3 Days with the iPhone 5
When I bought my iPhone 5 this past Saturday, a friend asked me to post my thoughts on it after having used it for the weekend. So here it goes.
First, some background. I had a Palm Treo and switched to the iPhone in 2008 with the iPhone 3GS. I used so many different apps on my Palm Treo that I simply couldn't switch to the iPhone until 3rd party apps were available. Even then, I had to give up some apps that had no iPhone equivilent, at least, right away.
To get the iPhone 5, I placed a pre-order at an AT&T store on Saturday, September 15th just one day after Apple began taking pre-orders. The folks at AT&T thought I had a good chance of receiving my iPhone on Friday the 21st, the day the iPhone would be for sale, but they couldn't of course guarantee that. I watched my AT&T account like a hawk but the order status never changed from "Processing" to, well, anything else. I called and was told that I would likely receive it 14 to 21 days after I ordered it. That was likely to be October. So this past Friday I called the local Apple Store to see if they had any in stock. They didn't but they expected to get some in the following day at noon. I asked about the line and was told, "Yeah, there was a pretty long line today." That's what I was trying to avoid by ordering it through AT&T. I resigned myself to waiting in line and arrived Saturday morning at 8:30am knowing that the store didn't open until 10am and that they likely wouldn't have phones until at least noon. It was going to be a long wait.
Surprisingly, the store was open! I've arrived to find Apple Stores open early before but usually for Genius Bar appointments only. They were not crowded (which is atypical) so I walked up to the first guy in a blue shirt who promptly asked me how he could help. It turned out that not only were they open for sales but they actually had a black iPhone 5, 64 GB for the AT&T network! They had the phone I wanted! No waiting, no problems. They even had people from AT&T in the store that got my phone number switched over to the iPhone 5 and put the new line we were adding (for my daughter) on my old iPhone 4S. The whole process was amazingly simple and about 30 minutes later, I walked out of the store with my new iPhone 5. Next stop was the AT&T store across the street to cancel the order I placed with them. I was expecting a hassle over that but didn't get one. AT&T canceled my order without a struggle.
After a hour or so of doing the sync, backup, restore shuffle between three phones (because my daughter decided she wanted my wife's white iPhone rather than my black one), my iPhone 5 was all set up and ready to go.
I'm going to talk about the stuff that matters to me. So let's get started.
The iPhone 5 is definitely lighter. That's the first thing I noticed. That doesn't matter too much to me but I admit I like it better than the weight of the iPhone 4S.
I like the bigger screen. I get an extra row of icons on the home screen which means I can put more of the apps I use most there. I can see more emails in list view, I can see more of the map in the Maps app, I can see more search results in Safari, etc. I have seven movies on my iPhone (including the extended version of The Lord of the Rings trilogy). So I like movies. The wide screen is much nicer for watching movies. I don't watch movies all that often on my phone but when I do, I'll enjoy the nearly 16 x 9 aspect ratio. I'm still get used to reaching up the longer screen when buttons are at the top but it's really no big deal.
They say the screen is better than the 4S in terms of things like use in daylight, contrast, etc. I believe them but I didn't notice any of these things. Having said that after using my iPhone 5 for a while, I might notice the difference going back to an iPhone 4S.
The phone is faster. Apps open more quickly but I have already adapted to the faster speed so now It's what I expect. If I went back to the 4S, I'm sure it would feel slower.
The sound quality when on a phone call might be better but I'm not really sure.
Where I live AT&T doesn't have LTE service. However, I don't have to drive far to reach it. A quick test on LTE resulted in 8.42MBps down. Better than 4G but not even twice as fast (at least for download). Upload, however, is much faster on LTE than 4G. 9.68MBps up compared to 1.26MBps on 4G. Great when uploading photos and video to Facebook. A friend who lives in Sacramento is getting 45MBps down. Wow.
The new power adapter is nice primarily because it's double-sided. I no longer have to figure out which end is up.
The back of the phone is no longer glass and I've heard that it scratches more easily. We will see. I keep my keys and change in my other pocket so for the most part, this isn't an issue for me.
They moved the headphone jack to the bottom of the phone. I wondered why until I plugged in the EarPods (more about them in a moment) and set the phone on the table in front of me. Having the headphones connect to the bottom suddenly made perfect sense and I wondered what took them so long (though that thought had never occurred to me before).
The EarPods are a big improvement over the earbuds that have come with previous iPhones. The old ones never fit very well and completely blocked all outside sound which can be good and bad. I have many times found myself looking at someone who appears to be talking to me from a silent movie only to take my earbuds out and ask them to repeat what they just said. The new EarPods are far more comfortable and sound better as well. The previous earbuds didn't fit my wife at all but she smiled immediately when trying on the EarPods. It wasn't totally obvious how to put them in my ears at first, as strange as that sounds. The new ones go inside your ears in a way that is very different from the old ones and of course you can't see your ears when putting them in. I figured it out and now it's no big deal.
Overall, I'm very happy with the iPhone 5. I use my iPhone a lot. We have not had a regular phone line at home for at least 6 years. But more importantly, the iPhone is a very portable computer and it is for that, even more than using it as a phone, that I have one.
While this has nothing to do with iPhone 5 directly, I want to mention something about the new Maps application. I've been reading complaints about it and it seems like they mostly center around the data itself. People find addresses that are wrong or missing. In my limited use so far, I haven't noticed that. I think the data might be better in the US. I'm not sure. I do miss Google Street View. However, I gladly give that up to have the excellent turn-by-turn navigation that is provided. I haven't yet bought something to hold the iPhone where I can see it while driving but found I don't really need one. The spoken directions are so clear and loud enough that seeing the map itself isn't necessary. I'll still buy a holder for it but the navigation works without it. So overall, I'm quite satisfied with the new Maps application and I'm sure it will get better with time.