Help me Lazyweb, you're my only hope.

[caddyman]

This is a quick question to those of you who have an iPhone and I know that there’s at least one of you out there on my friends’ list!

Are they worth the effort? I discovered over the weekend that I am well past my contract renewal with O2 (which is odd, as I am normally champing at the bit for a new phone if I can get it for free, but November came and went and I never noticed this time around). Anyway, if I read the O2 website correctly, one of my options would be a free upgrade to an iPhone – another option would be to go for something less fancy on a cheaper contract than I’m currently on and I may opt for that, but I have to confess to being beguiled by the thought of an iPhone.

So, are they worth having, I know they look plush and at least pretend to do lots of things, but what are the pros and cons from people who have used one? Is the G3 version any use, or is that a step further than people have experience of? I briefly tried a G3 phone about 4 years ago on 3 pay as you go but wasn’t impressed by the fact that if you paid £30, it was time limited and if you hadn’t used £30 worth of calls/features, it was cancelled at the end of a set period and you had to stump up more dosh. Plus the fact the phone was big, clunky and G3 was only properly available at that time in a few areas (a bit like Mercury in the early 90s, if you remember them before they became T-Mobile).

I assume that now things have moved on and O2 are big enough to have coverage for at least phone calls over the bulk of the UK (not St David’s though, as I recall from my lack of 2G signal and _tonylee_’s mounting horror with his iPhone.

Advice appreciated, Lazyweb. You are, as usual, my only hope.

Comments

[nortysarah.livejournal.com]

I absolutely love mine. It's great being able to have a variety of games and podcasts on the phone for tube trips, then have a map of where you're going when you get out the other end.
When you go away, you can download pretty much anything you want to know about your destination and I also use it for keeping track of my blood sugar.
It tells me what the weather's going to be like, if there are delays on the tube, recipes for my dinner and I can record things on Sky from there too.

The only 2 downsides are - the battery life is pretty appalling. Approx 1 day depending on how much video / animation I watch. And you can't copy and paste.

I would advise anyone to get one as they're very easy to use and if something goes wrong, you go into Apple, they look at it and either fix it or give you a new one. No questions asked.

[jfs.livejournal.com]

Copy and paste (which should have been there months ago) is part of the iPhone OS 3.0, which should be available for free to all iPhone users in the next month or so.

[jfs.livejournal.com]

If you are getting an iPhone, hang on a couple of weeks. The rumour mill says that Apple are likely to announce a new model at their development conference, which is 8th - 12th June.

Depending on the price plans they announce, I'll almost certainly be getting one then.

[mathcathy]

I've heard these rumours too - and I work for a mobile phone operator. So definitely hang on a week or three.

Also, I've got the impression that nothing that we have introduced as an iPhone competitor has come anywhere near the iPhone in quality and flexibility. Well worth it if you want the features.

And 3G is way way better than it used to be - most mobile phone operators offer decent mobile broadband over 3G these days.

[maleghast.livejournal.com]

Well...

If you want / need a mobile device that has an always-on internet connection (network permitting) and you would use all that data bandwidth if only you had access to it, then there is (in my humble and admittedly biased opinion) no better device on the market than the iPhone.

There is one downside... If you are going to use the iPhone to listen to music on your commute, do some twittering, read some email and a few other things, not to mention making a couple of actual calls, then it will require a charge per 24 hours if you use it as an alarm clock and want it ready to go in the morning, or very 48 hours if you are going to turn it off at night. This does not bother me, as when I climb into bed I plug it in and hey presto it wakes me up in the morning with a full battery.

Other than that, this is the only phone I have ever had that continued to make me happy after a week of owning it, and in fact it still makes me feel a little bit happy every day, and it's been over a month so far...

[maleghast.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, and what jfs said - wait for the new phone; if there had been rumours when I got mine, I would have waited too...

[snorkel-maiden.livejournal.com]

I'm a fan too. There are a couple of little niggles which I think are software things more than anything- the battery indicator has a tentative relationship with reality and some websites are guaranteed to make the browser crash, but they really are minor niggles and don't detract from it, overall.

A couple of things that are missing that I'd like- copy and paste (but see above), the ability to forward one contact's details on to another contact (you don't miss it till it's not there, especially with friends like my Jennie who is constantly losing phones and rings me once a week to ask for someone's number).

Also agree with Olly's comment about the overall battery life, but that's part and parcel of it having such a big and pretty screen and so many features. Beware if you download lots of apps because some of them suck battery at a truly alarming rate.

Overall, yes. Very much yes. Just get a USB charger for your work PC and another one for at home and you'll be fine. Speaking of which, I need to plug mine in!

[budgie-uk.livejournal.com]

Just get a USB charger for your work PC and another one for at home and you'll be fine. Speaking of which, I need to plug mine in!

I bought the charger/socket combination and use that at home and at work. Only plug into laptop computer at home when I actually want to sync.

[budgie-uk.livejournal.com]

Are they worth the effort?

Yes

(But I'd wait until they release the new one.)