Is that the Internet in your Pocket? (iPhone Review)

So as most of you know, I got out of work yesterday and headed over to our local AT&T store to queue up for the iPhone.

Yes, I AM that much of a nerd.

When I arrived at 1:30pm and set up my chair, I was #15 in line. Since the phone wasn’t going to be sold until 6pm, I was prepared for the long haul, bringing my radio (for the Mets game) and iPod. Surprisingly, the wait wasn’t that bad. A certain camaraderie develops amongst those who do this sort of thing, and at the end of the day it felt as though you had made a few new geeky-smelly friends. People were good about watching your spot for bathroom breaks, and there was a fast food place close by that did a good business serving the “iWaiters”. I met some nice people, including one Australian guy who was in the US for a wakeboarding competition.

The line went from the front of the store, around the side and down the road. A rough count had it at over 70, not including the hangers on who were there to support their friends. The AT&T folks were there in force, and they handled the sales in a very organized fashion. Specifically, there were 11 sales reps available. They let the first 11 people in, and locked the doors behind them. As 1 person purchased the phone and left, another was let in.

It wasn’t long before I received my phone, and was on my way home. As is typical of Apple, the packaging is spectacular. Check out one of the many unboxing photo collections here.

Activation for me was rough – it took 3 1/2 hours to get my account switched over from my old cellphone (although some of that was my own fault, as the Apple activation email ended up in a sub-folder that I forgot to check right away.) My personal situation was a bit complex, as we have a family plan and a corporate discount that needed to be played with.

Eventually everything was place, and I was happily playing with the phone. I don’t have a lot of experience with calls yet, but the sound quality seemed good with the one I tried. Gizmodo has a report of the call quality experience here. Sounds promising.

The photo and music features are spectacular, but the web browsing (under a wifi connection) steals the show. The way that Apple has implemented the Safari browser on this device really is fantastic. Pinch zoom works as advertised, and everything is intuitive. Before long you forget you’re using a device…the interface just fades away. Google maps is super fast, and the turn-by-turn directions seem wonderful.

Now for the “bumps”:

Syncing of podcasts is weird and inconsistent. In iTunes, there is an option to “sync all unplayed episodes” of podcasts you select, but inevitably played episodes also sometimes make their way over. Also many times when you play a podcast on your iPhone they remain flagged as ‘unplayed’, and are never removed. This is clearly broken and needs to be fixed as soon as possible.

There’s no way to cut and paste. Lots of times I want to trade info from one app to another, but there’s no easy way to do that.

No way to mass delete read email. Very frustrating going through email the first time, deleting one after the other. Less of an issue once you’ve got your mail up to date.

No way to just drag and drop music to the phone, everything done through syncing. iPods support this sort of drag and drop behavior, but the iPhones currently do not. I suspect this is another of those things that’ll be updated before long.

John Gruber over at Daring Fireball has a good write-up of his first impressions with the iPhone here. You should check it out.

Other stuff:
First dropped iPhone (YoutTube Video)
Hi Def Hands On iPhone Video (Engadget)
Multi-City iPhone Wait Blog (Engadget)
iPhone Stress Test (PC World Video)
Quick iPhone Review (Kottke.org)

(Update – Kottke’s right…after playing around with the iPhone for a few hours and then going back to your Mac, you find yourself flicking at browser screens with your mouse, expecting them to scroll for you.)