Still liking my iPhone 3G...

I've had my iPhone 3G for almost a month now and I'm still happy with it despite a couple minor issues -- battery life and occasional freezing that requires a manual reboot.  The battery life on the phone seems to have gotten better with age.  I still mainly run on the EDGE network (3G disabled unless I need it on the road) and I don't make calls too often.  So over the past week, my battery life at the end of a long day is still around 40-50% of full capacity.

Many people would be disappointed by a phone who's battery life is half gone in a day, but it's better than my crappy old Sprint Motorola Q.  I really hated that phone, but apparently the newer version are much more solid (according to my CEO).  Now those old Motorola StarTacs were solid phones.  However, back then phones were simpler and were mainly just for phone calls on the road.

The thing that I love about the iPhone is that it offers a fair number of features while still remaining simple and easy-to-use.  It's the iPhone's touch-screen user interface that does it for me.  People can always argue that the iPhone lacks this or that, such as a removable battery or memory expansion slot, but I can deal with those shortcomings because I'm able to do everything faster on the iPhone.

I recently also got my work's Cisco VPN connection configured on the iPhone.  It was very easy to setup once I got the correct group secret password from our IT guy.  Interestingly, the VPN connection seems to more reliably connect on my phone than my computer (I'm guessing it's because of Vista).  Setting up the VPN configuration was one of the last things I wanted to do with the phone, and I think I'm set to do whatever I want with this handy little device now.

Now I just hope that Apple and AT&T continue to work towards resolving the 3G issues.  While in Berkeley yesterday afternoon, I was able to get great 3G coverage and browsing the web on the phone was a breeze.  I was actually surprised at the speeds I had (~800Kbps down).

Only other thing that would be really nice for iPhone users is copy/paste functionality.  I found this article interesting, it's about how Apple had touch-screen copy/paste 15-years ago: http://www.boingboing.net/2008/09/07/apple-solved-touchsc.html.

So I bought an iPhone 3G...

When the iPhone 3G was announced, I was excited and looking forward to getting it. I knew that by the time it was released, my Sprint contract would be expired so there would be no early termination fee. However, I was concerned about joing AT&T because I really can't stand their customer service. I went through a bad experience with them late last year where I had the original iPhone temporarily until I just couldn't tolerate the extremely poor customer service and decided to cancel our account.

This time around I've avoided AT&T as much as possible. I went and bought my iPhone 3G from the Apple store instead of an AT&T retail outlet. I first attempted to purchase the phone a week after it was released; that was a bad idea. I waited in line for 2 hours only to get nothing, the store ran out of phones. Afterwards, I started reading more and more about negative experiences people had with their new iPhones, so that made my doubt whether I really wanted this cool, new device.

Well, despite the iPhone 3G criticism and complaints on the Internet, I went to the mall early this past Sunday and picked up the phone. I decided that I just couldn't resist the urge of this shiny new gadget and I was tired of having terrible cell service at home with Sprint. I figured that between my wife and I that at least one of us should be able to consistently make a call.

With my new iPhone 3G, I've already installed a variety of free apps from Apple's AppStore, but last night I went ahead and jailbroke the phone as well. There are a lot of other cool apps you just can't get through Apple and you have the ability to further customize the appearance of the interface as well. These other apps are installed via the Cydia application.

I downloaded the PwnageTool v2.0.2 from here. I also found reviewing this step-by-step helpful even though the PwnageTool is straighforward to use: http://lifehacker.com/398906/jailbreak-iphone-20-with-pwnagetool.

Using the Winterboard app (which requires a jailbroken iPhone), I can change the "theme" of the UI, including background and icons. It's nice to add a personal touch to things, which I typically do to my cars as well. I currently have several themes downloaded to the phone and I still have to go through all of them to figure out which ones to keep and which to delete.

Another app I've installed after jailbreaking is BossPrefs, which provides direct access to enabling or disabling 3G, EDGE, WiFi, Bluetooth, and more without having to go through Settings > General > Network, etc.

The BossPrefs also allows me to quickly turn on or off SSH access to the phone. SSH access is another side benefit of jailbreaking your iPhone. You just need to install the OpenSSH application, which I think is actually installed by default, then you can SSH into your iPhone! This is great because you can then easily browse the files on your iPhone from a computer and do a lot of other cool stuff. I have yet to really play with this capability, but I hope it becomes an easy way to transfer data back and forth from the iPhone if necessary using something like WinSCP or similar.

Overall, I'm happy with my purchase. It's a fun little gadget, essentially a mini-computer in your hands. What I like the most about the iPhone (original and 3G versions) is that web browsing is so much easier compared to any other phone on the market. The user interface is just so much better than anything else available. However, I still have had the phone freeze up on me a few times where a manual reboot was necessary to get it working again. These "freezes" have occured when trying to run apps from Apple's AppStore! So the iPhone 2.0 (now 2.0.1) software is a little buggy, but it's not enough to keep me from enjoying my new toy.