Getting an iPhone soon, prepare me! :P

[Glassed Silver]

Heya guys,

I am, as many of you might know, a kind of person who likes to prepare and dive into it a lot when I buy new gadgets for example.

I will make an order of an iPhone 4 32GB next week (Friday) and it will probably be in my hands within the next 9 to 11 days. :D

1) I've never used an iOS device for longer than a trip to an Apple Store/tech store.

2) I will jailbreak it (MOST likely).

Anyhow, I wanted to prepare myself a bit this time again and create a thread to ask for experiences (I found Google to often not give me the answers to the extend I want/need) but also to get videos you recommend, regarding the iPhone 4... Addons / accessoires, app reviews, tricks and tips, etc...

Also there's maybe stuff you think of after a while of using it:

• If I had done XYZ this or that way I would now not need to restore
• If I had tried app B in the first place I would not now lose app A's content due to switching apps for the same purpose
• etc...you get the idea...

There are two specific questions I have though:

• What have you noticed after using your iPhone/iPod touch when owning it after a certain time compared to the quicky experience in the shop? (positive/neutral/negative?)
• What about warranty and Jailbreaks? What's the real risks? When converting a jb to non-jb, is it checkable for Apple?

What I yet have to buy:

• Cheap AV cord to connect my iPhone to the (SD)TV (I know about the limitations, I am however going to jailbreak, so TV-Out will do the trick)
• Cheap cable for HDTV out there? Apple's a bit too pricey imho. HDMI much prefered, composite is okay
• Good dock with speakers (post in dedicated thread regarding this cheers :))
• Also: Game Pads for the iPhone?

I also bought some stuff to be prepared:

• SwitchEasy Nude Case (lovely purple :p) (is its screen protector it comes with okay or would you say a Vikuiti or other high-quality s/p's are something to look into?)
• Wicked Bump Dock (a dock with which you can connect bumper/case protected iPhones, too!)

To end this first posting with something unusual:

I adore Hello Kitty and also anime/manga stuff in general as everyone knows, how do I get my fix on the iPhone? ;)

(Accessories, apps, games, stuff for jailbroken iPhones)

Thanks for your input! :)

Glassed Silver:lin

[instant.human]

So...

I cannot give you any input on jailbreaking because since 4.0 or better - since I had my iPhone 4, I never felt the need to. With the addition of folders, Multitasking and Home Screen Wallpapers, everything I jailbreaked for was there out of the box. The only thing I miss, sometimes, is that app called reminder or something that added small icons to your status bar with info like missed calls or new mail. With that, you can just wake it up and without unlocking see if there is anything new. Yeah, I miss that. A little.

I grew a habit that stopped me from using SBSetting even while I still had my 3G because I actually only needed it to quickly turn on Wifi and switch from Edge to 3G. Now, I am always on 3G, the battery is pretty great on the 4, and I don't have Wifi at work anyways, so I just turn it on when I come home at night and off when I leave the house.

Also, I now don't have to wait for updates to be jailbroken. Feels better. ;)

My initial impression, which was already pretty good, did not change a bit. Sure, after a few weeks, everything looses it's shine and you start using it the way it was intended: Like an everyday tool. You use fewer apps, you look at the amazing display less often just for the kicks, the incredible speed becomes normal.

But then, in the subway, I only have Edge and I miss 3G so much. And then it's dark in my room and I finish a call and the iPhones display is still on when I put it back on my desk and I go "wow" for a sec...

I only have a few accessories, all of which are pretty much standart: The universal Dock, which was left from my iPod days and I didn't bother buying one especially for the iPhone 4, it fits in there pretty nicely anyways, some two or three iPod/iPhone cables I had left and I bought those black headphone cushions last week, I didn't even know they were available seperately...

There are a few tips and tricks that you will discover as you use the phone, such as... double press the space bar to type a ".", pretty neat thing, like additional keyboard, like the caps lock button, which is the shift button double-tabbed, if you had that activated, the lock-orientation-button, which is always activated on my iPhone which you will find by doublepressing the home button and swipe to the right...

iOS is very userfriendly so there is almost no option buried too deeply.

When it comes to App reccomendations - find your own. I used to follow those and while they give you a nice start, you will eventually find yourself not using them or finding alternatives that suit you better. For instance, I always was looking for some nice to-do-apps. Found a few, like Things, TeuxDeux... never used them, although I really needed one. I use the built-in Notes.app now for simple list-making. Suits my need best but it tool some time to figure it out...

Oh and if you install emojis from somewhere, there are free ways even without jailbreaking, you can put little icons next to your folders, which looks quite nice. ;)

Oh and buy Boxcar. It's SO ugly but put it in some folder and after setup, you will LOVE it. And keep an eye on location services, there is an option in the settings that lets you allow location for certain apps and for others restict it. It's a great battery-saver. And don't forget to shut off Bluetooth when not needed.

So far.

