So today i finally got my Iphone

out of the package it came and immediately hooked up to the Laptop. Thing is they are, as many of you know, locked to certain Cellphone providers, in my case being an american phone locked to using the AT&T chip. I found an unlocking software, that within 4 minutes, unlocked the phone completely and it now works with my swisscom chip. So I now had a working cellular phone....now what?

So here it comes.... On initial startup theres a slider appearing on the screen, slide your fingers across the screen to unlock and find yourself in the main iphone menue....



looks neat, doesnt it ??

now first i tried the phone.....looks like this :



by that time a symbol appeared on the screen saying a msg had arrived....thanks to swisscom who aint selling the phone yet but sending the configuration data....

so on i went and did my 1st call that was chrystal clear, put it to loudspeaker after a while and even that was nice although a tad too silent when driving in the car.

really all i had to set was the edge settings and language to german, rest all was automatic. on i went and chose map from the main menue...

on comes a screen with a world map....astonished face i made i guess asking myself what now. without thinking i then put my finger over mainland europe and that didnt do a thing apart from scrolling the map around. so i sat there for a moment thinking : theres no buttons on this and no settings, zoom, etc ....what am i missing ?

what i was missing is without a doubt the ability to think past my microsoft tablet pc knowledge. if you want a touchscreen to perform more actions triggered by the same means then its time for new "moves"

the pinching i knew from elsewhere works a treat pinch to zoom out and spread to zoom in....amazing...why did noone think of this yet. it produces, with google mapīs help, wonderful detailed maps with either regualr map style or satellite picutures. then with a click on route lets you choose satnav style a from and to and then calculates the route etc. perfect although it has no clue where i am at cause it aint got a gps antenna / receiver. i wonder what happens when i hookup the external 1 i got over bluetooth but this for a later review maybe.



ok...wonderful toy so far....next i turn on the camera....wow....what a picture now let me see....wheres the video ? nothing to touch so far....hmmm.....honestly i couldnt find that yet so left it alone.

i then realized that my sim card contacts were missing.... google search soon reveals : apple forgot to implement it ....sort of..... so i installed a 3rd party tool and got them copied. at this point i do ask myself if this is something i should recommend to people that aint got outlook or entourage on their computers. these programs do sync over itunes apparently but since its a phone it should not need an other software just to get your contacts from its SIM card to its contacts.

this brings me to talk about firmware 1.2 or 2.0 as its officially called. this firmware will bring the exchange push mail services to the Iphone. Announced release date is june 2008 and at this point this "toy" will be an adult competitor against microsofts windows mobile phones and to some degree blackberries.

i went through all the rest of the applications / functions and really didnt miss anythig obvious. now im sure i missed some flaws aswell as some great functions but its the 1st impression that counts. i, based on that, determine if i like the phone or not. I honestly have to admit, the Iphone won my heart. Its touchscreen is ultra bright and crisp, the way it works is revolutionary and with the functions to come and an Ipod included - the best deal on the market.

Michael