iPhone Update...

As some of you already know, I bought an iPhone after the price drop to $399. I had originally planned on buying the AppleTV this month since I had to use a $50 certificate that I received from the iPod Battery Issue Class Action from a couple of years ago by October 7th or it would expire.

Once Steve made the announcement that the price was dropping $200 after only 2 months since its debut, after being absolutely shocked for a while, I knew this was a sign so I decided to use my $50 cert on the iPhone instead. We were already AT&T customers so replacing my Motorola L2 with the iPhone couldn't have been easier.

The iPhone absolutely kicks ass but is by no means a perfect device. It IS better than anything else I've used, including the the Palms & the Blackberry Curve.

I've compiled a list of improvements I (and MANY other iPhone owners) want... All of the following can be improved via a firmware update or support from other software companies... (In a loose order of importance to me)

• Open up the system so users can use their OWN ringtones (from MP3, CDs they own etc.)
• Safari needs to run FLASH and JAVA
• 3rd Party App Support
• Gmail Push
• .Mac Push (why this wasn't already included in the first place, I will never understand)
• SlingBox app
• COPY/CUT/PASTE
• "Reply to" in e-mail so I can reply to a pushed yahoo message and reply with a gmail reply address
• Sync "Notes" back to iTunes or something to save them off phone (cause it's completely worthless to me otherwise)
• Ability to "Mark all as read" in E-Mail
• Ability to "Delete All" in E-Mail
• Turn keyboard sideways in any mode that requires a lot of typing... (E-MAIL)
• Ability to save pics in e-mail to my "Photos"
• MMS messages
• Ability to change the "alert" sounds for incoming E-Mail
• Ability to place a point anywhere on the google maps
• "Attach" option in the New Message window
• Ability to send pics from camera at FULL res!
• Ability to tether as a modem via bluetooth and/or USB
• PDF viewer needs bookmarks + searching
• Contacts to use "Categories" in Outlook 2003
• Keyboard search in contacts
• IM Clients (iChat?)
• Mail count indicator for multiple email accounts
• Voice dialing
• To Do list/task display
• Added after 1.1.1 update: Allow iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store use via EDGE

And a couple of things for version 2 of the iPhone...

• LARGER STORAGE
• 3G support
• Memory card support (SD?)
• User-replaceable battery
• Video recording (I don't know if this can be done via firmware update)

Right after buying it, thanks to many of the hackers out there, I found a hack (not really a hack at all) that allowed me to trick iTunes into thinking that any ringtone I wanted to add was a "purchased ringtone" so I had over 30 extra ringtones added to my phone. I'm a big fan of custom ringtones for individual contacts. When I updated to the new firmware yesterday I lost that "loophole" and the ability to add all of my custom ringtones.

There is good with the bad though... Not that I've had a lot of time to test it in the last 20 hours but Safari & Google Maps haven't crashed on me once and the Wi-Fi Music store is cool and super easy to use.

In closing... after 12 days of use... I gotta say that this phone absolutely kicks ass! This is the product I've been waiting for for years! This is coming from someone who paid $399 for the Palm i705 + $36 a month for the data connectivity to be able to e-mail and surf the WAP 4-5 years ago. While this is my first "Smart Phone" it's my 4th "PDA". Even after I lost my ringtones (I'm confident a hack will be available at some point) it's still a $349 well spent.

Come on Apple... get working on my wish list!