Congrats on your purchase! :-)

[devHead]

Prepare your mind and heart now for the seething, boiling hatred you will soon feel for the piece of garbage known as iTunes. If my wife had ever known what a colossal pain in the butt that retarded app would be, she would have avoided any Apple devices like grim death.

But if you have a Mac, maybe it isn't as annoying.

[Carbon Fiber]

Get BiteSMS if you will jailbreak your iPhone.

It's really a good text message application for the iPhone that can be found in the Cydia Store.

It's a paid application in the Cydia Store, but there is a way around that you can easily follow. Google will guide you.

(snipped)

There are MANY more, just browse around in cydia and you'll find some more cool apps

[BGM]

Prepare your mind and heart now for the seething, boiling hatred you will soon feel for the piece of garbage known as iTunes. If my wife had ever known what a colossal pain in the butt that retarded app would be, she would have avoided any Apple devices like grim death.

But if you have a Mac, maybe it isn't as annoying.

i never used iTunes with my iPhone except to:

a) update it

b) activate it at first

other then that, it was never on my pc, freaking awful software!! :|

[instant.human]

iTunes is great, depending on how you use it. It's an awesome tool for managing big ass libraries. You don't have to use all that bloat which is undoubtly there. But I NEVER EVER had one SINGLE problem with iTunes, neither on Windows, nor on Mac. Sure, sometimes it takes some time to load but with 50.000+ songs and 250+ Playlists, I can live with that....

It's better than drag-n-drop, that's for sure...

[Carbon Fiber]

freaking awful software!

I also don't use it; had always errors trying to sync my iPhone

and it's slow, ugly and not efficient + uses many resources

luckily there are alternatives

@ instant.human: Thanks for that tip

[acnpt]

iTunes is fine :p

Also, be willing to pay for the best apps/games (unless you jailbreak).

[Raa]

Okay here's my preparation for you

... never mind.

[LingeringSoul]

iTunes is great, depending on how you use it. It's an awesome tool for managing big ass libraries. You don't have to use all that bloat which is undoubtly there. But I NEVER EVER had one SINGLE problem with iTunes, neither on Windows, nor on Mac. Sure, sometimes it takes some time to load but with 50.000+ songs and 250+ Playlists, I can live with that....

Same here. I use a Mac exclusively, but I've never experienced any of the problems with iTunes that people keep talking about. Syncing my iPhone is maybe a little slower than it should be, but I've never found it to be an excruciating wait by any stretch. I use playlists a lot (I'm a little crazy when it comes to organizing things), and making/modifying/syncing playlists has always been a fairly pain-free process for me.

Getting back to the original post, though:

What have you noticed after using your iPhone/iPod touch when owning it after a certain time compared to the quicky experience in the shop? (positive/neutral/negative?)

My experience has been positive so far. I've only had my iPhone 4 for about three weeks now, but it's already becoming a pretty important part of my workflow. I read a lot of news articles when researching topics for my blog, so having a phone with a really good mobile browser is definitely a big plus for me, and I tend to read a lot on it whenever I have some spare time here are there. It's also nice having a phone with a really good camera in it (my last phone had a pretty weak camera), and I find myself taking pictures of pretty much everything now :p . Even when I'm reading a book and there's a word that I don't understand, I'll just pull out my iPhone and start up WordBook. In short, I guess you could say that it has become like a toolbox of sorts for me. It's useful in so many situations. A lot of people talk about smartphones as if they're novelty items or time-wasting tools, but I couldn't disagree more, just based on my experience thus far. I already have a few apps on my phone that I couldn't imagine functioning without. So yeah, definitely a positive long-term experience (so far).

I've also been really impressed with the battery life. I was initially afraid to play any games on the phone, just out of fear of running the battery down, but it can take a good two days before I need to charge it up (keeping in mind that I use SMS far more often than voice calls), and that's with playing games here and there.

I haven't jailbroken my phone, and I probably won't (I haven't felt the need so far), so unfortunately I can't offer any help there.

Congratulations on your imminent purchase ;).

[WelshBluebird]

I think a lot of the complaints about iTunes are because of the Windows version.

I've just gone from a Windows laptop to a macbook pro, pretty much the same specs, and iTunes works so much better on the macbook.

[Azies]

Ok, prepare for your battery life to shrink by about 60% about a year and a half from now, and prepare to have to upgrade to a newer phone about a year from now to get features that should've been in your purchase to begin with. The iphone is ****, get a different phone.

Also if you use iTunes on Windows 7, prepare for a buggy, slow running, piece of garbage software that without some discombobulated hack, is the only one that can be used to sync your phone.

[Tech Star]

Ok, prepare for your battery life to shrink by about 60% about a year and a half from now, and prepare to have to upgrade to a newer phone about a year from now to get features that should've been in your purchase to begin with. The iphone is ****, get a different phone.

Also if you use iTunes on Windows 7, prepare for a buggy, slow running, piece of garbage software that without some discombobulated hack, is the only one that can be used to sync your phone.

