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living with the iPhone - making calls

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I'm surprised at how well the iPhone does as an honest-to-goodness phone. I have to admit that I'm a bit annoyed that getting to the phone functionality isn't instant: wake from sleep, slide to unlock, hit the home button if I'm not already there (which I'm usually not), hit the phone button, hit the [favourites | contacts | recents | keypad ] button if I'm not there already, then do whatever is necessary to dial someone. That feels like an awful lot of work just to make a phone call.

The strength of the iPhone as a telephone is in what happens next. While the initial dialing of a phone call isn't easy, everything else is. I especially love that putting my iPhone into speakerphone mode is trivial. The guys in the offices around me can tell you that I <3 the speakerphone in my office, and they probably hate me for my incessant usage of it. My old cell phone had a speakerphone, but it sucked (both in terms of what was necessary to put it on speaker and in the quality of the speaker). But now, there's the lovely glowing speakerphone button when I start to make a call. The clarity of the speaker is quite clear, and the person on the other end hasn't been able to identify that I'm on a speakerphone. I love it.

Visual voicemail might be the best thing since sliced bread. I've wanted it ever since Steve announced it, and it was a big factor in my initial purchase decision. An old friend tends to leave long rambly messages in my voicemail. I don't begrudge her the messages, but it annoyed me to have hers be the first message in my voicemail. It meant that I had to listen to the whole message before knowing if subsequent messages were things that I needed to act upon immediately. Now I can see the list of voicemail waiting for me, so I can jump immediately to the message from my boss, and leave the message from my friend until I'm home and can listen to it in all of its glory. Cellular providers should be embarrassed that it took a complete outsider to force them to fix this, and I think that Apple/AT&T should lean on this as a killer feature in the iPhone.

I find it a little weird to use the included earbuds with my iPhone. I'm used to only hearing the conversation in one ear when using such devices. Hearing the other person's voice in both ears still seems wrong in some important way. But the wrongness is balanced by the usefulness of the earbuds and the ability to switch between other activities and accepting an incoming call.

Incoming calls are also nice. I get a nice big notification on the screen of who's calling (if they're in my address book, I see their name; if not, just the phone number). The buttons for accepting or denying the call are nice and big. I couldn't remember how to forward a call to voicemail on my old phone, so I just let it ring and waited for the voicemail to pick up. No more: if I can't accept a call now, it's easy to hit the button and make it stop ringing now. I love how easy it is now.

So. I've had my iPhone for a week (hmm, no name for the iPhone yet, but all of my other Macs are named -- gonna have to fix that!) and I'm still in love. I wonder when the honeymoon will end?

Comments

  • Anonymous
    July 05, 2007
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    July 05, 2007
    Answer to the honeymoon question: when you get your credit card bill.... ;) Joshua

  • Anonymous
    July 05, 2007
    I'm not really a big fan of Bluetooth headsets.  I don't like walking around with it on if I'm not using it, which means that it's only useful for outgoing calls and not incoming ones.

  • Anonymous
    July 06, 2007
    Actually, the iphone makes switching between headset and phone itself really seemless. Pops up the menu on the screen for the audio source. That way, if you don't have the headset on (or put in on mid-call) its super easy to switch.

  • Anonymous
    July 06, 2007
    If you press the power button twice, it not only silences the call but sends it directly to voicemail.

  • Anonymous
    July 09, 2007
    Minor point, but I'm glad I ain't the only one naming my gadgets.

  • Anonymous
    July 17, 2007
    "In the bathroom with the fan on." Nice. :) Chris Bernard