunes or the phone itself. We had never seen such tight pairing between a device and an online application service. The App Store has thousands of free and paid applications and signing up for this service requires a credit card number. You will not be charged unless you chose a paid service or app. A paid app can be authorized on any five computers. The apps will keep you busy and new ones are added almost daily. However, after synching the phone with iTunes, thirdparty apps failed to load with the firmware. But the newest 2.1 update available only with iTunes 8.0 seems to have fixed that issue.

The interface is one of the best we've seen but multitasking posed a problem. Switching to other applications requires you to close any open application. It has outstanding reception quality and the battery lasted 2.5 days with normal usage. The multimedia experience as a whole is top-notch. Watching video on the big screen will soon make you forget your other portable media player. Playing multitouch or accelerometer based games like iPint or Labyrinth is a great experience. But we still missed FM radio and knowing Apple, it's unlikely we will ever have it. The 2MP camera is still not impressive. But it supports Geotagging, as well as uploading the images. The package includes a wired stereo headphone with built-in mic, a data cable, a charger, a quick manual and a screen cleaning cloth. The iPhone 3G offers the best entertainment we have ever seen on a cell phone.