I’ve been curious about the Drobo Fully Automated SATA Robotic Storage Array and how it might perform on my AirPort Extreme network. if this combination turned out to be practical, I could have 2 Terabytes of hard disk backup storage available to any computer on the 802.11n network. The big question would be speed. How would Drobo’s USB 2.0 connector fare when deluged with the onslaught of RAW photos that I accumulate on a weekly basis?

The good news is that Drobo and AirPort Extreme play nice together. I can easily mount the disk array from both my Tiger and Leopard machines. It is the height of convenience. The bad news is, yes, the read/write times are slow. For my various tests, it took 90 minutes to transfer a 14 GB Aperture archive from a FireWire drive (connected to a MacBook Pro) to the Drobo.

There’s a nice little discussion about this happening on the Inside Aperture site titled, Alas, No Aperture on my Drobo. And I’ve featured the Drobo in this week’s Digital Story podcast.

My bottom line? Despite the lethargic write speed, I’m really happy to have the Drobo on my network. I have a gigantic image library stored on it that I can browse via Microsoft Expression Media. And I’m currently looking at Port Map and basic Leopard tools for remote access to the drives. i must admit, it’s been a fun project.

A few years ago, I peeked over the shoulder of a very dear friend as he was using his computer. “R” is a computing guru through and through, spending his days between WebObjects applications, Aperture, countless browsers and utilities. He is the kind of user who cannot work with less than four partitions and three huge disks attached to his machine. And work he does, brilliantly. In fact, I have rarely seen anyone squeeze so much computing power out of his machine. Imagine my surprise when I noticed how close to the defaults R’s installation was…

I’m a Windows Mobile fan (sorry ’bout that) but that doesn’t mean I’m a Windows Mobile fan-boy. I go off on mini-rants now and then and thought I would share a side-by-side comparison of what the Weather.com sites formatted for generic mobile devices (like Windows Mobile) and the version formatted for the iPhone looks like. FYI: The little rant on one of my personal site-blogs was about getting Microsoft to fix broken components like the Windows Mobile web browser. MacDevCenter readers can just look at the generic-mobile vs. iPhone formatting to appreciate what an impact the iPhone is having on web design for mobile devices.

Am I the only one who wonders how they got this headline past Steve?

Have you ever seen the default wallpaper of a Windows 95 installation? That horrendous, disgusting, depressing shade of gray-green that, for years, went mocked and scorned by many? It turns out it may just be what the doctor ordered for long term computer use. Have we missed something all along?

Since the introduction of the iPhone, Apple has been the focus of criticism from many a member of the computing community: keeping the platform closed is an outrage, a Microsoftian move, living proof of the evil that lurks underneath the company’s cheerful facade. Whether you agree with these points or not, one cannot deny Apple has pulled all the strings to indeed keep people out of the iPhone and send a firm message to those who had dared trespass - and I am not even talking about “bricked” iPhones here since knowing whether the side effect of the upgrade was intentional or coincidental is still everyone’s guess. Surprisingly, however, keeping the iPhone closed may be a good thing.

I read a number of Apple rumor sites speculating about Apple replacing the Mac mini (a moment of silence for mine that passed on last week) with a Mac nano. Some of the rumor items speculate that Apple might dump the optical drive (DVD) from the unit to save space.

Here’s the thought that prompted this posting though… When Apple introduced the iPod nano, they dumped the hard drive from the mini line and went to flash storage. I think Apple needs to keep an optical drive for at least playing CD music and DVD video without having an ugly cable attached device on a Mac nano. But, what about dumping the hard drive from the Mac and going all flash storage (say 30GB) with the option of adding a 80 to 320GB hard drive in a small enclosure either beneath or above the Mac nano with a seamless bus plug (like a notebook in a docking station) instead of a cable?

I just hope they have it ready for sale soon. I need to replace my Mac mini and am waiting for Leopard and whatever new Mac emerges before doing so.

My 2.5 year old 1st generation G4 1.42GHz Mac mini (and the first Mac I ever bought) bit the dust. I’m pretty sure it is either a system board or power supply problem (betting on the power supply being the problem). Although I thought about it at the time of purchase, I decided not to get AppleCare for a desktop Mac mini even though I told myself it is really a notebook without a battery. So, now what to do with it? Everything is backed to to an external hard drive. So, data loss is not a major issue. ifixit.com has how-to guides for everything but the power supply. So, I’m guessing it may be a difficult part to find. If it is just a power supply issue, I’m tempted to try to stick it in a bigger case of some kind and use whatever power supply will work with it (regardless of size). Any leads on that idea?

