Micah Jayne

iPhone 5

April 26, 2013 - 2:19 pm

ip5@2x

I made the switch from Windows Phone 7 to the iPhone 5 about a couple months ago now, and I thought I'd post a few of my thoughts about it.

First off, the all-aluminum and ceramic glass body feels amazing. The only bad thing is, with aluminum being a rather soft metal, it's prone to scratches. So far I've only managed to get a couple tiny nicks on the edges, nothing too bad.
The screen really is incredible though. Using it spoils you. Looking at my friend's Galaxy S3 and seeing all of those pixels just looks gross.
As for size, I'm glad Apple finally switched to 16:9, as I find that preferable. Videos are no longer letterboxed and the extra row of icons is nice. Though, when holding it with one hand, it's hard to reach the top row of icons.
Using Messages, the first thing that got on my nerves is the infamous autocorrect. I feel like the autocorrect method on Windows Phone 7 is far superior, but I've adjusted pretty quickly. One of my favorite things though is the ability to use Messages on my computer to text people. When I'm working on the computer and I get a new text message, I can respond instantly right there with a full keyboard, rather than having to pull out my phone and type up a response on the tiny touch keyboard. Back to the computer... what was I doing? Right. The ability to fire a quick response and keep working without interruption is great.
Another two of my favorite things are Notes and Reminders. I use to-do lists all the time, and in the past I've often just emailed myself to-do lists from my phone. I tried using Wunderlist for a little bit, but it was just too slow when I wanted to jot down a quick reminder. Notes and Reminders syncs seamlessly between my computer and phone. I can add stuff from my phone to do when I get back on the computer, or I can add stuff on the computer to do while I'm out with my phone. It's great, and fast.
With Passbook, all of my boarding passes and gift cards are on my phone. Awesome.
Google+ and Dropbox let me backup all my pictures with instant upload, so now I have two backups of everything and I never have to sync with my computer.
I use Slice to keep track of all my online shipments. It tells me when they will arrive so I don't have to bother checking the tracking numbers.
Flipboard and Circa are both great news apps.
The voice in Google Maps is impressive. It sounds almost human. My parents just bought a new Garmin and it sounds just like their old one that they got half a decade ago -- like a robot.
Some of my favorite music apps are Moog's Filtatron and Animoog, Propellerhead's Figure, and Apple's GarageBand. GarageBand is even compatible with the GarageBand on my computer, so I can record a song idea on my phone, transfer the .band file onto my computer, and keep working on it from there.
I'm subscribed to iTunes Match so I have my entire 11,000+ song library on my phone at all times (without the 65GB that comes along with it). If I know I'm going to be without service for a while, on a flight for example, I can download a few albums ahead of time and listen offline.
4G is awesome and in most of my experience it's faster than wifi.
Games like Cut the Rope: Time Travel and Rayman Jungle Run will make standing in line never boring again.

There's plenty of other great apps and features I could go on about, but these are among my favorites. I really like the interface on Windows Phone 7, and Windows Phone 8 was kind of tempting. However, with the lack of apps, I hardly used them, and mainly just used my phone for texting. Now I can do so much more, but making phone calls will continue to not be one of those things.

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