Beginning the week of Harry Potter

OK, now that I’ve had an iPhone for a week (and have even had my first full crash, requiring a home+power reset), it’s time to resume talking about other interests.

The IBM Club bought out a good bit of the AMC multiplex in Saratoga for a special showing of Harry Potter V — we went, of course, since it was the easiest (and cheapest: $3) way to see the movie without having to put up with the usual hassles of long lines and uncertain showtimes. The movie was pretty good, though rather dark, and well worth the investment of time and money.

I was amused to note at the end of the credits that Harry Potter is copyright by Warner Brothers, though J. K. Rowling does have publication rights.

Good thing, considering what’s happening a week from today; I just checked Amazon, and my copy is listed in “Shipping Soon” state, so it’s too late to cancel my order. I wonder how many copies will leak out before Saturday.

Mostly successful

I’ve just finished three days at Watson Research (two in Hawthorne, one in Yorktown), and I actually accomplished most of what I came out here to do. I even managed to pick up a geocache, did a lot of walking, and found a good ice cream place (Main Street Sweets in Tarrytown), which probably undoes the good of walking.

And of course, I played with my iPhone a lot. I hope someone comes out with a replacement earphone/microphone combo with smaller earbuds; I can’t keep these in my ears unless I hold them there, which is not terribly practical! Other than that, I’m still a happy camper, though I wish the iPhone had GPS. Yeah, I know…that’s how they’ll get me to buy iPhone 2.0.

The iPhone also makes it easy to take and share photos, whether they’re worth sharing or not. See my flickrstream for proof.

Tomorrow morning, it’s back to JFK for the flight home. I’m ready.

The joys of travel

The phone rang early this morning. It was American, telling me that my flight was delayed several hours so l wouldn’t be waiting too long at the airport. But they also said they could get me on an earlier flight if I could make it…so I zipped out of the house and to SFO. Carpool stickers are nice to have.

There was a long line at the gate, but it was for a different flight and now I’m on the plane waiting to be told to turn the iPhone off. Typing a posting on this is difficult, but it seems to be getting easier as I go.

iPhone thoughts, 2 days in

So now that I’ve owned an iPhone for nearly two full days, it’s time to give a full and considered review. Let’s start with the weak points:

  • no 3G wide-area connectivity
  • some headphones (including my noise-blocking phones) need an adapter, which I’ll really regret tomorrow on the plane, since I don’t have one
  • The Gmail support is via POP, which means I get to delete mail twice
  • The camera doesn’t have a flash

On the other hand, it’s a hell of a lot of fun!

I don’t yet really know how well it works as a phone (except through my car’s Bluetooth) or as an iPod — I’ll find out this week as I travel, I guess.

One other interesting note: the iPhone doesn’t have an IM client. But I found it possible to use meebo to do IM — their layout is not optimized for the small iPhone screen, so a lot of scrolling is necessary, but it can be done!