Apple iPhone Review - Messaging, Internet & Connectivity

Messaging, Internet & Connectivity

Apple's Email and SMS software for iPhone is excellent so long as you don't mind the touchscreen QWERTY board. IM and MMS messages, however, are not supported (another head-scratcher), though a "hacked" iPhone can run one of several available IM apps written specifically for the handset. Email includes support for POP and IMAP accounts, including Gmail, Yahoo!, and Apple's own .Mac service, and both HTML email and attachment viewing worked very well. It'd be nice to see attachment editing on a future software release.

Text messages are displayed in as threaded conversations via an interface resembling Apple's iChat program for Mac OS X. I really liked viewing and responding to SMS messages this way - it's easy to review and/or clear conversations, and save multiple conversations with different people. Integration between Email/SMS and the Contacts application is excellent, as well.

The flip side is that while basic Email and SMS functionality is robust and easy to use, iPhone lacks the more powerful messaging features smartphone users are used to. There's no means for searching through Emails and no support for Exchange servers - iPhone is a consumer device, not a corporate solution.

iPhone features perhaps the best Web browser currently available for any mobile phone, Apple's Safari. My previous favorite browser, the Nokia Series 60 browser, is based on the same technologies as Safari, but iPhone's large, high-res display and intuitive, touch-based navigation makes it the new champ. There's one catch, though - Web browsing on iPhone is a joy when you're connected to a Wi-Fi network, but it can be a little frustrating on an EDGE network. Safari renders full HTML with support for many "Web 2.0" technologies (except, sadly, Flash), and sometimes that means downloading enough data to make EDGE feel poky. That being said, Apple is encouraging the development of Web 2.0 sites as psuedo-applications for iPhone, and a number of notables - from Facebook to SeeqPod, a search engine for music that can be played directly over the Web on iPhone - have already taken up the challenge.

Web pages can be viewed in landscape or portrait mode, and that handy accelerometer auto-rotates the display when you pivot the handset. You can also "pinch" the display with two fingers - or double-tap a target area of the screen - to zoom in and out. The quality of iPhone's screen makes zooming really, really nice - close-ups of text are smoothly rendered and high-quality photos and graphics look stunning. The browser also allows for multiple windows to be "open" at once - tapping an icon takes you to a scrollable thumbnail menu of all open pages, any of which can be activated or deleted.

Safari for iPhone also features a mobile version of the RSS reader built into the full desktop version of the browser. I've really come to appreciate RSS feeds formatted for mobile phones, as RSS is a great way to get a quick informational update on the go without having to navigate full Web pages. RSS on the iPhone is particularly good for times when there's no WiFi network to be found, as they load much quicker than the complex, Full-HTML sites they're often associated with.

The Internet category is where another mention of the renegade iPhone development community is warranted. Third party apps make it possible to FTP in and out of iPhone, upload photos from it to your Flickr account, email songs stored on iPhone, and even configure the thing as an Apache webserver. Again, iPhone fans have really rallied around the device, working on extending its capabilities as a labor of love at no cost at all to Apple. I really hope - as an iPhone owner and a fan of mobile technology - that Apple finds a way to support this newfound ecosystem while still maintaining their own business interest. Too many good things have already come from independent iPhone software development for anyone to really justify squashing the community.

The Apple iPhone is a quad-band GSM phone locked to AT&T in the United States. Apple has also recently introduced a European version that will be available this November on the O2 network. iPhone can connect to AT&T's EDGE data networks in the US, and 802.11b/g (WiFi) connections are also supported for WLAN networking. Configuring and connecting to WiFi networks is very easy on iPhone, and the handset does a great job of switching from EDGE to WiFi when a known or open network is detected.

I should note that I was also able to configure my unlocked iPhone for EDGE data access via my T-Mobile account. Though it depends on the specifics of your carrier and data plan, as of my writing this widespread success has been reported connecting unlocked iPhones to various GSM networks for EDGE data services. In my case, configuring the device went beyond merely changing settings - I had to do some minor-ly technical editing of some system files, a process which was figured out and documented by some friendly folks on various forums around the Web.

Apple built Bluetooth v2.0 into the N95, though the only connections with mono handsfree devices are supported. iPhone does not support stereo audio over Bluetooth, file exchange, laptop tethering, wireless printing, or anything else having to do with Bluetooth. The interface for pairing with Bluetooth devices is probably the best and easiest to use I've ever seen on a mobile phone - Apple has simplified the process so it's nearly fool-proof. Too bad I can't listen to music or transfer photos to/from iPhone without wires.

Apple includes a USB sync/dock cable, a USB-based AC adapter, and a docking station in the iPhone packaging; again, the setup is quite similar to what iPod owners are used to. This mini-modular system can be used in a few different ways - connecting the cable from iPhone directly to a computer allows for syncing and charging, as does docking the handset and connecting the dock to your computer. Me, I've got an extra cable lying around from an old iPod, so I keep one cable with my laptop for synching contacts and media, and I've got the dock, AC adapter, and other cable set up on my bedside table. This allows me to charge the iPhone overnight and also run an audio cable from the dock to the stereo in my bedroom - perfect for listening to music in bed, though it also makes it dangerously easy to check Email and surf the Web at all hours of the night.

All syncing between iPhone and my Mac or PC is handled via iTunes software (though iPhoto is used for downloading photos snapped on the handset). An iPhone tab added to the iTunes interface provides settings for syncing music, movies, photos, calendars, and contacts with my computer. I'm used to using iTunes to manage my music collection, and so find it pretty convenient to finally be able to use it to keep tabs on what media I'm moving on and off of my mobile phone as well. The one complaint I have with this system is that iTunes only allows for music playlists to be synced with iPhone - I can't move individual tracks or albums on and off of the handset; instead, they have to be added to or removed from a playlist I've set up solely for "iPhone music." It's a minor inconvenience, but also another head-scratcher.

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