Trey Connell

Today is my dad’s birthday so I decided to post a video of his granddaughter having a good time in celebration (well, we’ll pretend she actually knows it’s his birthday).  I used my new iPhone 3Gs since I didn’t feel like busting out the regular video camera and going through all the importing and exporting jazz.

I have to say I’m a bit surprised. Even after exporting from iPhoto and using MPEG Streamclip to convert it to flash format, the video doesn’t look half bad at only 3 Mb in flash format and 640 x 480 resolution.

Take a look:

I’ve noticed that iPhone and iPhone 3G owners are obsessive about the case they use. I’ve seen some people who own up to 30 cases and seem to find something not quite right about all of them.

I’ve purchased my fair share of iPhone cases over the past couple of years, and I’ve never found one I really liked. They were either really great looking and didn’t protect my phone worth a shit, or they were plain and boring but provided good insurance against my tendency to drop things.

A couple of weeks ago, I purchased the iPhone 3G Metallic Slim Fit Case by More. This is the best iPhone 3G case I’ve owned so far. With the included Mirror Screen Protection, your iPhone 3G becomes like a tiny flat version of that huge metallic bean in Millennium Park in Chicago. Wait, that doesn’t sound very cool. OK, it looks like it’s made out of that same liquid metal goo in Terminator 2. But without all the death and destruction.

I guess the only way to really show you what it looks like is to give you real pics of mine in action.

Front View - iPhone Off	Front View - iPhone On
Back View	Thumbprintage

 
Ain’t it shiny??? The only negative I’ve found regarding the look is the mirrored screen protector tends to collect fingerprints. I find myself constantly wiping the surface to keep it nice and clean.

I admit I haven’t thrown my iPhone 3G to the floor in an attempt to test the protection provided by the case (don’t hold your breath – it’s not that kind of review), but the construction of the case strikes a nice balance between rigidity and softness. I don’t worry about it scratching the back of my iPhone 3G, but I think it would easily protect it from normal falls or other accidents.

If you’re looking for a new case for your iPhone 3G, then I highly recommend the metallic slim fit case from More. Go pick one up!

The iPhone’s version of the Safari browser was designed to let you surf web sites as if you were in a normal browser on a normal computer.  It brings the “real Internet” to a handheld device.  That being the case, I don’t understand all these sites springing up with “made for iPhone” designs where you get a slimmed down version of the real site and in all the cases I’ve seen, far less features.

I wanted the iPhone so I could do everything I can do in my laptop’s web browser (and for various other reasons).  For the most part, I don’t want to see a pocket version of a site.  There are exceptions such as sites that focus on news content where I can see headlines in a quick fashion and without all the other clutter.  I must admit that is handy.  However, my advice to those sites is this:  If you’re going to iPhone-ize your site, provide a link to view the original web site as well.  You might be surprised how many iPhone users click on that link.

I was so excited to get an email notifying me that the iPhone 2.2 Software Update was available.  My excitement quickly vanished when I read the list of new features:

iPhone Tethering Coming Soon

AT&T officially announced that you’ll be able to tether your iPhone to your laptop “soon”.  Tethering allows your iPhone to act as a wireless modem so you can access the Internet anywhere you have EDGE or 3G access.  I used to tether my old MotoRazr constantly back in the day, and it’s always boggled my mind as to why AT&T hasn’t offered that capability for iPhone users.

Two things I haven’t been able to find out:

1. Is AT&T going to have to bulk up its network in order to handle the demand?
2. Will there be an additional monthly fee, or will the normal “unlimited data” iPhone plan cover wireless modem usage?

I’ve finally started seeing some of the dropped call and connection quality issues that other users of the new iPhone 3G are experiencing.  I don’t know who I’m supposed to blame at this point, but I am not amused.  I really hope there are plans to fix this problem quickly.

Apple admitted there are issues with the new iPhone 3G concerning connectivity and released version 2.0.2 of the iPhone software this week. The update was to address the issues with connecting to a 3G network, but the description in my iTunes for the update was “Bug Fixes”. I don’t know what that really means and haven’t felt like taking the time to dig around and find out.

As I sit in my office, I have 2 bars and am connected to the 3G network. Of course, as I said in a previous post, I can talk on my iPhone in this very room with no problem at all.

Apparently the natives are getting restless. There have been widespread complaints to both Apple and AT&T with no action or acknowledgement since the iPhone 3G came out. Now an Alabama woman is suing apple for failing to live up to the “twice as fast at half the price” promise.

I’ve had my iPhone 3G for a few weeks now, and I’ve noticed something very strange. I rarely have full signal according to the bars on the phone. However, I’ve not had any problems with dropped calls or sketchy service. It’s like the phone doesn’t know how strong my signal is.

I’ve heard of others having connectivity problems and claiming the 3G connection is no faster than their old EDGE connection. Thankfully I haven’t seen that yet. I compare load times for web sites with my wife’s original iPhone, and my iPhone 3G always loads them much faster when I’m in a 3G area.

I just discovered a feature that came in the iPhone 2.0 software upgrade that might trump all other new features for me. You can now delete multiple emails at one time. This is HUGE for me as I get a lot of emails from our monitoring systems, and I also do not check email on my iPhone constantly when I’m on the go. So after two or three hours of being “offline” I may have 200 emails to go through. Being able to bulk delete everything I know I don’t need to read is fan-friggin-tastic.

So how do you take advantage of the multiple delete goodness? When you’re looking at your list of emails, tap the Edit button in the upper right. Then simply start tapping the circles next to each email you want to torch and then tap the delete button at the bottom when you’re finished. It is so much faster than sliding your finger across individual emails and tapping delete.

I decided to go with direct fulfillment in order to get my grubby hands on one of the new iPhones. The past Monday I finally got the call from my local AT&T store. My iPhone 3G had arrived!

First, it does look a bit sleeker than the old iPhone but there’s not really a big enough difference in appearance to rave about. Second, 3G is GREAT. Many of the applications can use your current location to make doing things more efficient – such as listing movie theaters near your location. There’s a really big difference in how fast you can use those applications from EDGE to 3G.

The GPS is indeed very cool although I’ve only played with it and have had no real reason to use it yet.

All in all, I’m happy with the upgrade.  There are a few features such as video chat that I wish they would have included. I was also rather disappointed there is still no copy and paste.  I mean c’mon Apple…

I didn’t feel like going to the local AT&T each day in the hopes that I’d get lucky and find the 16Gb black iPhone that I want, so I decided to go ahead and do the “direct fulfillment” option. The nice folks at the store told me it would be 10 to 21 business days before my new iPhone arrived from Apple and that I would get an email when it shipped. I would then have a week to pick it up once it arrived in the store. All that is just fine by me. I didn’t have the energy to go to the store multiple times a week and chase down a phone. I mean – the new iPhone is cool, but it’s not cool enough to cause complete inconvenience.

I’ve determined that the best thing about the release of the iPhone 3G is not the device at all. It’s the application store that Apple has introduced and included in the iPhone 2.0 software update. I spent some time Saturday browsing through the applications and games, and there really is some useful stuff out there. Here’s a list of what I’ve installed so far:

1. AIM
2. Twitterific
3. Aurora Feint
4. Cro-Mag Rally
5. WeatherBug
6. MySpace
7. Remote
8. eBay
9. Jott
10. YPmobile
11. Where
12. Google Mobile
13. PhoneSaber
14. Pownce
15. Shazam
16. ShoZu
17. IGN Reviews