Amusingly, web pages with the most flexible layouts (say a table with a single stretchy column) have the most trouble adapting to the iPhone usage pattern, because iPhone Safari renders the page to a fixed width, rather than wrapping words like most mobile browsers, you'll end up zooming and panning on these types of pages.
We always thought of iTunes’s Cover Flow as a neat visual trick but not very useful. (We discovered and enjoyed it when it was a beta project, before Apple acquired it and hired its developer.) But in iPhone’s direct manipulation interface, Cover Flow feels natural, a good way to browse music.
The iPhone’s recessed headphone jack is genius I tell you. Maddening, apparently nonsensical, but pure genius. As those of you who have already bought iPhones know, most headphones don’t fit the iPhone due to how far the plug is recessed into the case, meaning that unless a headphone plug has a very narrow flange behind the plug it won’t fit. A lot of people have commented that this was short-sighted or uncaring of Apple, but I think it’s a calculated move toward world domination.
There is no mistaking that this is a first-release phone, both in the hardware and software. However, it is an Apple first release, equivalent in many respects to the fifth or sixth release quality we have come to expect from other major computer technology players.
Because if (and only if) you don’t qualify for a regular service plan, AT&T will offer you instead the month-to-month “GoPhone” plans. These are supposedly suckier because they come with fewer minutes and you pay more per extra minute; but they’re cheap, and I don’t make a lot of voice calls so I don’t care about having "only" 200 minutes a month. Adding on the $20 data service, it comes to $50 a month.
The July issue of ATPM is out:
