OK, so I was not planning to purchase an iPhone, but about 3 weeks ago I was told that my company was taking away our Blackberrys. They were scheduled to shut them off on August 1st, and I found out it was for sure on July 24th. Well, that didn’t leave me much time to get a new phone so I rushed over to the AT&T store to order a 16GB Black iPhone. I ordered it in about 15 minutes. The store clerk said 5 to 7 days arrival, so I was not to worried that it would make it to me by August 1st.

I started reading up on Mac Rumors and the Mac Forums only to find that people were seeing 2 to 3 week waits on 16GB iPhone orders. This got me worried so on July 29th, I woke up at 6 A.M. to go stand in line at the Apple store. I didn’t want to wait in line, but at this point I had no choice. Got in the line at 7:15 A.M. to find about 30 people in line ahead of me. At 8 A.M. the store opened and around 8:30 A.M. I was given my “Chocolate Factory Gold Ticket.” At this point I could have left and came back to the store later that day to pick it up but I didn’t have to be to work till 10 A.M. and I worked about .5 miles away. So I waited and waited and waited. 10 A.M. comes and goes, I am about 5th in line so I am just waiting. After I call into work and say I am stuck in traffic, I finally get into purchase my iPhone at about 10:15 A.M. I was a new AT&T customer and I was NOT porting a number so I figured the activation process would be easy. Well it was, it took about 15 Minutes and I was on my way with a working iPhone.

As for my AT&T order, I called and was told I had to wait till the iPhone was received in store to cancel the order. So I waited and waited. Well today, August 5th, I finally got a email that the iPhone was in store. I went to the store, and canceled my order. Oh, and it took about 25 minutes to cancel the order which is CRAP!

OK, so I have been a full week with my new iPhone. Let me remind you that I never even touched a 2G iPhone. I did have a iPod Touch that came with my new MBP. Yea, so let me just say:

I LOVE THIS THING!

Design

The iPhone design is excellent. It is very thin. What surprised me is how it is thinner than my Blackberry Curve, yet it is so much more complex and advanced. The physical buttons on the iPhone a nicely placed. I find it easy to hit the volume buttons while on a call, and when you are holding the phone to type, or talk, you don’t find yourself accidentally hitting buttons. The new plastic back look nice, but I find it VERY prone to scratches. The screen is visually stunning, but I whipped it free of finger prints probably 10 times the first day I had the phone.

I solved both of the issues above with a case and a screen cover which I will talk more about in a future post.

The Phone

The phone part of the iPhone is very easy to work with. I was worried that I might not like having a physical button keypad, but I don’t miss it at all. Handling contacts is very easy with Mobile Me.

I like how easy it is to put a call on speaker, add a caller for conferencing, or get back the home screen if you need to look up a number or a email. It all flows very well. Also, the slide to answer is always fun! The visual voice mail is great, I already have 10 voice mails, and it is very easy to find a specific one. My number one favorite feature of the phone part of the iPhone is the favorites list. I use to put an “a_” in front of my family and close friends on my other phone just so their numbers would appear at the top of the contacts list, well no need to do that with the favorites list.

Core Applications

The applications that come on the phone are OK, I like some of them, but don’t like others. The camera and photo apps are great The camera, ibelieve, is 2 megapixels, which is more then decent for a camera phone. Photos that are put on the phone look stunning, plus you get to use the fun multi touch to browse through them. Calendar and Contacts work well with Mobile Me, so I am a big fan of them. The clock is nice because of the alarm sections. I use my phone as my A.M. alarm clock. Like how I can set multiple alarms, and I can pick which days exactly the different alarms go off.

Maps, is a nice program that works well with Google search to find places, but they iPhone badly needs a program that takes better advantage of the GPS that comes in the 3G edition of the iPhone.

iTunes and the App Store, are excellent. I find myself using them a lot. I love to discover new music, so I find myself in the iTunes mobile store a lot when I come across a song I like. The Apps store is great because it makes it easy to get Apps, and it notifies you of updates.

I never use the Weather, Stocks, or YouTube apps, mainly because I have found better 3rd party alternatives.

Overall

When I first purchased the iPhone, I was experiencing a lot of bugs and some crashing. Well, last night the Apple stork dropped a little bundle of joy into my iTunes. The iPhone 2.1 firmware update fixed almost all of the bugs I was experiencing, and it has not crashed yet since I updated. Overall, I am very happy with the phone. It does so much it is almost unbelievable.

Price: $199.00 (8GB Black) - $299.00 (16GB Black or White)
Where to find it: Apple Retail Stores & AT&T Retail Stores
Rating: 5 out of 5 Stars
Official Site: http://www.apple.com/iphone/

Note: I am going to review cases, Mobile Me, and 3rd Party apps very soon in individual posts. Subscribe to my RSS feed or my Twitter account so you will know when I post those.