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Apple iPhone
User Experience - Widescreen iPod
Initially, the announcement of the widescreen iPod received a huge round of applause during the keynote at the MacWorld conference. As time passed, the feature was forgotten about in favor of the phone and internet functionality of the device (which received the least applause during the initial announcement). One of the biggest features was the ability to have coverflow on the phone as a way to brows through your albums. All it takes to get into coverflow mode is to rotate the phone. From there you can use your finger to drag through the albums on the iPhone. While coverflow looks great, I really don't use it that much. I usually know what album or artist I want to listen to, and I can browse to it through the list. And unlike the iPhone commercials, your cover art is bound to be incomplete. Or you'll be stuck with a ton of music files where you need to go clean up the metadata attached to the music. The video aspect of the iPod is great. People are amazed at the quality of the display and how good the movies look for being on such a small screen. You double tap to switch between letterbox (the movie takes up the full height of the screen and cuts off the sides) and anamorphic (black bars at the top and bottom). A single tap will bring up the controls, containing the chapter control (if there is any), volume and scrubber time index. The one problem I have with the scrubber is that on long videos (anything more than 30 minutes) is that it's hard to precisely seek to a point in the movie. The biggest issue is whether you can stand watching a two hour movie on a 3.5" display. I watched a movie for about an hour and my eyes were watery. The audio playback is ok, about as good as the iPod nano. I was slightly disappointed as I would get some static from my right ear bud occasionally. One of the features I do enjoy is the ability to create on-the-fly playlists on the device without the need for a computer. You can browse through your collection and add selections to this playlist. However, you can only have one on-the-fly playlist, and there is no way to author a permanent playlist from the iPhone, though it could be possible through software. Another point regarding audio is the recessed audio input jack. Most headphones that I've tried will not plug into the iPhone's headphone/microphone jack. This might be on purpose because of the addition of the third ring on the input for the microphone/click input on the wire of the right ear bud. Finally, the last notable feature from the iPod functionality is the ability to rearrange icons at the bottom of the panel - you can replace the songs section with the podcasts section for example. I found it more convenient to replace the songs icon with the albums icon, so I can view a list of albums I currently have on my iPhone.
Page 1: Introduction
Page 2: The Line Page 3: What's In the Box & First Looks Page 4: Plans and Activation Page 5: User Experience - Interface Page 6: User Experience - Battery Life Page 7: User Experience - the Keyboard Page 8: User Experience - Widescreen iPod Page 9: User Experience - Mobile Phone and Text Messaging Page 10: User Experience - Internet and Email Page 11: User Experience - Widgets and Other Features Page 12: AT&T's Network - From Fine Edge to Broken Edge Page 13: Missing Features Page 14: Conclusion 
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Add Comment
5 User Comments 1 - Posted by
ebernet
on July 9, 2007 - 3:05 pm Instead of buying another apple cable, I bought a car charger that included both a USB>Mini USB that works with my camera and will charge a blackberry, and a USB>Dock connector cable. Both cables AND the cigarette lighter dohicky were the same $20 as just the cable, AND they were black. I even bought it at the Apple store. It was made by Griffin, I am sure others do it. Eytan 2 - Posted by
ebernet
on July 9, 2007 - 3:53 pm Some more comments - Yahoo provides free push email, and will sync your address book up to Yahoo - a great feature and a way to get address book syncing between machines without paying the .mac tax. As for the battery issue, a full charge cycle is a full discharge/charge, which I have had 2 so far. After the 350-450 FULL cycles you are at 80% of your battery. As a longtime iPod owner, the battery has never been an issue for me. My hope is that by the time I need a battery replacement (2 years down the line or more) an after market of doing the installs will exist - and while it will not be 35 like it is now for the iPod, it will be a cheaper $50 or so then Apple's 80+, and by then the battery capacities will be higher. I think we need to wait and give the battery grief when the battery deserves grief, when problems start... 3 - Posted by
Kurtis
on July 9, 2007 - 7:37 pm Thanks for the comments, ebernet. And welcome to TheTechLounge forums. :) BTW, regarding battery life, I think it's a valid concern, considering that the brand new battery under heavy use only lasts a single day. 2 days tops for moderate-heavy use. My treo650 used to go for a week before I'd have to charge it, and after a year and a half or so, now it dies in 2 days. Of course, mine is easily replaceable, but the point is that if it has such short battery life NEW, any decrease in that battery life is going to be a big issue down the road, and that is inevitable. 4 - Posted by
ynYmpmTbMbfl
on December 3, 2007 - 9:57 pm IXiMcB post, Thanks. That’s Ben. a super ,
5 - Posted by
Max Slowik
on December 3, 2007 - 11:02 pm snorkt.
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