iLove my iPhone

[PaulF]

Am I right that there is no Bluetooth on iPhone? Would like it to talk to my car when out and about (when stopped obviously)

No, mine has Bluetooth

[Jaded]

Definitely Bluetooth on iPhone.

[simonp]

It (Bluetooth) used to be fairly limited before the 3.0 software came along.  Still doesn't do what my old TomTom needs though.

[Jaded]

There's more stuff coming through on the iPhone though.

Like
      RouteBuddy ›
      
         Maps for Your World
      
   

[MattH]

Hopefully opening it up to Orange and Vodafone should ease the strain on O2's data network.

What about T-Mobile?

If everything goes to plan, T-Mobile and Orange will be the same thing soon - Why the future’s looking bright again for Orange- Times Online

[simonp]

Heh. Tesco Finder. So you're at tesco and can't find the balsamic vinegar?  No problem. Tesco Finder (from tesco) is a free app that will tell you where in the store they've hidden it. Uses the same database as their online shopping pickers use. Cute.

[Ariadne]

Heh. Tesco Finder. So you're at tesco and can't find the balsamic vinegar?  No problem. Tesco Finder (from tesco) is a free app that will tell you where in the store they've hidden it. Uses the same database as their online shopping pickers use. Cute.

sounds great - I'd seen the app but thought, huh, who needs an app to find Tesco, they're on every corner. But the in store stuff sounds great, can't wait to try it out!

[simonp]

Heh. Tesco Finder. So you're at tesco and can't find the balsamic vinegar?  No problem. Tesco Finder (from tesco) is a free app that will tell you where in the store they've hidden it. Uses the same database as their online shopping pickers use. Cute.

sounds great - I'd seen the app but thought, huh, who needs an app to find Tesco, they're on every corner. But the in store stuff sounds great, can't wait to try it out!

I saw it mentioned in a friend's tweet and had a look as I guessed he also knew where his local tesco is, having lived in this area for about 16 years. I have tried it out on a product I always struggle to find (Swedish meatballs) in my local tesco. I don't gave them so much these days as processed meat is bad. However this morning I typed in Swedish instead of meatballs and it turns out there is now a quorn version. Will have to try those. so it's already proved useful.

[bobb]

Judging by the amount of time OD spent prodding his iPhone last week (without actually receiving any life threatening information) I'd say they're a bad thing.

My mobile is currently off. I'm no Luddite, but to be honest, I just want to do fuck all today. There are other ways I can check the football results later if I feel like it......

Edit: Shit! Wasn't having a go, just a passing thought! 

[Oscar's dad]

But bobb, I've downloaded an app that finds your nearest McDonald's!  What's not to like?

[vorsprung]

I've fallen completely And hopelessly in love with my iPhone.

I recently upgraded my contract, tagging £5 a month onto the contract and got an iPhone 3G s 16GB - a great move considering it has reduced my monthly phone bill by around £10 and got me a super-awesome phone to boot!

It has revolutionised my life.

I now spend less time each day in the office, because I know that if a client emails in a query, or my boss needs something doing, I will know about it and either be able to respond immidiately or when I get back to my home pc. I can take time out at the weekend without worrying that soemething is blowing up without me. It is good for our client service, as even if I can't answer their question right away, I cam respond to them and let them know someone is looking after them.

When my dad was given his work blackberry, he didn't stop harping on about how it was a tool of the devil, but for me, it has given me more free time and less worry.

My only complaint is that the battery can only just cope with a day out of the office handling phone calls and email.  A few times I have gone home with a dead battery.

This is just another way to get us to work 24/7

I have no objection to working 24/7 if I have the most interesting job in the world or if I am finding a cure for cancer or if I am saving the world from space aliens.  But my last job had this problem that I worked from home mostly and the boss used to assume I was available anytime.  And it was a management consultancy.  It was increasingly uninteresting, no cure for cancer was on the horizon and no Martians were defeated.

I used to lug a laptop everywhere when I was traveling with work just so I could do all the work stuff that you describe the iphone doing.  Is it "good" that the iphone can do this for half the price and weight?

