Date: 2009-01-14 20:16:48 Created: null
There is little to surprise you when you come to the iPhone from a iPod touch. Calling is nice, as is GPS and the other differences, but they all you know ... just work the way you expect them to. Which is all good.
The physical feel of the devices is rather different though. The touch, being thinner and having a back of metal, feels more solid and wonderfully slim. Something in the way of the Macbook Air. The iPhone by comparison makes me think of the iBooks; a rugged plastic mobile device made for being brought everywhere and used rather than shown off. I'm curious if the first generation iPhone would have given me a different feeling in person.
The iPhone not only has more physical buttons, compared to the touch it's moved the headphone jack to the top left and the on/off button to the top right. I think I'll keep my touch in use for my music, and it'll be endless fun to always be feeling for the on/off button in the wrong place ...
Not strictly a device thing, but rather a note on getting a suitable plan: Yes, the feeling of having flat-rate and sometimes even fast internet access anywhere you go is pretty cool.
Just connecting and syncing the phone with the same iTunes as the iPod puts many things in the right places. Contacts, videos, applications, what have you. However, many things do not show up, like any login information or other settings you've entered into those applications. Yes, that includes all notes you've made. The order of all your applications is lost too. And any web pages you've put on your home screen are completely MIA. As are all network authentication settings, as far as I can see.
I can sum this up pretty easily: what I got is syncing of everything which goes through iTunes, but what I really wanted was the transfer system you get when setting up a new Mac. Surely I can't be the only one who started with a touch, got an iPhone and would like everything to be the same between the two?
I can't decide if I should figure out some subset of my music to put on the phone. Until I do, it all stays off. Anticipating this problem, Apple made not syncing any music the default option.
Making a song of your choice a ringtone is a hassle, with the 30 second length limit being my pet peeve. Longer "tones" show up and work in iTunes just fine, but they don't sync to the phone and nothing indicates the fact. At least it's all pretty easy once you learn the steps.
Setting custom sounds for SMS alert ... no can do at all. I do miss my old Settlers sample and hope they make it possible some day.
I do miss MMS functionality, but email and Flickr uploading (through ShoZu) tides me over for now. We'll see what happens to my mood when I run across something funny I'd like to send to someon else's mobile.
3G reception still appears suspiciously poor very, very often, even with the latest firmware. Still more work to do in that area I guess.
Some sort of keychain for web usernames and passwords wouldn't hurt.
Lack of meaningful Bluetooth functionality.
Lack of cut and paste (but getting there when it comes to login forms).
Lack of video recording ability.
My second generation iPhone actually sounds somewhat better than my firrst generation iPod touch as well. Possibly-imagined warmness and other psychological aspects aside, the iPhone seems dead silent when there's no sound playing. That is, it completely lacks background noise/hissing on the headphone jack. Which is just wonderful if you ask me. I guess it's a generational evolution, I would guess that the second generation touch is just as quiet (I seem to recall reading somewhere that it's the best sounding iPod ever as well).