Information Technology is looking at the ever increasing number of smartphone devices, and how to best support the devices on campus. The trick is to find a device or two that we can standardize on that work with the campus wireless system, shared calendar system, and e-mail. IT is currently testing the iPhone from Apple. Here is Trey’s impression of the iPhone after two days of use.
- First impression – I have been using a handheld device of some kind (Apple Newton, Handspring Visor, Sony Clie, Treo, and currently a Palm T/X) for many years. The iPhone interface is excellent, and very intuitive. I find myself trying to use the iPhone touch commands on my Palm after only two days of testing.
- Text input – I have not mastered the keyboard on the iPhone. Poking at the keyboard with my finger gets tiring on a long e-mails or notes. I find using my thumbs to be a bit clunky, but I am getting better with practice. The autocorrect function saves me quite a bit.
- E-Mail – works very well with IWU’s e-mail system. Very easy to navigate, automatically checks mail every 15 minutes, and can be adjusted for manual, 30 minutes or 1 hour.
- Calendar – for Mac users the iPhone can sync to Meeting Maker, which is used in many areas on campus. The iPhone does not sync to Meeting Maker for people using a Windows computer. More testing to take place.
- Network connectivity – The iPhone uses the AT&T Edge Network for Internet access, and also supports Wi-Fi networks (like the ones found in Starbucks, etc.). AT&T iPhone plans all come with unlimited Internet access. The Wi-Fi connection is much faster than the Edge network. The Wi-Fi works great at my home, but the iPhone does not currently have settings to allow it to work on the IWU Secure network or corporate networks.
- Battery Life – Seems pretty good. I am recharging the phone for the first time today – day three.
- Audio Quality – The phone calls sound good. The speaker phone is okay.
I entered the iPhone evaluation with no expectations. I must say that after using the iPhone for a couple days that the “cool factor” is extremely high.There are many more features to investigate so more will follow.
When are you going to test the Blackberry. It is my understanding that they are as “cool” as the IPhone and cost about $200 less. Just curious.
I talked to Trey about this yesterday. I thought it might be nice for our department to try out some different smartphones. I personally would rather try out something like the Nokia N800 series tablet, but I’d try a Blackberry if that were a more likely candidate for support at IWU.
I agree with Rick, it seems only natural to test other devices if we are going to compare them fairly. Yes, the iPhone is very cool and let’s face it, who wouldn’t want one, but does it really work with our campus resources as well as these other offerings in the smartphone arena? How can we be sure unless we take a look at them.