One of the things I like about my current job is that I do the work, nine to five and then I go home and my time is my own.  I might think about stuff at work when I'm at home.   But sorting out "important" issues?  Working like this is a mugs game. 

[Greenbank]

This is just another way to get us to work 24/7

I can't use mine for work. That suits me perfectly.

* Company has mobile contract with Vodafone. Vodafone wasn't available on my iPhone when I got it (tied into a contract with O₂ for another year or so.)

* Company provides mobile on Vodafone for business calls. If I use my own phone then I pay for it, since I have a company provided mobile then I can't expense the calls unless it was an emergency, so I can't regularly use my phone and expense it.

* Company email only available once connected to VPN. Use of iPhone to connect to company VPN prohibited (even if it were possible).

My company mobile sits in the bottom of my bag on silent. If someone calls it (very rarely) and it goes to voicemail then an alert pops up on my laptop. If I'm wearing my headset (I listen to music/radio most of the day) then I can intercept the call, or wait until they've finished and listen to the VM and decide whether I want to call them back. 99.9% of my work is done via email or the internal company instant messenger system.

[Oscar's dad]

iPhones and BlackBerries can lead you to working 24/7 if you let them. 

But, they can also help you play when you should be working.  The number of times I have zoomed off on me bike during the working day and no-one is any the wiser. I'm still responding to e-mails and phone calls - just sat looking at a nice view somewhere in rural Essex or enjoying a cheeky pint!

[Jaded]

+1 to that - I once took a support call when on a lovely rural lane. Told them "I'll see what I can do" without mentioning I was in a field, and loaded up LogMeIn; fixed the problem. Called them back then got on with the more important stuff - the bike ride.

[Hot Flatus]

+1 to that - I once took a support call when on a lovely rural lane. Told them "I'll see what I can do" without mentioning I was in a field, and loaded up LogMeIn; fixed the problem. Called them back then got on with the more important stuff - the bike ride.

Yeah yeah yeah

We both know the call was phoney.  You just couldn't get up that hill

[mrcharly-YHT]

Work colleague has iPhone, was raving about it, the fun and games.

So he showed me a game and urged me to try it.

Hmm. Touchscreens don't get on with myhands. I just need to hover my hand over the screen and it detects spurious contacts (I have the same effect on mousepads).

Nope, I don't think I'll ever be using an iPhone.

[Sigurd Mudtracker]

I've been reading this for reasons NOT to buy an iPhone - although perhaps the thread title shouldn't have encouraged me.

I'm a die hard PDA user having started off with a Psion Series 3 in 199x, moving through a 3a, 3c, 5, 5mx, then a Handspring Visor, a Palm T3 and then a series of Palm TXs that kept dying on me but which I found so invaluable so as to be unable to do anything else but buy another.  I'm on my third Palm TX now.  I also lump around a (work) mobile phone that is (according to colleagues) brick like and well past its sell-by date.  And I'm no great fan of mobiles though Mrs Mudtracker says I should have one.

Still there has been a constant internal monologue urging me to go and get one.  Because: it runs the medical software that I use on the Palm, only better; it can access email on the go (both personal and work); I can waste time at work by browsing the YACF pages; etc.

Counter arguments that I have used in defence are that I don't live in a metropolitan area; I don't need an app to find the nearest Starbucks; that I lead a reasonably predictable life in a very rural area that doesn't and so don't need to know when the next train to Maidstone or wherever.  I also don't have a contract mobile phone so it's an additional cost straight away (I have a cheapie tiny mobile PAYG that lives in the bottom of my bum bag and gets switched on and recharged every couple of months, and that's it).

However, when I read about things like Routebuddy, the Tesco finder, and now the Grauniad app, I find my resolve crumbling.  Please someone tell me that a 3GS is not the answer to my every heart's desire.  I do have a 1st gen iPod Touch that is slowly beginning to supercede the Palm, but obviously neither of them have the mobile internet thingy that the iPhone has (wifi hotspots being few and far between around here).

[ian]

...

