I am a happy camper! The only issue I had with my phone, FaceTime activation, has been resolved. I’ve not actually called anyone yet with FaceTime yet, but will do so soon, hopefully. The problem was indeed related to my status as a former Alltel customer, and was apparently related to routing of the SMS/MMS messages used for activation. It was resolved by Verizon pushing a PRL to affected phones. See this for a writeup.

Otherwise, it’s been exactly what I expected. A great smartphone that works well as a phone! I’ve made a number of calls this week, and the iPhone has outstanding sound quality and “lots of bars.” I’ve not experienced the “grip of death” but I do have a Belkin silicone case on the iPhone. I’ve got my contacts synched with Google, my favorite apps installed, and rolling along. WiFi connectivity works well. I’ve done a Skype videoconference which worked well with the front-facing camera. I’m now looking into various camera-enabled apps that I didn’t explore on the iPad — “Scan to PDF” is an example, an interesting app that let’s you use the camera as a document scanner which outputs PDF files.

Thanks, Verizon, for combining the handset and the network! Can you hear me now? And see me, with FaceTime working!

My iPhone arrived on Monday 2/7, since I’d set my clock for 3AM on Thursday 2/3 and put in my order as soon as possible. I had a meeting Monday evening, but I had a few minutes to activate the phone. Unboxed it, hooked it up to my iMac, and poof, a live iPhone. Synched the apps and headed out. My first call worked, and it didn’t even drop the call 😉 . Came home, set up the apps, logging into all the myriad services and tools. Everything working perfectly. Headed to work today, used the iPhone rather than the iPad for listening to my regular Podcasts. Made several calls throughout the day, with excellent quality and clarity. As a longtime iOS user (iPod Touch and iPad, since May), I was familiar with iOS and the apps, and things worked as expected. The camera(s) are fine and the “feel” of the phone is nice.

There’s only one issue right now, and that’s activation of FaceTime. That’s not working, and I have Googled enough to know it’s not just me. I have an open support case with both Apple and Verizon. I think, based on my reading, that it has to do with the SMS-based initial setup messages and the routing of those messages. I got good support at both companies and they are both escalating to the engineers. I was very impressed with Apple, as their rep first sent me a direct email (to which I responded) and then a followup call. Unheard of in tech support! I’m slightly disappointed, but I’m confident it will eventually get fixed, and I’m just tickled to have an iPhone (on a network where the calls work and it’s a phone 😉 ).

I’ve been using Nudgemail since it came out in November. If you are not familiar with it, you should take a look. I use it for both work and personal email, and was prompted to write this as I sat down this morning to respond to several ticklers I’d set on my work email, and to set up new ones. I manage my much of my immediate “todo” queue through email (putting longer term things in Google Tasks) and while I don’t try to get to “inbox zero” I do strive to keep a manageable number of conversations in my Gmail inbox(s), under 100, and I find Nudgemail invaluable in being my “memory” to do followups. I will commonly put a “bcc” to Nudgemail on a message I send which will prompt me to take action or follow up at a future point. I’ve noticed now that Nudgemail has added recurring reminders, and I’m now beginning to use those. This is one of those services that you need to try to really appreciate, but when you do, you’ll have one of those “aha” moments, and you’ll most like jump to make it a part of your email strategy. Try it!

Oh what a time sink…need I say more?

I am seriously impressed with Texterity. I just converted my subscription to the Chronicle of Higher Education from print to digital. It only saved me about $10/yr, but I kept throwing out a lot of paper. I was concerned that I’d miss browsing through the hard copy, but having sat down today and read through the digital version on my iPad, I’m wondering why I didn’t switch earlier! Texterity is the vendor that the Chronicle selected to deliver their content, and the HTML5 content is fantastic. Fast, legible and intuitive. I was floored when I absent-mindedly used a “page flick” gesture and the page turned. Doh! The way it should work! Apparently there are a lot of magazines that use this technology but today was my first experience. I’ll be looking for other magazines in this format. Check out this Wikipedia article for more on Texterity.

A physical keyboard or a virtual one? That’s a chioice which is playing out on many mobile devices these days. I’m prompted to muse about this topic by an excellent article in Network World on the evolution of the virtual keyboard and the explosive growth of the tablet and smartphone market. Use of a virtual keyboard is not a Hobson’s Choice to take it or leave it, as there are a continuum of options offered for device interfaces. Bluetooth connectivity on tablets and smartphones gives the flexibility of matching input need with the tool. I use the virtual keyboard extensively on my iPad, but also carry a Bluetooth keyboard in my backpack for text-intensive operations. I’m intrigued by the power of multitouch gestures and alternatives such as Swype (though I have not tried Swype). I’m a good touch typist, and that is as much a curse as a blessing when one considers changing input techniques. I think that the point made in the NW article about generational preferences is intriguing and likely will be a big factor in future user interface (UI) designs. We are strongly tied to the past. The Qwerty keyboard itself was intentionally designed for inefficiency, to keep the complex mechanical systems of early typewriters from jamming. I’m optimistic that the capabilities of multitouch display in our mobile devices will encourage the innovation necessary to move us beyond the typewriter that’s the anchor keeping us from flowing down the river of progress.

Santa brought me an Apple TV (ATV) in his bag this Christmas, and now that I’ve finished my holiday travels, I thought I’d hook it up and try it out. First, I’m truly amazed at how small it is! It comes with Apple’s elegant and minimalistic packaging, with the box, including its power cord, remote, startup manual, and iOS-based ATV unit itself measuring only 4.25 inches square and 2.5 inches thick. Its destination will be hooked to a TV at the beach, so today’s hookup was only temporary. However, Jan and I were soon talking about going to the Apple store to pick up another one. At $100, it’s a deal!

Setup was easy. I connected an HDMI cable, plugged in the power cord, and then it found my wifi and prompted for the password. I entered my Apple ID, and that’s the extent of the required setup. However, I also set up my Netflix account, my Mobile Me account, iTunes sharing (from my iMac) and checked other settings like the screensaver.

I played tunes from iTunes sharing, played video through iTunes sharing, played some smooth jazz streaming radio, tried Netflix (interface to Netflix is great, much better than the browser interface), pulled up some photos, and poked around. I used Airplay to stream Pandora from my iPad and that worked great! The ATV has a YouTube client of it’s own which I didn’t try, but I did use Airplay to send a YouTube video from my iPad, and that worked great.

All in all, I’d have to say I’m very pleased with the ATV. I’ve got a Mac Mini with some Bose Companion 5 speakers as my “media center” and I’ll keep that in place probably…though, it’s slow enough it can’t do HD video from Netflix, whereas the ATV has no problem with HD. If I had a more traditional audio/video receiver setup I think I’d switch, but it’s the cost of the receiver and home theater speakers that’s holding me back, not any issues with the ATV. It’s a helluva box, and I can see why Apple has sold a million of them!