Apple's iPhone: The Future is Here
by Anand Lal Shimpi on July 2, 2007 6:13 PM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Mobile
The iPhone email client is one of the best applications on the device for the same reasons that the iPhone itself is impressive: it's fast and it just works.
ITunes will automatically sync your email accounts from Mail or Outlook, or you can add email accounts manually to the iPhone. Just about any POP/IMAP account will work, provided that you supply the account credentials. I setup my AnandTech email address as well as my gmail and Yahoo mail accounts.
With your email accounts configured, the iPhone can check them every 15, 30 or 60 minutes automatically. Apple desperately needs support for free push email; while the iPhone supports Yahoo push mail, it appears that you have to pay a $3/month fee to enable push support on your Yahoo mail account. If Apple can bring push Gmail support to the iPhone, I'd be happy.
Email on the iPhone is geared towards keeping up with your messages while you're away from your computer, and as such there's absolutely no search functionality. By default, the client only shows you the last 50 messages in your inbox; if you want to see more, simply flick your finger up the screen until you reach the end of the messages and ask the application to load the next 50 (this number is configurable up to 200).
As a device designed to fill the gap between when you're using your desktop and your laptop, the iPhone succeeds in handling email. While downloading email the interface does slow down slightly, but even with an inbox full of 200 messages navigating and reading email is as intuitive as it could be.
The iPhone's screen comes in handy when viewing emails, text is sharp and clear; mobile email never looked so good before.
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rcc - Tuesday, July 3, 2007 - link
If there is no GPS hardware built into a device, 3rd party software won't help. You have to have the hardware receiver built in.
Locutus465 - Wednesday, July 4, 2007 - link
Fortunetly by law every new phone activated as of 2005 must have built in GPS for E-911.. Just one small baby step from there repurposes that GPS for coolness... My i720 allows this.strikeback03 - Thursday, July 5, 2007 - link
Doesn't the law simply require the carrier to be able to determine the location of the phone, but not specify how? Allowing the carriers to determine by distance to cell towers instead of GPS?Locutus465 - Thursday, July 5, 2007 - link
I beleive GPS is required... At least this is what I was told by a Verizon rep that refused to activate an older phone I had.Cygni - Thursday, July 5, 2007 - link
GPS is not required by law, yet. Location support IS required, but is already present on nearly every phone made in the last 3 years.plinden - Tuesday, July 3, 2007 - link
Leo Laporte in one of his podcasts this weekend mentioned that he heard there is an SDK for the iPhone that's ready for OS X but not Windows, but Apple (ie Jobs) wants to release both versions at the same time, hence the delay.
That's just a rumor, but it's almost certain there'll be an SDK at some point, although it's extremely likely, if not certain, that developers will have to go through Apple to get their apps published to the iPhone (ie via iTunes).
Give it six months, like I'm doing. I'll likely get the 16GB version with 3G when it's available.
Locutus465 - Tuesday, July 3, 2007 - link
There will need to be good 3rd party support for me to even consider it. There'll also need to be a good (and inexpensive) all in one chat client. And Mahjoong, that's totally a requirement.sviola - Tuesday, July 3, 2007 - link
You should check the Nokia N95, it has the built-in GPS, altough it runs Symbian OS.Locutus465 - Tuesday, July 3, 2007 - link
Well yes, my phone has built in GPS hardware as well (as do all phone inc. iPhone). It's just missing the app + maps (unless you're sayind the nokia comes with software + maps which would be the bomb). So I would just need that part of the equation. As a matter of fact the Samsung i720 also allows you to use the phone as a plain old GPS device, so really if I wanted to I could potentially blue tooth it to a laptop for instance and go that route.Locutus465 - Tuesday, July 3, 2007 - link
Oh yeah, on the i720 to set an MP3 as your ring tone you just need to browse to it in flie explorer, tap and hold ("right click" in Windows Mobile) and select "Set as ringtone" :)Automatically copies to \Windows\Rings and sets the song as your ringtone :D