However, when I read about things like Routebuddy, the Tesco finder, and now the Grauniad app, I find my resolve crumbling.  Please someone tell me that a 3GS is not the answer to my every heart's desire.  I do have a 1st gen iPod Touch that is slowly beginning to supercede the Palm, but obviously neither of them have the mobile internet thingy that the iPhone has (wifi hotspots being few and far between around here).

I am not a mobile phone user. I have an ancient Siemens A50 that lives in the cruft that collects in pocket bottoms. It does calls and texts and the kind of old fashioned steam-powered stuff that mobile phones used to do. It's been dropped, bashed and subjected to about everything short of a thermonuclear strike. I have been unconvinced that all devices should converge. I don't want a tumble-drying fridge either.

I did graduate through the Palms ending with the TX, which whilst in principle a wonderful device, alas exposed the decaying Palm OS to daylight and it wasn't pretty. In practice, it was best described as cranky going on malevolent.

iPhone and the iPod touch I like. There's no shortage of app crud, but the decent apps make the deal. Direction-finding, ebook reading (my personal favourite use), a proper web browser (not like the browser on the BB which may have well have been sicked up by my cat) &c.

[nobby]

I'm not convinced that the iPhone is a way to get us working 24/7. I've been retired 16 months, had an iPhone 17 months and haven't felt like going to work once. 

Just upgraded to 3GS and decided to stay with O2. Contract charges are much the same across the companies, Orange data downloads apparently have a limit, 3G in Salop isn't better by Orange and O2 told me that they are expecting to complete an agreement with (memory lapse but may have been Vodaphone) to share masts and improve 3G coverage.
I built the Minty Boost charger for back up and am going to build the solar powered version in the New Year.

[Sigurd Mudtracker]

Looking at the price side of things, I have a hard job getting my brain round how these things are paid for.  O2 seems to have a simple contract with unlimited web access, as does Tesco, Orange is apparently capped at 750MB/month mobile internet and wifi (presumably public hot-spots and not my own home network).  As an infrequent user of mobile phones I did wonder if Tesco PAYG was the cheapest way forward, but I can't understand how I would pay for internet access.  I maybe need to go and talk to the nice man in the Tesco store to be enlightened.  The downside is that O2/Tesco 3G coverage is pretty poor round here, Orange is a bit better with 2G coverage in the areas where I visit during the week.  I just resent paying £30 per month for a load of phone calls that I'm not likely to use - and I don't think that switching my landline calls to the mobile instead will save me much money at all.

[Mrs Pingu]

Sigurd, iPhone - Tesco.com
says it's umlimited for 12 months

[nobby]

  I just resent paying £30 per month for a load of phone calls that I'm not likely to use - and I don't think that switching my landline calls to the mobile instead will save me much money at all.

I had the same problem 17 months ago but have trained myself to make more frequent use of the phone. I don't know how old you are but I remember our families first land line and I felt tied to that. I have now got used  to just using what is nearest and making more phone calls when I am out. I am friends with Cycleman of this parish and a call to him is worth 40 minutes; I ration those in a month  Only twice have I come very close to completely using my 600 minutes.
I am now in training to use texts as well; I have trouble using 10% of my allowance. Why write when you can talk?

[Kathy]

I just resent paying £30 per month for a load of phone calls that I'm not likely to use - and I don't think that switching my landline calls to the mobile instead will save me much money at all.

So buy the phone oughtright and stick a PAYG SIM in - that's what I did, as it works out cheaper with the amount of calls I make.

[woollypigs]

Just met a fella today who couldn't get his iPhone to work.

A quick look it was a fake one, smaller screen only 2Gb space even when stamped 16Gb on the back. The icons looked pretty good though the font below was wrong. The plug for it was wrong and the iBook and iTunes didn't see the phone.

Pour sod have paid £200 for it !

[simonp]

I dropped my iPhone in the street on Wednesday evening after locking up my bike.  Smashed the screen up good and proper.  It still worked perfectly (but later on part of the touch screen stopped working for vertical positioning though horizontal was OK).

It's now the property of O2 Insure and I have a shiny new 16Gb 3G S as they have sold all the 3Gs.

Aww.