Ahoy. Having spent most of the last week in an undisclosed location that lacked not only Wi-Fi but pretty much any shred of cell phone reception, I’ve been suffering from the dreaded “half-an-iPhone” syndrome: when showing off the iPhone to the a large number of relatives, I had to continually assure them that it was much cooler when you had access to the Internet.
Still, I did get a surprising amount of use out of one of the iPhone’s features, and it’s one that’s been getting short shrift next to the phone, Internet, and iPod functionality: the camera. Yes, we know it’s not the best camera, or even the best cameraphone, in the world—2 megapixels, no flash, no zoom—but this is the kind of implementation I’d dreamed of when I got my first cameraphone.
Taking pictures is easy. Hit the camera button, point and shoot. That’s it. The lack of options here means simplicity more than anything. And in daytime photographs with enough light, the camera is perfectly fine. I even managed to snap a picture or two at night that exceeded my expectations. I took about 85 shots with my iPhone (despite the fact that I also had a real point-and-shoot camera with me).
But the best part of taking pictures is showing them off. We’ve waxed rhapsodic about the iPhone’s gorgeous screen, and the two megapixel images look beautiful as you’re flicking through them. Add in the pinch zoom and rotating to landscape, and you’ll get plenty of “oohs” and “ahhs.”
When you finally add Internet back in the mix, the results are even better. I snapped a shot of my cousin at a baseball game and emailed it to him from our seats. No more worrying about having to go home, remember to download the pictures into iPhoto, and then email them off. Done and done.
That said, there are still some shortcomings. It’d be nice if there was better Flickr integration, or the ability to send more than one image to a person in a single message, or picture messaging. But as with so many other features of the iPhone, Apple’s already managed to transform the camera into something I’ll actually use. The rest is icing.
I know what you mean Dan. I've spent the last week in the mountains in Virginia. We're leaving them tomorrow for civilization. You go to show your relatives how the google maps works... but can't. But they do get a kick out of the pictures and iPod features.
No cell service never hurt me so much before the iPhone. I make a daily trip into a town for wifi/cell use. Ok, maybe twice daily, ok... who am I kidding? I'm there as much as I can. Need milk? I'll go get it! More ice? I'm there. Soda's? Got ya covered.
I'll be sitting at a diner using the ol' iPhone and I'll hear some whispers. "That's that new phone." "Look, he's got an iPhone." At a Huddle House some waitress left her area to come over to the area I was in to ask me if that was an iPhone. "Get out!" was her reply when I told her it was. Everywhere I go, they know what it is, and it's their first time seeing it.
Throughout the last week and a half, one thing has really come in handy on the iPhone. Google Maps. That really rocks. This is my first trip that I've ever made without a road atlas. Those will be things of the past. On the highway, I've found not too many locations where I don't have service. A tip for the Maps user: before you start out, go through the entire trip on your iPhone so that it stores it in cache. Then you can access it even when you don't have EDGE.
Walt: I've also found that I'm using Maps more than I expected. For example, yesterday at a family gathering, someone mentioned that a friend's wedding was taking place in Jupiter, Florida. Someone else wondered aloud, "Where is that, exactly? I wonder how far it is from Miami." Within a minute, I had a map of Jupiter, FL and driving directions -- which included the total distance -- to Miami.
Hey Walt, that cache tip is a great little nugget for improving the utility of Google Maps on your iPhone when you're on the road. Last week I tried handing my iPhone to my trusty co-pilot/navigator while on the road to figure out how to get to our destination (which I had sworn I knew how to get to), and by the time she had managed to punch everything in and wait for it to load (an agonizing eternity on Edge, sometimes), I had already missed the exit. I will be better prepared with my trip stored on iPhone next time. Hopefully this will replace the need for an in-car GPS I was thinking about buying.
Dan,
You mentioned Flickr. I am sure you may already know this but there is a way to just email the picture to Flickr. Even better, if you want to blog something but want to upload your image to Flickr and then have the image reference plopped into your blog post (so your blog shows your image which is now stored in Flickr), Flickr provides for that as well.
Check out http://www.flickr.com/account/uploadbyemail/
The link requires ,e to login to your Flickr account. But it just gives me the email addresses I need to send my picture or 'blog with pictures' to.