Did you ever use iTunes on Windows 7 or even have an iPhone, or are you just relaying what you have learned from the trolls?

I use iTunes on Windows 7 and Vista and it is lag free, bug free, and I have no problems with it. As for upgrading every year, that is BS. This phone will be supported way longer than any other phone has ever or will ever be supported.

I can't wait for the next iPhone to come out, so I can get away from my htc hero, now that has problems.

[BajiRav]

Did you ever use iTunes on Windows 7 or even have an iPhone, or are you just relaying what you have learned from the trolls?

I use iTunes on Windows 7 and Vista and it is lag free, bug free, and I have no problems with it. As for upgrading every year, that is BS. This phone will be supported way longer than any other phone has ever or will ever be supported.

I can't wait for the next iPhone to come out, so I can get away from my htc hero, now that has problems.

He is not a troll, I can atest to it. Pretty awful software and the only one to bring my PC to a grinding every time I use it.

[WelshBluebird]

I didn't think iTunes on windows was as bad as people are making out lol. As I said above, it is a lot better on my macbook, but it isn't that awful on windows. No where near as bad as some other pieces of software. Maybe thats because my laptop was pretty decent. Thinking of it, I can imagine iTunes causing celerons and the like to crawl to a halt.

[Glassed Silver]

Please stop going off-topic, I seriously don't want this thread locked.

iTunes is running fine for me on both Windows and Mac OS X, latter being my primary and synching OS.

So... back to iPhone etc... If you want iTunes discussion, please refer to existing topics or create your own.

Thanks for the lot of useful replies so far, I am going to reply to some posts later when I got some time, atm I'm just doing a quick check.

Glassed Silver:lin

[Chasethebase Veteran]

Alright, in most cases, the official applications for the social networks are enough. But if you're after a good Twitter application have a look at Twitteriffic (Free) or Weet (0.59). Facebook's official application works fine, others I would recommend are iStudiez Pro (If you're currently a student), Consume for monitoring your usage, Reeder for Google Reader.

Games are a different boat, go grab yourself Angry Birds immediately because it's great. Doodle Jump, Fruit Ninja and Cut the Rope are also great.

Camera+ is a must buy, just because it adds so many features to the default camera application on the iPhone. Wikipanion is great for browsing Wikipedia. After that just go exploring the App Store and see what you find.

-----

Going to items such as accessories, the official dock is a good buy, and for cases, choose what YOU want after looking at reviews (for quality checking) and generally what appeals to you most. I would recommend Incase and Griffin as two manufacturers.

[neo158]

I think a lot of the complaints about iTunes are because of the Windows version.

I've just gone from a Windows laptop to a macbook pro, pretty much the same specs, and iTunes works so much better on the macbook.

This I definately agree with having used iTunes on Windows and on my sisters Macbook Pro.

But, to keep this on topic, I can't really answer all of the questions but I would try the iPhone without a Jailbreak first as most of the features that you could gain from a jailbreak are now incorporated into the OS

[User6060]

get the ifiles app, i really like it if you want a finder, save to folder, file reader experience

[cyrl]

Its just my opinion but I would rather recommend you wait a little bit until the iphone 5 is released. Because since your going to get the iphone 4 on a contract it would be better. Its just couple of months to wait if not you will be with the iphone 4 missing the iphone 5! But for games get Fruit Ninja,Angry Birds, Cut the rope and NFS Hot Pursuit 2!!

Enjoy!!

[XIII]

Welcome to the dark side of the force :p

[neoxphuse]

Wait till the iPhone 5 comes. Otherwise get a WP7 iTunes suck when I had an iPhone. Buggy and slow as hell. I never plugged in except for the initial time.

[instant.human]

Why do people think they should recommend another phone to someone who posts a topic in which he asks for help with his soon-to-be-purchased phone? I don't get it.

Though, to be fair, waiting for the iPhone 5 would maybe not be the most stupid move either. ;) Right now, you are in between the two circles: The, how I call it, "3G circle" and the "3GS circle". I am statisfied in my "3G circle" in which I miss the S-releases but maybe you would want to be in the "3GS circle"? Might want to think about that before actually making the purchase! :)

[Manish]

Though, to be fair, waiting for the iPhone 5 would maybe not be the most stupid move either. ;) Right now, you are in between the two circles: The, how I call it, "3G circle" and the "3GS circle". I am statisfied in my "3G circle" in which I miss the S-releases but maybe you would want to be in the "3GS circle"? Might want to think about that before actually making the purchase! :)

Assuming that the person wants a new iPhone every 2 years and that the next iPhone revision is a "minor" one.

[instant.human]

Assuming that the person wants a new iPhone every 2 years and that the next iPhone revision is a "minor" one.

But still slightly better than the "major" one. ;) So does he rather want the major revision or the one that comes after that, evers two years? Doesn't make that much of a difference but still... worth a rethink.