iPhone 3G user who switched (yes friends, yet another iPhone user review)

[MarvinTheParanoidAndroid]

is there any way to put itunes on an evo?

Please don't blaspheme in here

 

[Tre Lawrence]

Got to agree... iTunes is a MAJOR reason that I don't own an iPhone. Having said that, it is a slick way for Apple to keep customers plugged into them (Apple).

I prefer cloud computing whenever possible.

OP, decent review. I like how you touched on some pertinent points.

 

[EarlyMon]

Quite tangential - but thought that this might interest some:

How iTunes Is Becoming Apple’s Own Internet Explorer 6 (A Crappy, Bloated Mess) | Cult of Mac

And remember - iTunes is the XML browser linking the user (actions and files) to the engine. The engine itself is QuickTime.

How they got QT right and have ended here with iTunes escapes me - and I _like_ iTunes - for what it is.

 

[Tre Lawrence]

Quite tangential - but thought that this might interest some:

How iTunes Is Becoming Apple

 

[Cobravision]

IE6 >>> iTunes

And IE6 sucks a whole lot of ass.

 

[pwnst*r]

iTunes is okay.

 

[LazyEngineer]

To follow-up, I was near Chicago this week and supposedly had 4G access. My impression of 4G is low. The 4G was no faster, and the connection was very unreliable. Most of the time, webpages would hang and not get any data. Eventually I got disgusted and just turned off the 4G so that things would work at all. I'm paying $10/mo extra for that??

For the most part, my normal area is going to be 3G for the next 5 years probably anyway, so not a big deal. And 3G is plenty fast.

I also got to use my mobile hotspot this week with my work laptop. The hotel didn't have internet, so I plugged in my EVO and told it to tether connect with the pop-up option. Which didn't work, and it completely shut down my Sprint data connection until I turned that off.

So I turned on the wifi, which worked great as well - in terms of connecting to the phone. But it shut down my Sprint data connection. So no outside connection

So I called Sprint and had them turn on the mobile hotspot option. Interesting - she said they'd only pro-rate charge me from mid-month to end of billing cycle, rather than full $30, but they'll charge me next month's $30, since it's a pay 1 month in advance kind of contract. If that's true, that's fantastic news, as it implies you can turn it on, use it for a few days, call Sprint and have them disconnect it, and NOT pay the full $30. We'll see if it's actually true....

Anyway, the next day I was in the Chicago office and my lap top wasn't connecting to the corporate wifi there. Nor were a few other peoples. So I turned the hotspot of my EVO back on on, and had 3 people simultaneously VPNing into the office (The very office we were sitting in, ironically). 3G speed was plenty good for getting work e-mails.

So you know, when you turn on the mobil hotspot, you better plug in the charger, because battery drains fast, and the phone warms up. It turns off your device individual wifi, and doesn't turn it back on. So if you want to go back to using another wifi to connect to the internet after you're done, you'll have to manually turn that back on. Strangely, it also disables your flash for the camera. I assume as a power conservation move? Can't think of any other reason they'd disable the camera flash while the phone is a mobile hotspot. Also, I think you cannot make or receive calls or text while it's in wifi mode.

Another cool feature, as I was driving back to my home location, Sprint is 3G basically everywhere. Whereas AT&T only has crappy Edge service most of Wisconsin. But Sprint is all 3G everywhere baby! Meaning I was able to use Pandora streaming music in the car stereo, via the Aux jack. (always carry and male-male jack in my travel bag just for that).

One issue, while talking on my phone today, the thing just completely reset itself. Like it power cycled. No idea what that was about. Maybe I hit a button? Lost the call obviously.

The GPS navigation is quite nice. and I very much like that you can press the little star next to the location description, and it permanently remembers to keep that spot on the map lit up at all times, even if you enter different locations, power cycle the phone, etc. This will be particularly useful during things like hunting, where you can mark multiple locations on the map at once, such as sightings, blind locations etc. This was not possible on my iPhone, and it always irked me so.

For music player, I'm quite impressed with Museek. This is a very cool interface, with a 3D "cloud" of your music, grouped in subclouds by genre. This leapfrog's Apples iTouch/iPhone interface in concept. But alas, the execution is amateurish. I particularly like the ability to make and modify playlists on the fly. iPhone's can't.