30 Days of iPhone – Day 13

I kind of got off track with the whole Macbook Pro Battery adventure, then yesterday I had the lovely experience of my very first migraine headache.

Good times.

Now, however, it’s time to get back into the swing of things with the 30 Days of iPhone coverage. It never occurred to me when I decided to do 30 Days of iPhone, that the entire world was going to cover the iPhone so extensively. It seems almost asinine to talk about the Calender or the Photos app, or any of the included applications because they have been so extensively covered in so many other places….but today, I am going to briefly give you my opinion of each of the applications on the iPhone, because it seems like this whole series would be pointless if I skipped things just because they are covered elsewhere.

So…here goes…

Text – The Texting app on the iPhone is what the iChat IM application on the iPhone SHOULD be. As an SMS application it’s really not that great because of the lacking SMS features. You can’t send to multiple people at the same time, and you also can’t send any MMS messages. As a chat program it’s great…but I’m not sure that’s a good thing since I don’t have, and don’t want to pay for, unlimited messages.

Calendar – I never used iCal on my Mac. I still don’t. But I use the Calendar program on the iPhone every single day. I’ve started using it just to remind me of little things that I need to do during the day, and I have seen a noticeable jump in my productivity as a result. It’s easy to use, and very helpful. I’m sure this is nothing new to those of you that have used calendar applications on your desktop or other mobile devices, but the iPhone is the first time I’ve had a calendar app that was handy and easy enough to use to implement it into my everyday life.

Photos – I love the photos app. There is no better way to show off the multi-touch features of the iPhone than to flick through your photos and zoom in on something. I have over 400 photos on my iPhone, and I find myself flicking through them when waiting in line or just sitting at the house. It actually makes me want to take more photos than I have been…which leads me to…

Camera – Boy I wish the camera was better. It’s not bad, but it’s not great…and I really wish it was. A few generations from now, I’m sure the camera will be excellent, but the lack of zoom, and the so-so picture quality are really disappointing…especially for a device that is so picture friendly. Still, to do any better on the camera side, I would imagine the iPhone would have to be bulkier than it is, which wouldn’t be good either.

YouTube – It’s YouTube! On your iPhone! eh. I haven’t spent very much time with the YouTube application. I don’t really want YouTube on the phone to begin with, and half of the stuff I search for on the site, isn’t on the iPhone…so I could really do without this application all together. It’s easy enough to use, but the quality of the video is pretty bad. If you spend a lot of time on YouTube, I’m sure you’ll appreciate it. Otherwise, you won’t.

Stocks – It’s a stocks widget. It’s barely what I would call an application, but it works like a widget should. It’s pretty to look at and gives the information it’s supposed to. Nothing really special.

Maps – I love the Maps application. I have found myself using it way more than I thought I would, even to find different restaurants around the town where I live. Having gone into Austin twice in the last month, I have found the maps application very helpful in some situations, and very frustrating when the road I was looking for was so new that Google didn’t have it indexed yet. I also found the live traffic to be very helpful in the city. There is room for improvement, but it’s a great 1.0 application.

Weather – The Weather widget is much faster to use than visiting Weather.com or flipping over to the Weather Channel (which I don’t have, but even if I did, it would still be faster). I find myself using this very frequently. I hope in future versions we can get some more extensive information about the weather, including Noah alerts. There is much more that could be done with this application.

Clock – I don’t know how Apple made setting an Alarm fun…but they did. My iPhone, like my previous cellphone before it, also serves as my alarm clock, so I find myself using this application everyday….and I’m not sure there is much more I could ask for from it. The world clock is also nice to have when you’re trying to find out what time Doctor Who airs in the UK…you know…for fun.

Calculator – The calculator is nice looking. It would be nice to have some sort of audio feedback when pressing the buttons, and I would also like to have the ability to flick over to a paper tape like my calculator on my Mac. A pretty, but basic application.

Notes – l was surprised how much I like Notes. The app is much better random writing than your email or even one of the online wordprocessors. You can touch anywhere on the screen and begin writing, and when you’re finished, you can email the document to yourself for later use. Simple, effective, and very well done. I have to say Notes might end up being my favorite of the applications.

Now, you’ll notice I didn’t discuss the big four. Phone, Mail, Safari, and iPod. I’ll be discussing them in the near future.