Well, it’s been an interesting afternoon of putting off real work in order to get the iPhone 2.0 software update running, reloading all of my data and taking a tour of the newly available applications.
With the release, a few new useful tidbits have surfaced, and I’m sure we’ll be discovering a lot more in the days to come, but the most basic interesting one that I’ve come across so far is the ability to take screen shots of your iPhone. Hold down the Home button and click the power button (the one on the top of the iPhone) and your screen is now an image in the camera roll. Cool, simple and useful - especially for the legions of product reviewers that will be going crazy over the next few weeks.
I admit that once I heard that the App Store was available, I was over in an instant and downloading applications left and right (OK - mostly the free stuff) even before I had the ability to run them
So here’s a quick tour of my impressions of things I’ve run tried in the last couple of hours while poking around.
Exchange integration
Wow. That was absolutely painless. From the iPhone, Settings > Mail, Contacts and Calendars > Add Account… Select Exchange, enter your account info (including the domain name prefix) and if it can’t find your server automatically, a new field will pop up and ask you for the server name. Connected in less than a minute and push mail working flawlessly.
Now I was worried after reading the comments from Walt Mossberg’s review that this would overwrite all of my contacts and calendar data, but the default options make the correct choice. Setting up the account syncs only the mail data by default. You have the option with the regular iPhone ON/OFF buttons to have the connection auto-sync your calendar and contact information. So I can delete my IMAP connection and get on with life.
It’s also worth noting that I set this up while in the internal office wifi connection, but then tested the push functionality on my way home via the EDGE connection and it works perfectly. As long as your network administrator has properly set up a split DNS so that you use the same name for your mail server internally and externally you should be fine. Now the only question that remains is how badly this will impact the battery life.
So I have some work cut out for me in order to setup the necessary links between my personal calendars and the work calendars. Updates coming as I figure out the best way to manage that.
NetNewsWire
Very very nice first release. An excellent compromise between the current iPhone web interface and the desktop version. Text and layout well optimized for reading. A few things that feel odd with it, now that I’ve become accustomed to the web interface is that when you tag stories as read, they don’t disappear immediately. On the one hand, it clutters things up with the old stories, but then again, it leaves you the option to go back and look at stuff you passed over quickly while in triage mode. Overall a winner, especially when you factor in the sync services. Excellent job keeping things in the application - no need to exit to Safari to see the original web pages, but the option is there if desired.
There are still some bugs to work out like the fact that all articles are displayed as being posted January 1, 1970 and I’d like to see the unread articles float to the top of the list instead of being in chronological order, by source in aggregate lists.
It gets a spot on my dock. In fact, given my priorities, it replaces the telephone application.
Remote from Apple
I’ve been beating on Apple to do this for a long time, and I’m glad to see it done and done well. If only the iPhone and iPod Touch had included an IR transmitter, they could have done away entirely with the horrible universal remote market. Although there’s still room for an enterprising engineer to find a way to connect an IR transmitter to the dock connector… Dr. Bott, FastMac, Belkin, Kensington, you guys listening?
Shazam
I’ve been waiting on this one for a while. It’s the magical app that listens to the song on the radio that the announcers refuse to tell you the name. It does some compression and analysis to define a signature, sends it off to the internet and comes back with all the information regarding the song. As always, it works best for mainstream commercial music (my Canadian Indy bands don’t get recognized). My only issue is that after trying to recognize too many independent artists it just crashes after each connection attempt. I’ll try again tomorrow and see if it’s any happier.
A really nice example of a lightweight local client that makes the experience of interacting with an online service a pleasure. You have to note that the current iPhone web optimized interface for Facebook is really really well done and head and shoulders above most other web interfaces, but the advantage of the local data store, the rapidity of getting into the application make this a must have for Facebook users. Also very nice is the built-in Facebook chat.
AIM
It looks like it’s pretty nice, but since I have nobody in my chat list it’s hard to tell how well it works.
NYTimes
I’m not sure that this is a very useful application for me since I’m subscribed to all of the interesting feeds via RSS, but it’s always nice to pick up a paper from time to time just to skim over things that I wouldn’t otherwise see popping up in my personal selection of RSS feeds. That said, it’s having some massive issues in loading content. I started it up while on the office wifi connection and left it running for a few minutes and I still have no articles. All the screen shots I’ve seen look well designed and useful. Hmm. tried on the train, tried at home and still no articles. Strange.
Next day, still nothing usable in the interface for the moment. Hmpf. I’ll try reinstalling to see if that corrects things.
[Update: it appears that the NYTimes app will only work if your date/time localization is set to US. Settings > General > International > Region Format]
Games
OK - I broke down and bought a couple of games, mostly to show off the ability of the iPhone to colleagues and I think that’s sold at least 4 iPhones just today.
Super Monkey Ball
After the demos at the keynote, how could I not buy this one as the perfect example of how far you can push an iPhone application? It’s fun, it’s surprisingly challenging, and it’s freaking amazing that this is running on a device that is marketed as a phone. It’s a bloody console game that loses nothing by being on the iPhone. Recommended for blowing people’s minds, especially those who are impressed by the Labyrinth demo on the HTC Touch.
Enigmo
And for impressing your more cerebral friends, this one rocks. Devilishly challenging, you get sucked in and lose track of time. This morning’s train ride went by and I didn’t even notice.
Side note on the games: These things will suck your battery dry, so I reiterate the need to keep your charger nearby and to seriously look into an external battery pack. That said the following game doesn’t eat your battery.
Advent
OK - this one had me laughing out loud, literally. How could I not download the application that begins with the classic line:
You are standing at the end of a road before a small brick building. Around you is a forest. A small stream flows out of the building and down a gully.
If this means nothing to you, that’s OK, but to all of us that cut our teeth on UNIX terminal sessions, this was the first role playing game worth playing. Unfortunately, the implementation isn’t really optimized for the iPhone as you have to give textual commands and the keyboard keeps popping up and going away and it only displays the current screen’s description. This goes against the classic interface of a 300 baud terminal with a roll of paper going out the back so you could consult the history of your actions.
Stephen, if you could just release a “classic” version with nothing but the keyboard and a scrolling screen above it, that would rock. Maybe with a perforated paper feed and clattering print heads to add to the authenticity…
Aurora Feint
Another freebee and one that’s worth downloading. A straightforward align the blocks type game that’s really nicely done. If you want to show off a game without paying for one of the flagship products, this is an excellent choice.
Mobile News
Nice simple approach to presenting articles, but relatively slow. Given all the other available sources of news, this one probably won’t stick around for very long.
Lame: Spinner Prologue
A very basic navigation game that’s, well actually pretty boring. The good point is that it’s free, but there are better free games out there and much more compelling cheap games. Don’t bother.
Missing In Action: iChat
Where in the world is iChat in the midst of all this? Sure, I can use AIM with my .Mac/MobileMe account, but where’s iChat? I want my Jabber fix!
Missing In Action: 1Password
I hear that it’s coming along and I can’t wait. I just hope that they find some way to interface gracefully with all of the various native iPhone applications as it’s a little painful to be entering highly complex long passwords into each and every application that has an online component.
Missing In Action: Google
Now this is an odd one that I still don’t understand, but the Google client is available on the US App Store but not in France. I’d really like them to just release it everywhere even if the autocomplete stuff isn’t localized.
Missing In Action: Shoot-em up space game
Remember the demo that Scott Forstall did at the SDK launch? Why didn’t that get developed into a freeware game?