Scripting News: Initial review of iPhone

Scripting News, the weblog started in 1997 that bootstrapped the blogging revolution.

Initial review of iPhone

I just spent a couple of hours playing with my new iPhone.

I remember that the first few times I try a new cell phone, I wish it would just work the way my old one did. So I'm trying to factor that in, and imagine what it will be like to use it later, but it's not easy.

I was able to register with AT&T, choose a service plan, get a phone number, and make a phone call. I was able to use Google Maps to locate my house, and while YouTube was slow, and so was the email app, even though both were running over my fast wifi as opposed to the relatively slow AT&T network, they were all usable and useful, and in some cases represent features the Blackberry doesn't have, and would be nice to have. But there are optimizations I hope Apple makes soon.

This is my fifth iPod, and it works differently from the last one. I like to use my iPod with manual synchronization, but that doesn't appear to be possible with this one. I'm not happy about that! I have my iPod act down, and I want to use this relatively small one (it has just a 4GB capacity) the same way I use my larger, 60GB video iPod. It doesn't seem possible.

Look, all the other people reviewing the iPhone are gushing. I just don't have that in me, at least at the beginning.

And there's a major usability problem with the Safari web browser, it's hard to believe that Apple didn't see and fix this problem before shipping, because it seems to make all websites unusable in the default configuration, with the default font choice, and there doesn't seem to be a way to change their choice of font. Is it possible they made this choice so that the TV commercial would look good, and forgot to test the browser the way real people will use it? I must be missing something??

(After watching the commercial I have an idea how this might work. There seems to be a tapping interface that makes the text larger. Hmmm.)

Given that all developers are going to be using Safari as their development platform, this problem seems vexing.

I took a couple of screen shots to illustrate.

Here's my Blackberry, in its default configuration, being used to read this weblog. You can click on the picture to enlarge it.

And here's the same site on my iPhone. My eyesight isn't great, but I can't imagine even someone with perfect eyesight being able to read this.

Has anyone figured out how to change the default font size in Safari?

Postscript about "initial" reviews.

Dan Gillmor: "This feels like a beta product."

Last update: Thursday, June 3, 2010; 4:01:03 PM

~About the Author~

Dave Winer, 55, is a visiting scholar at NYU's Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. He pioneered the development of weblogs, syndication (RSS), podcasting, outlining, and web content management software; former contributing editor at Wired Magazine, research fellow at Harvard Law School, entrepreneur, and investor in web media companies. A native New Yorker, he received a Master's in Computer Science from the University of Wisconsin, a Bachelor's in Mathematics from Tulane University and currently lives in New York City.

"The protoblogger." - NY Times.

"The father of modern-day content distribution." - PC World.

One of BusinessWeek's 25 Most Influential People on the Web.

"Helped popularize blogging, podcasting and RSS." - Time.

"The father of blogging and RSS." - BBC.

"RSS was born in 1997 out of the confluence of Dave Winer's 'Really Simple Syndication' technology, used to push out blog updates, and Netscape's 'Rich Site Summary', which allowed users to create custom Netscape home pages with regularly updated data flows." - Tim O'Reilly.

Mail: scriptingnews1mail at gmail dot com.

May Jul