One month with the iPhone...

I had both the curse and the pleasure of being in Hawaii on vacation on the day of the iPhone launch, and did not purchase my iPhone until Saturday, June 30th. The evening of June 29th did not work out for me, but with some phone calls around Oahu to various AT&T stores and to the Apple stores, I was able to find an Apple store with some 8GB units still in stock on the morning of the 30th. Kudos to the folks at the Ala Moana Center in Honolulu for making my purchase such an easy process. I picked up a car charger as my only accessory and was in and out in 5 minutes. 8GB iPhone, here we go!

First Impressions

The iPhone comes well packaged. Apple is renowned for their innovative style and the experience they provide to a user when it comes to the entire purchase and unpackaging experience. I found the iPhone to be no exception. iPhone comes boxed with an AC adapter, the USB charging/synching cable, a USB dock, and a microfiber cloth embossed with the iPhone name. There are a couple of small pamphlets – the Finger Tips guide and a Product Information Guide, and a set of Apple decals. The box is the smallest I have seen for a phone of its size, and it is definitely a work of art in itself.

Opening the box and removing the contents was straightforward with each item either wrapped or covered in plastic. There is a small dark folder that provides a tab under the plastic tray that the iPhone itself is in that contains the pamphlets and the microfiber cloth. Underneath that is a molded plastic tray that contains the cable, the charger, and the dock.

I elected to start charging my iPhone right away. The morning I purchased the iPhone I was boarding a cruise ship, so I had to endure the wait between the purchase time and getting to my cabin aboard the ship to even unbox and start charging the iPhone. Once unboxed, I charged the iPhone for about 4 hours when I saw the “battery full” indicator and then began the process of activating it.

In preparation for this, I had downloaded iTunes 7.3 on the morning of the 29th while in the villa where my family and I had been staying. (It was wonderful to have internet access both there and on the ship!) I had also never owned an iPod before, but my kids all have one and they use my laptop as one of their sync PCs, so I had a pretty good size library to work with of my own music.

iTunes 7.3 didn’t really look any different to me from the previous versions, but that changed as soon as I plugged in the iPhone using the USB cable. The drivers loaded into my Vista Ultimate laptop and then I saw the activation screens. I was a previous Cingular/AT&T customer, so it was really a matter of moving my number and plan to the SIM pre-installed in the iPhone. I simply followed the activation script (the Apple website has wonderful video tutorials of this process, by the way) and was somewhat disappointed that I was going to lose my FAN discount on my 5-line family plan. I went ahead and activated with the unlimited data and 1500 SMS plan and still ended up saving about $10 per month from the plan I was on with my Blackjack. For those who may complain about the cost of the data and text plans, you have no idea how good you have it! My activation took about 3 minutes as the internet connection on the ship wasn’t very fast, but iPhone still managed to come up with the “AT&T has successfully activated your phone” message and I was off to the races.