Macworld Haul and iPhone Review
Jan. 8th, 2009 08:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hrjMy usual shopping goal at MacWorld is to pick up software updates for programs I use regularly and contemplate one or two new programs that seem either sufficiently intriguing or potentially useful that I can justify buying them. This year, the secondary goal was to pick up iPhone accessories. I wanted a good iPhone case that did everything I wanted it to. I ended up buy four (4) iPhone cases which together do everything I want them to. This was probably a bit excessive, but it was fun. I also sprung for the luxury of a second power cord for the laptop. When I using the laptop at home, it's annoying to always be unplugging and plugging the power cord when I move between up and down stairs. So the idea is to have one cord permanently in the bedroom, and the other down in the living room (and, if needed, packed for travel). Also on the redundancy front, I got a second set of the nice noise-blocking earbuds that I'd picked up for gym use, the new set to go with the iPhone. There was also shopping for a Bluetooth headset for the iPhone, but I didn't find one I liked and it isn't a high priority.
On the software front, they had an awesome at-show special on MS Office: mac 2008. How awesome? The price for the regular software package was considerably less than you'd expect an upgrade to be. I don't tend to feel the need to keep completely up to date with the Office software, but it was too good to pass up. In fact, I phoned![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
scotica to see if she wanted one at that price too, and ended up going back for another. My not-entirely-practical splurge was to pick up some speech recognition software. I'll need to make a concerted effort to find types of composition where it fits with how my brain works, but it could be a very efficient way of composing for some purposes. And the price was (again) startlingly low. Low enough that it broke past my resolution not to buy software unless I have a specific immediate project to use it on. For the rest, there's the usual stack of literature that I'll try to remember to sort through and follow up on. One items I'll definitely dig out is a coupon for a free copy of the desktop program that goes with the iPhone password management app I bought. I'd been planning to buy it anyway, so free is nice.
So, what do I think of my iPhone? Today was probably a good test of battery life, since I probably used it more intensively than I normally would in any five days -- what with playing with various features, reading e-mail on BART going to and fro, and whatnot. I've been saying for years that I had no interest in trying to do e-mail on a handheld device because of the small screen. I have to say now that reading e-mail on the small screen isn't anywhere near as annoying as I expected it to be. Composing e-mail on it is mildly annoying and (as noted in my test LJ note) will not extend to rambling essays. But the most annoying thing I've found so far is that there isn't an obvious way to select large blocks of text to delete in the existing quoted material. Holding down the backspace key induces it to delete a word at a time rather than a letter at a time, but when you're trying to trim down several layers of quoted material (including all the mailing list footers) that previous correspondents haven't bothered to trim, you start thinking that there must be a better way. In fact, I'm sure there is, and will eventually research the question in depth (unless some reader happens to know the answer and tells me). I did check out several "iPhone for Dummies" type books, but it seemed like 60% of the material covered were things I'd already managed quite nicely, so I didn't buy any of them.
So ... e-mail: more useful than expected. I'm still figuring out the logistics of how Mobile Me "synchronizes" the e-mail. In theory, I think, all my devices are supposed to end up with the same in-box contents. That is, if I read and delete an e-mail on one device, it shouldn't show up when reading mail on another device. But this seems to be triggered by whether the mail is still present on the server, not in the in-box -- and I have my account set up to delete from the server only when the desktop trashcan is emptied. So if I don't empty the trash regularly, I'll get repeats of old e-mails when I synchronize the iPhone. The majority of mail that I read and deleted on the iPhone didn't re-download on the home machine this evening, but the items I'd read and deleted on the trip home were still there on the server. So I suspect there's a time delay involved somewhere. The other aspect of this system is that if I read something on the iPhone that I want to reply to from a more convenient machine, I have to leave it there in the in-box until I've downloaded mail at home. But overall, this could be quite fun.
Web surfing: slow but useful. (I know some sites have special handheld-oriented versions, so I'll probably start paying attention to that.)
iDisk (the common-access storage disk that comes with Mobile Me): an extremely useful concept, given that I already had a category of files labelled "synchronize these" that I find convenient to keep on both computers and the pda. Now the synchronization is unnecessary. But the download time for some of my most-used files is painful. In particular, I currently have a single Excel file with multiple worksheets that catalog books (fiction, non-fiction), journal offprints, computer equipment and software, videos, and music. I think I'll break it up into individual separate files to shorten the download time.
