A little mo’ iPhone
Ok, it’s the day before the big day. I’m horrified to say that I don’t personally know anyone who’s going to get one tomorrow and bring it over to my place for me to see. WTF? What do I pay you guys for? Ben?? Howard??
Well, anyways… there’s some people writing some stuff about the phone on the internets and I thought you might be interested. First, word on the street, is that Apple has licensed ActiveSync from Microsoft and so the iPhone will integrate tightly with Exchange. Who knows if that’s actually true, but it’d certainly be interesting. IMAP’s enough for me and I’m guessing it supports IMAP idle so it’ll be just like push email. Good times.
In other interesting news to corporate types the iPhone will also support VPNs so you can connect to your company’s secure network to reach those exchange servers that the iPhone should be able to interface with. I’ve had first hand experience trying to set up VPN connections to various devices on my desktop and it’s a harrowing experience, I wonder how well this will actually work in real life on the iPhone. It’d be great if it worked, it’d also be great if we got a real SSH app on the phone.
David Pogue posted an iPhone FAQ. Interesting goodies like the fact that you can wurf the internet while you make your calls (using both Wi-Fi or EDGE). Also Safari’s bookmarks sync from your iPhone to your Desktop (windows or mac!), that’s something I hadn’t even thought to ask and is really cool. I wonder how much a driver of adoption that will be for Safari…
Also the strange lack of an RSS reader is being remedied by an online app made by apple. I find this annoying. I don’t need Apple to prove any points to me about how awesome Web2.0 is, this is going to make RSS on an iPhone less usable than it is on my 650. I often read my feeds when I’m on a train or in a building without connectivity. With this online app there’ll be no reading unless there’s also connectivity. Sigh.
Oh well, that’s the iPhone news for the day, unless something else comes up. Sorry for all the iPhone stuff, it’s a slow news week and the iPhone is the news.
June 28th, 2007 at 10:01 am
Anyone know if you can control volume and go to next or previous track when using it as an iPod via hard buttons or do I have to take it out and muck with the screen?
June 28th, 2007 at 10:16 am
ben, since ipods use on-screen volume controls i bet the iphone does too. not sure about forward and back buttons, but i know the headphones (or was it the optional bluetooth headset) lets you skip forward with a “double pinch.” im not kidding.
felix, since i dont want you to be horrified, i managed to acquire one for you! its an early pre-production prototype that may not have ALL the functionality of the shipping models, or work at all.
June 28th, 2007 at 11:06 am
Eh? The iPod doesn’t have on-screen volume control. It uses the scroll wheel no? Or up down on the click wheel for the Shuffle.
June 28th, 2007 at 11:22 am
yah, thats what i meant ;p
i know the iphone doesnt have a scroll wheel.
June 28th, 2007 at 12:57 pm
Thanks, Howard! I’m surprised at how non-functional this pre-production iPhone is, but I’ll take what I can get. I’ll try and take some pictures of the unboxing tonight.
June 28th, 2007 at 1:44 pm
Volume control is on the side, according to Newsweek’s Steve Levy.
June 28th, 2007 at 2:22 pm
Well at least there’s that. Although looks like you’ll have to look at it to switch tracks.
June 29th, 2007 at 8:23 am
[...] as commented yesterday, our secret agent - codenamed “the Howard” - passed off to me a very early prototype [...]