The next decision is what to replace it with. The new iMacs look great. But, I really really hate the idea of all-in-one computers (with the exception of notebooks of course). The Mac Pro is way too expensive. And, the Mac mini? Well, that first one went bye-bye in under three years and appears difficult for my less than nimble fingers to repair (compared to regular ol’ non-Apple large PCs which are easy to open up and replace components). The various Mac rumor sites have been talking about a sub-notebook sized device being introduced in October. That sounds pretty interesting. But, all I really need is a small iTunes box with a browser and email client (the Mac mini is perfect for that). I just took a look a the 1.83GHz Core 2 Duo Mac mini. But, do I really want another hard to repair box? Actually yes, but… :-)

Well, time to look around the house for a putty knife I guess. Might have a little project for it this weekend.

So, now it is time to decide on whether to get another Mac mini (most likely at this point), get a low-end iMac (not likely), or wait a couple of weeks to see if Apple announces a new sub-notebook form factor MacBook (very tempting).

Perhaps having learned from the Amazon Unbox fiasco, the new Amazon MP3 Downloads Store fails to suck. Frankly, there is a lot to like here, and it might be the first viable iTunes competitor.

If you look at the Google Docs pulldown New menu, you’ll see a new option labeled Presentation. I’ve been waiting for Google’s presentation tool since hearing Google CEO Eric Schmidt announce it at the Web 2.0 Expo this past April. While it doesn’t match the features available in Apple’s Keynote or Microsoft’s PowerPoint, its strength lies in its barebones simplicity. It looks great for creating 3 to 10 simple slides for a quick presentation. It can import PowerPoint PPT files (but not the newer 2007 PPTX files). However, it does not export out to PowerPoint PPT files. Instead, it has the option for you to download a ZIP file containing an HTML presentation pack for local computer use. So, you only need a browser for local presentation and can do so even without an Internet connection.

I’m hoping for to see at least three more features added in the near future. First, Google please Gear-ify Documents, Spreadsheet, and Presentation so documents can be developed and used offline. Second, allow using images from Picasaweb instead of requiring image uploads. Third, let us embed video from YouTube into Presentations.

Is Google Presentation a threat to Microsoft PowerPoint, Apple Keynote, or even OpenOffice.org Impress? Not… quite… yet. But, Google Presentations has a lot to offer right now. Hey, can someone try it out on an iPhone and iPod touch to see how it looks/works there and report back here?

I’ve been reading a bunch of statements from various analysts/pundits about the significance of the iPod touch with a combination of amusement and puzzlement. Some of the puzzlement comes from the statements directly and some indirectly. For example, here’s one of many quotes from an article over on PlaylistMag.com: “It’s the Web in your pocket,” said Ezra Gottheil, an analyst at Technology Business Research. “For $300, you get a mobile Web browser with touch-screen input.”. Uh, so what are the dozens of devices from Palm, Nokia (770 or 800), and bunch of Windows Mobile WiFi enabled PDAs? They vary in price. But, a bunch are in the $200 to 400 range. And, they’ve been around for years. So, what is the real difference? The real difference is the capability of the Safari browser (so I’m told since I haven’t tried it for more than a few seconds). Most of the mobile browsers that have been used for the past few years are basically toy browsers that require specially formatted web pages to avoid scrolling continuously just to read some text. The exception in the non-iPhone/iPod touch world is the Operamini browser currently in beta release.

Here’s another quote: In fact, Gottheil said that the iPod touch’s selling potential is actually increased precisely because it is decoupled from a two-year phone contract with AT&T, something required with the iPhone. This is an interesting observation because the exact opposite is going on in the non-Apple phone-PDA world. The phone-less PDA type devices like the Palm OS based Palm boxes and Windows Mobile based Pocket PCs were the norm for years. Then, the Palm Treo (original Palm OS version) and Microsoft Windows Mobile touch-screen (Pocket PC Phone Edition — AKA Professional Edition) and non-touch screen (Smartphone AKA Standard Edition) took over leaving manufacturers like Dell to completely abandon the phone-less Pocket PCs (their great Axim line with WiFi and Bluetooth but no phone radio). I’m really hoping that the iPod touch redefines and reinvigorates the phone-less PDA market the same way the original iPod redefined the PDA market. And, yes, I didn’t get an iPhone because I didn’t want to switch to AT&T Wireless and be locked into their contract.