Misc. apps: I downloaded a free app that tracks the BART schedule. Very convenient. It would be nice to find similar apps for other transit systems. In particular, it would be nice to have something for both the SF and East Bay bus systems. The map/locator app that comes native on the iPhone is very nice -- everything I hoped for back when I was trying to find a GPS program for the Treo, although I understand that the precision varies depending on which types of signals its triangulating from.
Overall analysis: I am in love with my iPhone. I hope it will be a long and satisfying romance.
On the software front, they had an awesome at-show special on MS Office: mac 2008. How awesome? The price for the regular software package was considerably less than you'd expect an upgrade to be. I don't tend to feel the need to keep completely up to date with the Office software, but it was too good to pass up. In fact, I phoned
scotica to see if she wanted one at that price too, and ended up going back for another. My not-entirely-practical splurge was to pick up some speech recognition software. I'll need to make a concerted effort to find types of composition where it fits with how my brain works, but it could be a very efficient way of composing for some purposes. And the price was (again) startlingly low. Low enough that it broke past my resolution not to buy software unless I have a specific immediate project to use it on. For the rest, there's the usual stack of literature that I'll try to remember to sort through and follow up on. One items I'll definitely dig out is a coupon for a free copy of the desktop program that goes with the iPhone password management app I bought. I'd been planning to buy it anyway, so free is nice.So, what do I think of my iPhone? Today was probably a good test of battery life, since I probably used it more intensively than I normally would in any five days -- what with playing with various features, reading e-mail on BART going to and fro, and whatnot. I've been saying for years that I had no interest in trying to do e-mail on a handheld device because of the small screen. I have to say now that reading e-mail on the small screen isn't anywhere near as annoying as I expected it to be. Composing e-mail on it is mildly annoying and (as noted in my test LJ note) will not extend to rambling essays. But the most annoying thing I've found so far is that there isn't an obvious way to select large blocks of text to delete in the existing quoted material. Holding down the backspace key induces it to delete a word at a time rather than a letter at a time, but when you're trying to trim down several layers of quoted material (including all the mailing list footers) that previous correspondents haven't bothered to trim, you start thinking that there must be a better way. In fact, I'm sure there is, and will eventually research the question in depth (unless some reader happens to know the answer and tells me). I did check out several "iPhone for Dummies" type books, but it seemed like 60% of the material covered were things I'd already managed quite nicely, so I didn't buy any of them.
So ... e-mail: more useful than expected. I'm still figuring out the logistics of how Mobile Me "synchronizes" the e-mail. In theory, I think, all my devices are supposed to end up with the same in-box contents. That is, if I read and delete an e-mail on one device, it shouldn't show up when reading mail on another device. But this seems to be triggered by whether the mail is still present on the server, not in the in-box -- and I have my account set up to delete from the server only when the desktop trashcan is emptied. So if I don't empty the trash regularly, I'll get repeats of old e-mails when I synchronize the iPhone. The majority of mail that I read and deleted on the iPhone didn't re-download on the home machine this evening, but the items I'd read and deleted on the trip home were still there on the server. So I suspect there's a time delay involved somewhere. The other aspect of this system is that if I read something on the iPhone that I want to reply to from a more convenient machine, I have to leave it there in the in-box until I've downloaded mail at home. But overall, this could be quite fun.
Web surfing: slow but useful. (I know some sites have special handheld-oriented versions, so I'll probably start paying attention to that.)
iDisk (the common-access storage disk that comes with Mobile Me): an extremely useful concept, given that I already had a category of files labelled "synchronize these" that I find convenient to keep on both computers and the pda. Now the synchronization is unnecessary. But the download time for some of my most-used files is painful. In particular, I currently have a single Excel file with multiple worksheets that catalog books (fiction, non-fiction), journal offprints, computer equipment and software, videos, and music. I think I'll break it up into individual separate files to shorten the download time.
Misc. apps: I downloaded a free app that tracks the BART schedule. Very convenient. It would be nice to find similar apps for other transit systems. In particular, it would be nice to have something for both the SF and East Bay bus systems. The map/locator app that comes native on the iPhone is very nice -- everything I hoped for back when I was trying to find a GPS program for the Treo, although I understand that the precision varies depending on which types of signals its triangulating from.
Overall analysis: I am in love with my iPhone. I hope it will be a long and satisfying romance.
