iPhone

The mic button on my iPhone earbuds is broken. A few days ago I started to notice that it was becoming less responsive. Yesterday it stopped working completely. I’ll probably go to the Apple store tomorrow to pick up a new one.

My headline from yesterday was probably misleading. I only “unlocked” my iPhone so I can install third party software and my own ring tones, but here’s the real deal. George Hotz figured out how to really unlock the iPhone so it can use SIM cards other than AT&T’s, such as T-Mobile, using a hardware hack. Now, the people at iphoneSIMfree.com have found a software-only hack for unlocking an iPhone.

Since I already have a two year contract with AT&T, which I had even before I got my iPhone, there’s no reason for me to do it.

I finally got brave enough to install the Installer App on my iPhone so I can use third party software. The apps I installed so far are Launcher, SendSong, Lights Off, Finder, and Term vt100. I can also now connect to it via ssh.

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AT&T’s report that they only received 146,000 iPhone activations on the first few days should be taken with a grain of salt.

The iPhone was released on at 6 PM on June 29, which means there was less than two full days before the end of the quarter. Some people may not have activated their iPhones right away. Since there were widespread reports of problems with activation, there may have been a huge number who simply weren’t able to activate within the first two days.

The actual sales numbers were certainly a lot higher than the number of activations, since most AT&T stores sold out the first weekend.

I found that an iPhone fits very nicely in the holster case for Sidekick, Treo, and Blackberry from Just Wireless (SKU 12295).

After using the iPhone for a few days, I can say it’s the best phone I’ve ever used. Here are some further impressions and some of my experiences with it.

For the first few days the battery didn’t seem to be charging completely. I never saw the plug icon; it continued to display the lightning bolt even after I had it plugged into the outlet all night. Until today, the ‘usage since full charge’ was blank, but today it finally showed the usage after I had it plugged in all last night.

I went to the beach today (I’m on vacation) and took the iPhone with me. As an iPod it’s excellent. I listened to it for several hours and the battery still showed almost a full charge. I also took a few pictures, which I importeinto iPhoto and adjusted the brightness & color, resulting in better pictures than posting to Flickr directly from the iPhone. I also checked my email using an EDGE connection and found it to be acceptable.

Yesterday, the EDGE network was down so I was unable to connect without a WiFi network. CingularAT&T’s signal is pretty bad in my home, so I usually have to go to a room in the back to make a call. It was the same way with every other cell phone I’ve owned. As long as I get at least 2 bars, the sound is loud & clear.

It does have a few user interface quirks. Most annoying is that the Email app doesn’t let you rotate the orientation. Text email is easy to read in the standard orientation, but HTML email can sometimes be ugly and difficult to read without flipping horizontally, depending on the style & layout. Also, it doesn’t let you hit buttons on the menu screen if you’re holding it horizontally. It also lacks the iPod’s “On-the-go” playlist feature, which lets you create a play list on the fly by adding tracks to it. I’m sure Apple will add some of those features with software updates.

I’ve posted a huge gallery of almost every screen on the iPhone here.