Here’s a third quote from the article: Ken Dulaney, an analyst at Gartner, said in an e-mail interview that having both an iPod touch plus a cell phone would be a “great set for many of us to use.” But he discounted the iPod as a business tool that IT shops would support. Unfortunately and unhappily, I agree with this statement. But, that is only because IT shops don’t seem to support mobile devices of any type including Microsoft’s Windows Mobile which is actually designed for integration with Enterprise infrastructure.

A fourth quote: “A usable portable Web browser will appeal to both personal and business users, and Web sites and applications oriented to the mobile browser will proliferate,” Gottheil and Byrne wrote in a TBR statement on the iPod touch Wednesday. Hack, hack, cough, cough. There’s a couple of weird things about this general idea. I noticed that a number of iPhone specific pages from major sites like Digg and Facebook appeared. But, this puzzled me since the big deal about iPhone’s (and touch’s) Safari browser is that you don’t need specially formatted pages. That said, there are a lot (though not enough) pretty well done pages formatted for WAP and other mobile browsers already. If the iPhone and iPod touch take off, we may see more. But, umm, I though they didn’t need it :-)

But, putting aside my hopefully not too snarky comments above, I think the general sentiment coming from the experts is right. I’ve long lamented the loss of choices of non-phone Windows Mobile products. I hate having to tie a Pocket PC purchase to phone service contracts or pay a premium for an unlocked phone. I think the iPhone’s impact, large as it is, will be dwarfed by the iPod touch which allows anyone to buy it without a phone contract. I also think that lines of people should be outside of Apple’s campus in Cupertino with placard demanding an SDK so we can see apps developed for it without resorting to hacks.

My pre-order for the iPod touch went out the day it was announced and I’m eagerly awaiting its arrival in a couple of weeks. And, in a effort not to monopolize the MacDevCenter blog with my iPod touch mutterings, I’ll mutter away on my personal blog which currently focuses on Windows Mobile (and will still focus on that since I enjoy using that platform). If anyone wants to talk touch, drop me a line at editor(AT-SIGN)mobileviews.com. Perhaps we can set up a TalkCast at TalkShoe with other new iPod touch owners.

OK, geek boys and girls, pop quiz: How do you use Safari’s built-in RSS reader as a feed aggregator? Go ahead, take a minute to figure it out. Take 5. Whatever you need. I’ve got time.

I’ve long said that I just want an “i” (iPhone without the Phone). So, today the “i” (iPod touch) arrived. Ok, it is missing a camera, mic/speaker, Bluetooth (ouch), email client (ouch ouch), and couple of other things. But, it still has enough to appeal to me. I decided to pre-order one for me and one for my daughter as a surprise gift (no one in my home reads anything I write, so, yes, this will be a surprise). Now, part of the rationale is that she can use the Safari browser instead of firing up a Mac for research and homework. Can some of you current iPhone owners let me know how well reference sites like Yahoo! Reference, MSN Encarta, Wikipedia, and Merriam-Webster Online (as well as other middle-school friendly reference sites) renders on your iPhone?

Or is it truly the case that anything that looks ok in Safari on the Mac looks ok in Safari on the iPhone/touch? Any browser gotchas would be appreciated too :-)

Thanks!

A few notable things weren’t announced alongside new iPods today. Yeah, aside from the Beatles (let it go, old media, let it go)…

I love my Apple TV. At first I thought it was pointless technology that didn’t fill a niche. Then I got my iPhone and made two realizations. First, the iPhone has a drop-dead gorgeous screen that begs for video. Second? If I’m going to download the entire third season of House, chances are I won’t want to watch the whole thing on my iPhone. Ah ha! The Apple TV finds purpose!

But even as much as I now care for the little set-top box and the function it performs, I can’t help but wonder as I lie awake some cold, lonely nights how it could have been. It could have been a DVD-ripper. A DVR for the rest of us. A TiVo killer. But Steve made it pretty clear at D that DVR functionality isn’t on the road map for the Apple TV. And far from being a DVD player or ripper, Apple sees the tiny TV appliance as the successor to DVDs.

Of course, that was before NBC’s announcement that they’re pulling out of iTunes.

You know something is up when the story goes from anonymous sources say NBC to end iTunes contract to Apple press release saying “see ya NBC” in the course of a few hours.

We are all, I think, used to Paul Thurrott rolling out some ludicrous mac-bashing post any time he finds he can’t retain readership. This week he picks on the iPhone’s calculator. Yup. That’s right. The calculator.

Now I’ve used the calculator on my iPhone. I punched in numbers. I punched in operators. I hit the “equals” button. Not only did the calculator respond with a sum, it responded with the correct sum, so I’m not really sure what fault one could find with it.

But I’m not Paul Thurrott. He says, “The iPhone calculator should look like an iPhone application at the very least and ideally offer a number of skins. Obviously.”

