Playing with an iPhone...

This week I got my hands on an iPhone to play with. This was not the “have a quick look” that you might get when someone else has one, but a proper play with the “must have gadget of the year (2007 to 2120)”TM.

My interest was partly driven by curiosity, partly to build up some sort of picture of competitive intelligence from a work perspective. I decided to go through the whole experience: purchase, take home, set up…the lot.

Most people have taken polar views on the iPhone: one group is “this is the best phone ever and Nokia and Sony Ericsson and everyone else might as well give up now.” The other camp tends to think along the lines of “For that price I can a Nokia N95, a Wii and a few nights out down the pub – so why would I want to spend money on that.”

I have generally ignored the plaudits amongst my Apple friends, assuming that their loyalty to all things Mac was clouding their judgement. Without wanting to stick a fence post where the sun don’t shine, my experience has been neither fervently pro or radically anti iPhone.

First off it is eye wateringly expensive. £349.99 for a phone on prepay is a lot of money, even in a world where the iPod Touch costs £160. The premium of £190 for the phone is a big price to pay.

But hang on, it does come with a year’s worth of wifi access and free data usage, which sugars the pill significantly. I spend a lot more than £200 a year on public wifi and mobile data and to get this included is a significant advantage.

One issue I have experienced is the phone can be slow to download emails and other data. I waited an age the other day to collect some emails and ended up rebooting the phone to get what I wanted. At other times the flow of data seems almost unreal, smooth and efficient. I suspect a lot depends on the state of the network, although the worst experience I have had was in central London where I would have expected a decent service.

Where the device comes into its own is making data simple to digest within mobile. For some time I have believed that you only really want access to a few things from the internet on your mobile phone, and browsing is not that way to get them. I want football scores and news about my team, news about traffic jams, train times and news headlines. That is pretty much it. And that (though a few free downloads) is what I can get on the iPhone (other than the train times, but surely that is only a matter of time?). In this respect, the product is a winner.

Overall my experience has been positive but not revolutionary. The one thing that impresses me most is the level of attention to detail Apple has invested in the product. The importance of user experience in mobile has not been a priority for some companies. Up to now it has not needed to be. As the industry matures, this will matter more and more. The iPhone sets a new level in this respect. I cannot wait to see how the rest of the industry responds.