Yesterday I jumped the fence and retired my defective Nexus One Google Super Phone for an Apple iPhone 4s 16GB. I did not get much time with it, but here are my extremely premature first impressions of the phone coming from a long time Android fan.
First, the notification bar, they copied this from Android because it's a darn good idea but they did not do as well with implementing it. In Android there are little icons on the bar that tell you there are notifications waiting, with iOS there is not. So for example, right now in my notifications I have 1 Facebook message, which I only know is there because I took the time to check. If I did not there is no visual indication that I have one waiting for me. Now the other place that notifications show is on the lock screen. Those are very nice, and I can see myself using them pretty heavily, but it does seem a bit odd that if the phone is locked I can read my texts just by glancing at them as the come in.
Speaking of odd security things, if the phone is locked, all the voice controls still work. This is a setting you can change, but by default it is enabled. This means I can pick up anyones iPhone 4s and tell it to send nasty text messages to their spouse, or get information about their contacts and meetings with out knowing their passcode. This should be disabled by default.
The voice control is a big step over prior generations, and Apple here shines in the way they do best. They rarely if ever invent anything, but they do take ideas and make them much better. Siri, which is the app that does the voice control, was a purchased program but I do not know what it was like before Apple got a hold of it. What I do know is that it works great. I really can say, Text my wife and tell her I will be late and the phone will do exactly that. I really struggle with voice controls in other mediums, such as Xbox 360, voice menus on phones, and even the voice to text on the Android phones. Computers never seem to understand me, but Siri does. I would currently guesstimate Siri at about 90% for correctly turning my voice into text. Siri does have a few limitations that I assume will be addressed later, for example they did not integrate it with Twitter so I can not say Send Tweet to or read me my latest mentions, both of which I would have expected to be there.
Installing software on it is Apple Easy. It is not that using the Android Market was all that hard, it just is that the Apple way is less clicks, less info dumps, more fire and forget. This is great for the average users, but I find it a bit annoying not knowing a bit more about what is happening. The same is true for iTunes syncing and backing up. I have not messed with iCloud because nothing else I run uses iCloud yet, but I suspect I will have the same feeling about it.
General usability is a bit odd to me. This is probably because I am used to thinking like an Android. For example, there is no shortcut that I can find to contacts, I just need to know that I have to go to the phone app, and then click on the contacts tab. Same appears to be true of voice mail, but I have yet to set that up so that might not be fair. Also the lack of a back button and lack of a context sensitive menu button leave me confused in some of the interfaces on how to move around. This will likely clear up as I get more used to the iOS way of thinking of interface.
The mail app on it is a bit different then that I am used to also. I have two Exchange email boxes set up on it. One is my Gmail account; the other is my Exchange account with my employer (Liberty University). They both work, but all email accounts share one mail icon on the screen so I can not tell which account has a new message. I am used to knowing at a glance which accounts have message waiting, so that will take some adjustment.
The phone is fast and things seem to flow well from click to click assuming you are actually clicking someplace that it expects you to. The screen is beautifully clear, not that my Nexus had a bad screen it also had a great one, but this one does edge it out ever so slightly.
One annoyance is I have yet to be able to figure out how much battery life I have left at any given time. Right now it is plugged in and charging, but I do not know how much it has left to go until it is done and during normal carry it around usage I do not know how to tell how much I have left.
I will skip any thoughts on the look, or how it feels in the hands, because I put mine in an Otterbox Defender case before I walked out of the store. The case is a bit bigger then I expected and might or might not keep it. I am leery of the full glass design of Apple and my habit of breaking things. So I might just have to deal with a bulkier phone then I am used to.
Today I plan to mess with the camera more and will post later how that goes. I also need to set up the voicemail and see how that works. I should probably try making a call or two with and see if it can do the job of a phone. I have been told that the grip of death issues are fixed in this model, bit since mine is in a case that does not apply so cannot say either way.
First, the notification bar, they copied this from Android because it's a darn good idea but they did not do as well with implementing it. In Android there are little icons on the bar that tell you there are notifications waiting, with iOS there is not. So for example, right now in my notifications I have 1 Facebook message, which I only know is there because I took the time to check. If I did not there is no visual indication that I have one waiting for me. Now the other place that notifications show is on the lock screen. Those are very nice, and I can see myself using them pretty heavily, but it does seem a bit odd that if the phone is locked I can read my texts just by glancing at them as the come in.
Speaking of odd security things, if the phone is locked, all the voice controls still work. This is a setting you can change, but by default it is enabled. This means I can pick up anyones iPhone 4s and tell it to send nasty text messages to their spouse, or get information about their contacts and meetings with out knowing their passcode. This should be disabled by default.
The voice control is a big step over prior generations, and Apple here shines in the way they do best. They rarely if ever invent anything, but they do take ideas and make them much better. Siri, which is the app that does the voice control, was a purchased program but I do not know what it was like before Apple got a hold of it. What I do know is that it works great. I really can say, Text my wife and tell her I will be late and the phone will do exactly that. I really struggle with voice controls in other mediums, such as Xbox 360, voice menus on phones, and even the voice to text on the Android phones. Computers never seem to understand me, but Siri does. I would currently guesstimate Siri at about 90% for correctly turning my voice into text. Siri does have a few limitations that I assume will be addressed later, for example they did not integrate it with Twitter so I can not say Send Tweet to or read me my latest mentions, both of which I would have expected to be there.
Installing software on it is Apple Easy. It is not that using the Android Market was all that hard, it just is that the Apple way is less clicks, less info dumps, more fire and forget. This is great for the average users, but I find it a bit annoying not knowing a bit more about what is happening. The same is true for iTunes syncing and backing up. I have not messed with iCloud because nothing else I run uses iCloud yet, but I suspect I will have the same feeling about it.
General usability is a bit odd to me. This is probably because I am used to thinking like an Android. For example, there is no shortcut that I can find to contacts, I just need to know that I have to go to the phone app, and then click on the contacts tab. Same appears to be true of voice mail, but I have yet to set that up so that might not be fair. Also the lack of a back button and lack of a context sensitive menu button leave me confused in some of the interfaces on how to move around. This will likely clear up as I get more used to the iOS way of thinking of interface.
The mail app on it is a bit different then that I am used to also. I have two Exchange email boxes set up on it. One is my Gmail account; the other is my Exchange account with my employer (Liberty University). They both work, but all email accounts share one mail icon on the screen so I can not tell which account has a new message. I am used to knowing at a glance which accounts have message waiting, so that will take some adjustment.
The phone is fast and things seem to flow well from click to click assuming you are actually clicking someplace that it expects you to. The screen is beautifully clear, not that my Nexus had a bad screen it also had a great one, but this one does edge it out ever so slightly.
One annoyance is I have yet to be able to figure out how much battery life I have left at any given time. Right now it is plugged in and charging, but I do not know how much it has left to go until it is done and during normal carry it around usage I do not know how to tell how much I have left.
I will skip any thoughts on the look, or how it feels in the hands, because I put mine in an Otterbox Defender case before I walked out of the store. The case is a bit bigger then I expected and might or might not keep it. I am leery of the full glass design of Apple and my habit of breaking things. So I might just have to deal with a bulkier phone then I am used to.
Today I plan to mess with the camera more and will post later how that goes. I also need to set up the voicemail and see how that works. I should probably try making a call or two with and see if it can do the job of a phone. I have been told that the grip of death issues are fixed in this model, bit since mine is in a case that does not apply so cannot say either way.
