I have had use of an iPhone for a few months now, and I have not really posted any thoughts on the system yet, so I thought I would jot down a few things I have done to make my life work better with the device, some example uses, and an idea of one thing to make it better.
To make the device work a bit better for me, there are two simple things that took me a while to get quite right.
The first was getting my bookmarks in order. I was in good shape to start with, as I was already using Safari to organize the sites I use most often, and they were categorized by the type of work that I do. This synced to the iPhone with no problem, but these links were for the main web page of a site, and there are more and more ‘iPhone optimized’ versions of sites out there. So I created an iPhone collection of bookmarks to hold links to these sorts of sites. That worked reasonably well, and once I moved that collection to my “bookmarks bar” (ie I put it up as a peer collection to my other collections) I have found that navigating between this collection and my ‘organization based’ collections is faster, and the iPhone group does not get in the way.
The second thing I needed to do was to copy and paste email addresses. This is not supported on the iPhone (no copy and paste at all). I have some FAQ sorts of things that come to me, and so being able to forward a canned response a few times a week saves me a lot of typing. But my brain is too old to memorize complex email addresses. So what I have created and addressbook entry for a user with the name • • (those are option 8 characters - this sorts this person to the bottom of the iPhone contacts list, and does not make the name that shows up in the email look too strange). Then if I need to copy and address, I just add it to my • • user, with a custom type of the current date. Then I go into the message I want to forward (I keep some as postponed message for easy access to the most used ones) and then add that address in to the ‘to’ filed. All I have to remember is the date :).
As for personal use stories of the iPhone, the most surprising to me was what a great alarm clock it is. I sleep light, so its ‘waking’ ability is not the real benefit here. The jem for me is that as soon as I turn off the alarm, I am holding a device that has all the email that came in while I was sleeping, and knows my calendar. By the time I stager in to brush my teeth in the morning, i am aware of what is waiting for me at work. Forwarding my office phone to the device has also been a major boon in keeping in contact with people looking for me.
My idea for improvement is a simple one. I have not yet sent it to apple via their suggestion path, as I am waiting for the next (soon) update to the iPhone to come out, to make sure it is not already there (no need to make work for others if it is not needed.
I lock my iPhone. I was looking at the screen the other day, and realized that if I lost the phone, the average person would have no way to contact me to let me know they had it. An emergency technician would not be able to look in my address book for an ICE contact item.
I think the answer to this is simple, and might even save a life down the line. I think that part of the iPhone configuration should be the creation of a dedicated “emergency contact” entry on the phone. This system could ask for any known medical conditions, allergies, or special considerations, as well as emergency and personal contact information (in the form of phone numbers). A picture of yourself (for identification purposes in case of real emergency) should be included. This information could then be stored as part of the contacts list on the phone, labeled in a way that emergency staff could find it easily, and a link that allows viewing of this contact entry could be added to the ‘lock screen’ of the iPhone.
But that is probably enough rambling about the iPhone for now. There may be more soon, as the new software should be available shortly :).