2008-10-08 #1

iPhonetastic

So: setting aside the reliability issues of MobileMe's synchronisation (which, to be fair, is a lot better than it was), Cassiel Central is now home to a shiny new iPhone 3G. The final push was that the iPod nano is about to go off and live in a Paris gallery for three months, and we didn't want to be left without our daily injection of BBC podcasts.

While the Treo 680 is a decent phone and a rather good PDA (especially with Agendus installed), the Internet experience (web browsing in particular) is utterly miserable, and (without unlimited tariff or wi-fi) expensive, so it was time to bring things up-to-date.

First impressions of the iPhone: ergonomically superb, with a beautiful user interface - everything else I've used now seems clumsy and hopelessly antiquated. I had a rough time with the on-screen keyboard for a day or two, but now it works pretty well: either it has learned to be accurate, or I have. Integration with the Mac is as smooth as one would expect. It easily beats the Palm in terms of networking (and in terms of synchronisation), but is a slightly weaker PDA. (But then, compared to the Psion devices, everything is a weak PDA.)

I've not gone nuts in the iTunes App Store, but have picked up one or two things: OmniFocus as a to-do and workflow manager, and 1Password for global password management. (Crucially, both synchronise to powerful desktop equivalents.) The Facebook app is rather nice, and NetNewsWire works well for the daily RSS fix. FileMagnet is a handy over-the-air file transfer tool which can view documents, although it falls over if they're not small and simple, limiting its usefulness. But in terms of sheer coolness, the TouchOSC control surface app looks like being a lot of fun. I'll be coding some MaxMSP translators for it tomorrow - if it works out, I'll gig with it in Paris.