Apple IPhone: First Impressions

June 29th, 2007 marked the day in history when Apple release it's most anticipated product known as the iPhone. With touchscreen capabilities, and more bells and whistles then any other phone the iPhone was shaping up to be the best phone over. And with a $600 price tag to match, Apple was either poised on reshaping the cellphone industry or having a big lemon on their hands. But with Apple' track record how could they fail? The vision of Steve Jobs has carried Apple Inc. into greater heights then anyone could have imagined. But at the end of the day it's not about Apple it's about the people and I wanted to know what the NY tech. community thought about the iPhone. So I sent out a e-mail to the nextNY mailing list to see what their members had to say about the iPhone. If your not familiar with nextNY, they are a group of 1,000 members in the New York area who socialize around all things digital.

Darren Harman was the first to respond to my e-mail on his experience getting an iPhone, but it seems that AT&T wasn't ready to handle the iPhone activation load. "I picked up the phone around 6pm on Saturday evening at the Westchester Mall in White Plains. The mall has a beautiful Apple Store and I was able to walk in, purchase an 8gb iPhone, pay, walk out, and leave the mall all in under 12 minutes. I feel bad for the folks who waited on 4 day lines! There was quite a few folks in the store looking to buy... Apple had planned for enough staff to be there and help s the purchasing experience was perfect. The problem lies in activation. I believe AT&T has dropped the ball here. I'm still waiting for my iPhone to be activated. I do not know whether or not I should call AT&T as I'd probably wait on the 'call' line for hours. It's been now 13 hours since I have started trying to activate and it's been frustrating nonetheless as my phone number has been ported over and I'm not able to receive phone calls," stated Darren Herman on his blog. But after a 24 hour wait Darren was finally able to get his phone up and running. The iPhone is pretty much useless unless it is activated. The iPhone is a multimedia heavy device and needs the power of the AT&T data system in order to run the web features.

Greg Harris was the second from the list to respond and he also loved the phone but also has lots of issues with activation of the phone. But once he got up and running and the coolness factor of the iPhone wore off he notes, "But after the initial awe wears off, I can see some major issues with this phone. The biggest issue is the keyboard. I can't use it. Being a Blackberry user, I type on a small keyboard constantly. The iPhone's keyboard is ridiculous." Ouch! But Greg Harris still enjoyed the iPhone despite the keyboard as he states, "All & all it's an amazing phone. As a consumer I could see using it as my main phone."

JP Checa is totally in love with his iPhone. "The fact that Apple says the iPhone's OS is "five years ahead of its time" really shows in the device. Everything you do on it feels so different and natural at the same time. The outlook synchronization features and email capabilities keep me organized and I don't feel tethered to my PC as much. It really changes how I go about my day now." Now this statement shows that Apple is totally on the right track with innovation with the cell phone market. All the other cell phone makers are trying to rush touchscreen phones to the market asap. The LG Prada and the HTC Touch are just a few of the early responders to the Apple iPhone. But both phones fail on many aspects where the iPhone succeeds.

Overall the iPhone is a success. With over 500,000 being sold since it's June 29th launch Apple is well on it's way to making major noise in the overstuffed cell phone market. With the vision of Steve Jobs and the innovation of the Apple development team the iPhone is the wave of the future.