Jay Fields' Thoughts

Two other (granted, lower priority) features that I'd like to see the iPhone include: The ability to view email in layout view and to play music through an AirPort.

Layout view would be nice for email since some emails come in HTML form and expect a wider width.

As far as playing music: My speakers are connected to the same AirPort that my iPhone uses, so it would be nice if I could play music using my iPhone. It's not a huge deal, but it is more convenient to play music without needing to open my laptop

Labels: iPhone

A few other missing features on the iPhone: MMS messaging and easily sending contact information.

Yes, I can email photos, but not everyone has an iPhone that can check email. MMS has been on the phones I've owned for awhile, so how did the iPhone miss the boat?

As far as sending contact information, I'd be happy if the iPhone could automatically convert contact information into text and send it via SMS. It doesn't seem that you can email contact information either.

Labels: iPhone, MMS, SMS

Update: (From Napoleon via comment)

I believe this is the answer to your problem: Google Hosted Email Answer

Change your account login information to: recent:username@domain.com

Making the change on my iPhone seems to do the trick. Thanks Napoleon.

I've run in to my first real issue with the iPhone: weak support for Gmail for your domain.

First of all, the initial sync doesn't work correctly. By default the iPhone postfixes all 'Gmail' accounts with @gmail.com. I'm not sure what qualifies an account as a 'Gmail' account (on the iPhone), but I'll guess that the pop and smtp google servers might be the key.

So, following the initial sync, the iPhone tried to access my email with username@domain.com@gmail.com. Not good, but not the end of the world. I was able to get around this by creating a new pop account on the iPhone and putting in the correct server and user information. Now my iPhone can receive my email, but here's the catch: it only picks up email if it's the first to find it.

What I mean by 'first to find it' is that if the iPhone finds a new message, it grabs it, but then Apple Mail never gets the message. Or, if Apple Mail grabs a new message, I never get the new message on my iPhone.*

According to Russell Whitman:

[T]his happens because google only allows one pop pull down...

Great.

I considered forwarding all mail to phone@mydomain.com and simply checking that email, but then if I ever reply it will come from phone@mydomain.com. Then, any replies to my reply will never make it back to Apple Mail. Same problem, once again.

I'm not sure how many people have Gmail for your domain, so I'm not very optimistic that this is going to be resolved soon.

* Yes, I do have the settings set to never delete messages on the server. In fact, if I log into the web interface, the message is still unread as far as Gmail is concerned.

Labels: Gmail, iPhone

My experience getting an iPhone was very similar to Scott's. Well, truthfully, the only similarity was that we both slept outside on Wednesday and Thursday. Of course, I was napping on the [pictured] beach, and only during the day.

Getting an iPhone was actually surprisingly easy this morning at the Apple Soho location. When I got there at 10am there were only 4 people in line. Apple did a great job of making sure that their stores were stocked with plenty of inventory.

Anyway, my initial opinion is that it's a great device. The resolution is great, the setup was simple, and the mail integration is very good. All the sync'ing (music, video, pictures, calendar, contacts) works well, as expected. Even using Safari is better than I expected it to be.

I do have a few complaints. First of all, where are the games? I'm not much of a game player, but I do like to play Sudoku on the plane when my laptop dies.

My other complaint is that I can't queue SMS messages when I don't have a signal available. For example, I often create SMS messages when I'm on the subway and immediately send them. I don't actually have a signal, and every other phone I've ever had would queue the messages and send them the next time I have a signal. Instead of following this pattern, the iPhone simply errors when you try to send a message and don't have a signal.

Those are small complaints though. Overall, I'm very happy with the purchase.

Labels: iPhone