What the world really needs is another friggin iPhone review. Mine will be more how someone like me, a cartoonist, can use the iphone as a tool. Read it after the jump button…

I’d been craving one since the subliminal advertising stabbed through my psyche like a hot knife through butter. Keep in mind, I’m not really the blackberry or smartphone crowd. It always seemed like a nuisance to have something ALWAYS ON and where people can get in touch with you. However, the busier I’ve become, I realize it would be nice to be able to know when an important mail comes in, or if my services or opinions are needed somewhere.

The reason I wanted an iPhone was because I saw it like a TOOL for my work, which is, well, drawing and writing comic books. My mind kept formulating ways I could actually utilize such a device and it drew me over the edge of tech obsession and constantly craving one. I was reluctant to plunk down the money for one, so I held off, but I kept bugging my wife about it and she could see the fiery obsession in my eyes everytime the little jingle came on tv she’d put words to it “Spend- your money - on - me.” (go ahead, sing along next time) — My wife tortured me for a few days, even though she thought such a device was useless, she’d bring it up just to torture me in typical wifey fashion. I’d catch her looking up info on the iPhone and watching videos on it. It looked like SHE wanted one.

To my surprise, my wife went and tracked one down for me on Tuesday at both Pittsburgh area Apple Stores. She put it on my side of the bed and I didn’t see it until I was going to bed that night. Keep in mind, she had teased me all day about the damn iPhone even as I was trying to block the iLust from my brain. In simple terms, I probably have the greatest wife on the planet and then some.

On to the review….

So I spent the 4th of july messing with the little motherbox. We went to a big family get together type deal, and I was reluctant to pull it out. I didn’t want to be “that guy with his new tech toy” — or I didn’t want to be a magnet for people looking to see how it worked, etc.

PHONE: The phone is a phone– but the contact info is cool. You can take a photo or use any photo for a contact and when that person calls you, their picture appears on the handset full screen. That’s a neat little feature, I’m sure it existed on other smartphones, but it’s cool on iphone because you can literally be with someone you know, snap a pic of them and use it as the contact photo.

Camera: I ended up messing more with the camera the majority of use for the day, taking it out to get some quick photos of my wife holding babies and stuff. The camera (2Megapixels) works fine, even though there are no flash settings or ANY settings for that matter, it takes great photos in decent light. It’s EASY and I like that.

Photo Album: This is more than a photo album for me, while it does that great, I also was able to make an entire folder and upload the entire four issue Hero By Night miniseries onto it, basically if I’m drawing or writing somewhere and I need to reference back to something– BAM, it’s in my pocket. This was also one of the features that had me thinking, DAMN, I could create on the go reference libraries right in my pocket. Perfect for illustrators and cartoonists like me. See a cool piece of architecture, or environment– snap a pic, it’s now in your ref library. Brilliant use of this feature for creators.

Internet on the iPhone: Speed and access- If you’re near a wifi spot, you’re golden. The thing cruises along. On the At-n-t EDGE network, I couldn’t get one webpage to load even though it said I had full bars of signal– the next day in a not too far off area I was able to load up pages in about 15 seconds, little longer for more complex pages. Same with checking e-mail. So, I guess EDGE is OKAY, I wouldn’t call it dependable yet, but wifi is really the way to go.

Browsing on the screen is remarkably clear, and you can zoom in and out with double taps, pinching finger motions, etc. Also, typing on the virtual keypad is a breeze after you get use to your hand eye to finger coordination. Case in point, the pad of your finger actually touches the screen a little right of the letter you think you’re aiming for if you’re right handed, so what I did to fix that was to point slightly to the left of the letter and suddenly I was typing pretty quickly with a thumb or index finger.

COMICS ON THE IPHONE: Dudes, reading comics on the iphone is friggin awesome. For webcomics in strip format, the side widescreen mode works fantastic for strips, and the high res screen makes the lettering pop so it’s completly legible at a small size. Joe And Monkey looks fantastic on it. Even better news for COMIC BOOK FORMAT pages, I noticed while browsing Hero By Night, that the format fits perfectly on the tall screen. This could be an interesting thing for the future of comics on portable devices. On the ipod, it never made much sense, but on a device with so many features like the iphone, having browsable archives of comics that you can flick to the next page with your finger?? Amazing. I would suggest to webcomic folks right now to have folders zipped up and downloadable of complete archives or sample archives, then the people like me can sync those folders right onto their photo albums and BAM… when I’m stuck somewhere and bored I could be reading full archives or huge chunks of my favorite comics. KICK. ASS.

E-MAIL: Email works fine, and this is the one thing I was craving when on the road in other cities or even when I’m just out locally. I hate missing important messages. Sending and receiving mail is a breeze. Image attachments look so sweet on that high resolution screen as well. As a tool for cartoonists, you can take photo reference pics and e-mail them up to a flickr account or something similar, or any email address you want to collect them when you’re home.

SMS text messaging: haven’t used the text messaging at all. I’m sure it’s fine.

Notepad: The notepad is another nice little feature. From saving a grocery list, etc…. but for cartoonists, it makes a great idea list. It replaces the little notebook or scrap of paper some people carry with them and I use to do that– now if you have a joke idea, or any concept falls into your head from heaven, you can jot it down and save it for later.

Maps: Just google maps pretty much, works well. They should include some sort of GPS on this iphone. Maybe later. I heard it’s actually able to be upgraded with a GPS program later on, we’ll see. That’s the rumor I heard from some APPLE employees.

IPOD: The ipod is pretty much a new ipod. Love the cover view thing and easy playlists. Also, it’s very cool that you can dock this thing, and it has speakers that are pretty loud. I was able to dock it and listen to my STROKES catalog while working yesterday. Video is crystal friggin clear. Again, as a tool for artists, think some of those cheapo movies for sale on itunes, or even ones you can get other places, and they become mini reference libraries in themselves. Think about that.

YOUTUBE on iphone: Youtube kind of sucks on iphone, because you can only watch the list of what they give you at the time. You can “search” but it doesnt bring up all the videos that exist on the site, only what’s in the special iphone side. Still, for boredom you can watch some random clips I guess. Last night in bed we were watching some mindless humor clips, and wow , even with the speaker on #2 setting, it was pretty loud to hear at night.

Weather and other gadgets: Pretty much nifty little gadgets to show you the weather. One complaint I had, it said it was sunny here yesterday but we had lightning storms and historic rainfall here in Southwestern PA. So, not the greatest weatherman, but what is these days? Stock ticker I have no use for… Give me a game or something instead.

Did I miss something? Probably. But that’s my review so far. I think my wife has used it more than I have so far… able to roll out of bed and check messages and stuff. All in all, pretty darn nifty.

People complaining about the price? Yeah, it’s expensive– but hell, so are rings and jewelery and other crap you end up buying that does nothing but sit around in a collection. At least you could check your mail on the toilet. It’s expensive because it’s more than a phone, it really is a mini laptop in your pocket. I have a good feeling Apple will be releasing new cool software and gadgets to download from itunes soon as well. We’ll see.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 6th, 2007 at 1:48 pm and is filed under YirNews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.