Obligatory iPhone post

[chipotle]

As tugrik mentioned, I did indeed get an iPhone.

It’s almost superfluous at this point to describe it, in part because so many people had their minds made up about the thing before it shipped. The best comment I’ve seen was this, from Michael Mulvey:

Why there’s an iPhone craze:

This is real simple and doesn’t require a long-winded explanation.

Comments

[chipotle]

The "next generation" thought certainly came to mind, but for me, I knew it'd be a step up from everything I had regardless. I suspect the issues that are fixable in software will fixed be over time; I really don't have many issues with the hardware -- for all the whining that's gone on about them using AT&T's "slow" data network, for instance, it's actually been pretty usable, and it switches to wifi when it can.

One hardware problem that will annoy me, though? The earphone jack is recessed, which makes it impossible to plug in most headphones without an adapter. Whoever thought that was a good idea needs to be soundly beaten.

[ja_ren]

I'm sure it'll work just fine as long as you use Apple brand headphones.

[chipotle]

The Apple headphones do work with it, of course, although they've always had straight and thin plugs. Unfortunately, they've also always kind of sucked. :)

There are adapters out there, though, and I've heard tell of more than one person already who's carefully shaved away plastic on their existing headphone plugs to make them fit.

[ja_ren]

Bah. None of the really cool wireless devices ever get Canadian carriers. :/

Carrier Locking

[anonymous]

Unless Apple provides a mechanism for unlocking their phones, I have no interest in getting one purely for professional reasons. I work for Mighty Magenta (T-Mobile), and so I get my gadgetry at a fairly sharp company discount. The iPhone may indeed be the next great leap forward in terms of user interface, but if it doesn't work on my network it doesn't matter how great it is; I simply won't buy it.

Frankly, I think network-locking is one of the great crises of the cellular industry, and I expect there to be a lawsuit at some point in the future that says that locking a phone to a carrier is an anticompetitive practice in the same way that mandating that you use a Bell phone on the bell hardline system was. However, we're not there yet.

Kristy

Re: Carrier Locking

[chipotle]

I'd certainly have preferred an unlocked iPhone (or an unlocked any other phone). Unfortunately, the iPhone has one other gotcha in addition to that: like the T-Mobile Sidekick, it requires support hardware on the carrier end above and beyond just providing the network to get full functionality. I don't think it's quite as drastic about it as the Sidekick, but it's enough that it'd be a significant drawback.

I suspect eventually unlocked phones will become more of a norm here, but at this point, we don't even have a de facto standard for the network technology, which makes it somewhat problematic. I'm given to understand unlocked phones are more common in countries where nearly all of the carriers you're going to encounter are GSM.

Re: Carrier Locking

[chipotle]

I'm aware of some of the NSA issues, yes. My somewhat cynical observation is that having been in the (land-line) telephone industry during the '90s as an engineer, AT&T is simply the company that got media stories written about it. All those rumors about phone switches having back doors specifically designed for government wiretapping aren't just urban legend

[typographer]

Yes, but will it improve my curling score?

[chipotle]

Only if you get the optional Moderately Obscure Sports Package, I think.

[cerice]

I just knew you would not be able to resist......