Obviously. Geeze. Thurrott’s gotten so formulaic, it’s getting hard to distinguish him from Fake Paul. But in this case I think Real Paul has a point. Well, not really. But I think that looking at the ways in which he is wrong will illuminate some interesting principles of design.

Pummeled by palettes, I’ve been thinking of connecting the extra DVI output* on my G5 tower to a second monitor. That daydream got a boost when my terrific eye doctor raved about his multi-monitor home setup recently.

Multiple monitor photo collage by c2k2e.

So…what advice do you have for setting up and using multiple monitors? Do you like them side by side? Over/under? Same size/brand? How do you arrange programs, windows, palettes, and the Dock?

I really like the iPhone but hate the shape of the earbuds that are bundled with it. What keeps me from tossing them is they have some cool functionality. The microphone not only works well as a hands-free device when on the phone in the car, but is also a handy control for the iPod function of the iPhone. Click it once and you can pause the music, twice and it jumps to the next song. So I didn’t want to trash the earbuds even though they don’t fit well.

My solution… a $12 investment (at CompUSA) in Griffin EarJams. They convert Apple’s earbuds into more comfortable inner earphones. This combination is not the ultimate in sound quality, but it sure is an improvement over the stock earbuds.

Next, I keep my iPhone protected by passcode. This is a nice feature, but have you noticed that the welcome screen has no personal information on it? Just the time and date. What happens if you misplace your iPhone?

I’m using the Incase Molded Rubber Case to protect the edges of the iPhone. As an added measure of protection, I’ve slipped a business card between the case and the phone that has my contact information on it. That way, if I misplace my device, I have half a chance or recovering it. (Just don’t use your iPhone number for the contact info… doh!)

Finally, I’m keeping the phone charged in the car with the XtremeMac InCharge Auto. It’s a great looking device with an intelligent self-resetting fuse. For $19.95, it’s done a great job of keeping me juiced up on the go.

I have Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac on my MacBook. It doesn’t read or write Microsoft Office 2007’s native OOXML files. Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac won’t be out until January 2008. It won’t support Office macros. I don’t use Entourage. So, that means all I really use is Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.

Apple iWork ‘08 is available now and can read/write Office 2007 files. It has a word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation app. It costs $79. I don’t think Office for Mac 2008 for Mac will be $79 (will it come in a bazillion versions like Office for Windows?). I’ve never used iWork but will guess it doesn’t support macros (big deal since Office won’t either).

Seems like a good time for me to switch to iWorks. What about other current Office 2004 users? Will you wait until January to upgrade to 2008 or switch to iWorks ‘08 now?

I imagine I’m not the only one holding on to an old, balky iPod while waiting to see how Apple refreshes the iPod line ahead of the holiday season.

After hearing and reading so many good things about VMware Fusion, I was really eager to try it out. So I pre-ordered it last week to get the discounted price and then installed the production version (Build 51348) this evening.

I also decided to try out the VMware Converter and was a little annoyed to discover it only runs under Windows. So, I installed it on a PC running Windows Vista Business Edition and tried to convert Microsoft Virtual PC CentOS 4.4 Linux VHD file. No luck. It claimed the file is corrupted (it is not). Then, I tried to convert a Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise Edition VHD file. This time it said it could not identify the OS. I moved over to a PC running Windows XP SP2. Same problem with the CentOS 4.4 Linux VHD file. But, it recognized the Windows Server VHD file this time.

I took the Windows Server vmx/vmdk files over to the MacBook running Fusion and started it up. It seemed to be running very sluggishly. So, I installed VMware Tools thinking its graphics and other enhancements would fix this. Unfortunately, Windows Server lost its mouse cursor after installing VMware Tools and rebooting.

I’ve got a bunch of projects due by the end of August. So, I won’t get to test Fusion again until September. But, if anyone can point out what I may have done wrong (e.g., don’t use VMs built by VMware Converter), let me know. I’ll build some Guests OSes from scratch in September to see if that route provide better results.

We’ve done a lot of grousing about Apple’s .Mac service here over the past couple of years, so I was happy to hear yesterday that it’s getting a long-deserved update. The new .Mac service now includes a fairly slick web photo gallery, which integrates nicely with the iTunes and the iPhone, an increase in the storage limit to 10 GB, and finally offers server-side spam filtering on .Mac email accounts. And the price didn’t change, it’s still $99.95/year.

It sounds much improved and the Web Gallery stuff does look cool, but I still find myself not rushing back to .Mac. I’m curious, what do others think about the .Mac update? