NCKAer iPhone Users - How good is it?

I'm considering buying an iPhone for my wife and maybe one for me. 

How good does this forum work on the iphone?

Can you post report realtime with photos while fishing within range of the data signal?

Abman,

I don't have one but, man, I think you're looking for trouble using that thing out on the water.  At least for me, the risk versus reward isn't worth it.  If you've already got a phone, just get a decent waterproof camera and wait until you get home to post reports.  Just my $0.02.

Michael

I'm considering buying an iPhone for my wife and maybe one for me. 

How good does this forum work on the iphone?

Can you post report realtime with photos while fishing within range of the data signal?

I have wondered myself... Might borrow my buddies to see how well it works.  Personally wouldn't take it on the water, but thats because it's so expensive and not waterproof. 

I do know that it's one of the best hand held web browsers I have personally ever used.  But when it comes to phones, I'm cheap since I end up buying one every year it seems.  It would be nice however to get the word out while on site, like at MBK last weekend.  If someone had internet access, could have kept a few people in the loop about things like the camping situation, etc.

Personally wouldn't take it on the water, but thats because it's so expensive and not waterproof. 

My thoughts exactly.

Michael

I have one and this site works fine on it. I haven't tried to upload pictures to this site yet so I cant comment on that and I don't take it out on the water with me.  I have killed 2 other cheap cell phones that way. I think the i phone is great the 3G is fast and if you can connect to a wifi even faster.  My wife was originally going to get one so I went with her to order it and after messing around with it I had to get one too.

Interesting that you ask....I just picked mine up on Tuesday.

I haven't tried posting from it yet, but I have viewed the site.  Although it's not too bad it could definetely be a bit more iPhone friendly (hint Bill  ).  The problem isn't necessarily the site itself but viewing any site that has so much text and images on a relatively small screen like that is a bit of a challenge.  Moving from one page to another on a thread is tricky to get used to...the links show up pretty small and my fingers are a bit too fat I guess. Can you post a live report? Yes so long as you have a signal...but like the others I wont be taking mine out onto the water, instead when I'm fishing I'll be forwarding calls from the iPhone to the "beater" (aka work) phone.  Aside from that...what's the purpose of wanting to post a "live" report? Sure we're all one big happy family here at NCKA but it's not likely that someone is sitting there at the edge of their seat biting their nails and refreshing the screen every 3 seconds hoping that someone posts a new report.    Maybe that's an unpopular view of it, but it's mine..and it's coming from someone who spends a lot of time on the site.  Believe me, I really want to read a good report but I will just as readily read it a few days from now as I would if it were hot off the press.

Anyway...what do I think of the iPhone in general after only a couple of days?

Well, first I guess I shold say that while it is a "phone" that's really just a nice add on for me (I don't really like talking on phones).   I bought it for all of it's other features.  

1) I work in a place that is pretty secure (it's a place we all know and we all have a love/hate relationship with it) so I'm not able to use chat apps...I feel secluded from the world while I'm here...but I love the work I do.  So I needed a device that allows me to connect to chat apps without being on the internal networks.  I can now chat on any of the popular chat apps, I use Google Talk the most.

2) Like most of us I do a lot of traveling for work and for pleasure. I've never been to a lot of the places I go so I needed something to help me find my way but dont' want to have to buy a GPS device for the car.  I can now access Google Maps.  Sad thing is I miss having the woman telling me to "turn left".

3) I take my son to the park where he forgets I exist and so I sometimes just sit there doing nothing.  I wanted something to help keep me entertained.  I can check out YouTube videos, I can visit sites, I can check how bad my stocks are doing, I can listen to music, I can take pictures of my son and email them to my mom...and obviously there are quite a few other apps you can download for it to help keep you entertained.

4) I'm pretty forgetful so I needed something to help me with my scheduling and to keep notes.  You can do both with the iPhone.

The best part for me is that it's all in a single device and it fits in my pocket.    Of course you can do some of these things with other devices but they all lack one very important thing.... the cool factor  

One Wednesday night I was out at the Giants game in one of the Oracle level suites (their CIO spent a few minutes with  us talking about how they use technology in the park...simply amazing place) and everywhere you looked there was someone checking stuff out on their iPhones (they have a web site where you can almost instantly view replays and do a bunch of other cool stuff).

As you can probably tell so far I'm really enjoying the new toy, I would have a hard time going back to a "normal" phone....just like I would have a hard time going back to dialup.

A couple of somewhat negative things I can say though are that:
1) The battery drains super fast.  I have had to charge up every day, with my old phone I would charge up about every 3rd day.
2) 3G isn't as fast, or at least doesn't seem to be to me, as they claim.  Especially not when you read some of these posts where there are quite a few pics.
3) It supports SMS but doesn't seem to support multimedia messaging.

- The MFDT   

Angel, you didn't say how reliable phone service is. ATT/Cingular was terrible on my last phone. I'm wondering if they're any better on the I-phone.

Howard

Thanks Pacifico...

hojo, I've been using AT&T/Cingular since my first startac flip phone way back in the early 90's and never had a problem. Even when in Mexico and Canada. 

-- posted from iPhone

-- posted from iPhone

  Right on! I think I need one.

doesn't seem to do video and I haven't figured out how to zoom the camera.

I'm going to have to RTFM.

I just got back from ATT. This thing is sweet.   
I'm looking forward to reading some good butt reports later.

Posted from my new iPhone

I first want to qualify this:

 I don't live in the boonies (Fairfield), and I have been a ATT/Cingular customer since 1992 when it was Cellular One. I use my cellphone more than 3000 minutes a month, and send/recieve 400+ text/emails from my phone a month. I would like to say I had a bad iphone, but I took it in as defective and recieved another and it was worse. I now have an ATT Tilt, and while I'm not in love with it either, at least I get cell reception and a useable email system with Windows Mobile.


1. the battery is a joke, and is built in without a way to change it. (my #1 complaint- my Gen3 iPhony never made it thru the whole day without needing a mid-day charge). They say you can talk 5 hours on a charge, that is if you don't use anything else. I rarely got more than 2 hours before it was dead.

2. The touch screen SUCKS for calling people. You have to look at the screen, no more dialing by braille. If the person is in your call list, the scroll feature is nice, but you WILL have to re-input that data later (more later).

3. 3G internet access is marginal at best. You will be on Edge network most of the time, but still paying $30 a month to ATT for 3G unlimited data plan which you have to get, otherwise you WILL get the $400 phone bill. Then they have the nerve to charge $10 a month to text too?

4. YOU CAN'T CUT/COPY AND PASTE!!! What kind of RETARD thought this would work in the real world. See a cool link to a video, website or something else, you have to break out a PIECE OF PAPER and a PEN and write it down first.

5. I NEVER got 5 signal bars EVER, I got NO SIGNAL or one bar all the time.

6. No multi media emails. Everyone else will send them to you, you can't watch them or send them. Back to the 20th century again. Have they heard of MMS?  Return Reciepts for emails? Push email rarely worked.

7. The location of the ringer switch SUCKS. I can't tell you how many calls I've missed becasue I accidentally toggled the ringer switch to silent mode. It must be the switch's location or the way I hold it as I move it in and out of my pocket, but I accidentally flip that thing all the time.

8. Awkward keyboard, which is nearly impossible for me to type with. After 2 fingers are on the screen you cant see what your doing anymore. iPhone won't even work with gloves on.

9. No ability to create calendar events for any time other than in 5 minute multiples. ITunes loves to delete appointments, contacts, and emails from Outlook when ever it feels like it. It is possessed by Satan. It will make you FEAR sync-ing, which you MUST do daily at least or or iPhony will die from lack of power.
 
10. No VIDEO! 5 am on a Sunday morning 3 weeks ago we are stopping by my friends office to pick up his fishing license, and we see a couple of idiots trying to break into the building next door. I'm watching these idiots, my friend who is with me is calling 911 on his cellphone, he says " why don't you video it for the cops so they can use it in court?" My POS iphony doesn't DO video! Camera doesn't have a flash, either. Oops, I guess Apple didn't think I would ever need it. And it took a crappy pic of them thru the window, anyway.

11. GPS is not accurate and DEVOURS the battery. It wouldn't lock onto a signal many times for 15 minutes, then it would quickly lose it. I have an ATT TILT right now and it's GPS is at least is accurate.

12. Abominable call logging (bunches up multiple calls, I need to see each and every call, duration and time separately).

13. Can't use contacts from SIM directly, MUST copy to iphone contacts.  ( I hate ITunes!)

14.  Dropped calls galore, can't locate a signal, freezes, slow as sin phone call connection. Dial phone number, sit phone on seat, adjust everything in the truck, pick phone back up and it is still "connecting". I dropped a call 9 times between Vacaville and Davis on I-80/ I took that one back and they gave me ANOTHER NEW iphone.  I sold it on Craigslist to some poor sap for $400 cash + a NIB ATT Tilt. My Crackberry never dropped calls there, neither did my Nokia or does my new TILT.  But my unit lost all of it's programing which I had to reload at home, then re- input all my contacts and appointments by hand. ( Luckily, I got wise after the second time I had to do that and copied all data from Outlook to my laptop first. ) Itunes crashed multiple times, and had to be re-installed so many times I lost count.

15. I used to have a Nokia N70 and when I came home it would automatically sync via bluetooth when it was closed and I wouldn't have to wait as it was quick but the iPhony has to be put in the cradle and wait for itunes to load then wait for it to sync then backup so Nokia taking about 30 seconds and iphony taking 5 minutes if you didn't change anything today, longer if you did. You would think a "cutting edge" company like Apple would let their iphone do more with Bluetooth.

16. You know all those cool music devices made for the earlier versions of iPhone? They don't work with 3G. The cradle is different. I heard some companies have now made adapters, too late, I got rid of mine already.

17. Don't break your screen! A replacement for a refurbished one is $200, you don't know how that one was cared for. You go to the ATT or Apple store, they trade you out and charge your credit card. I saw some poor lady at the store get that bomb dropped on her. Phone is unuseable with a cracked screen.

18. The white Apple screen of death. Got it 6 TIMES. Say goodbye to EVERYTHING on your iphone. That is all I'm going to say.

My bitch list was so long, I barely got to play with the cool stuff the iphone was supposed to do.

At least ATT was pretty cool about switching over to another new phone, but it took hours of daily complaining with the help desk, and having the ATT Store manager getting sick of seeing me coming in to build a case.


Everything else was pretty cool, the zooming, scrolling... I just never got past the damn phone problems to enjoy it much.
 

Sure we're all one big happy family here at NCKA but it's not likely that someone is sitting there at the edge of their seat biting their nails and refreshing the screen every 3 seconds hoping that someone posts a new report.  

Oh really?????
Wait until you are laid up for a while and can't leave your house.        

damg troutnut! Sorry to hear you had so many problems....now you've got me a bit worried  So far so good though.  We'll see how it goes.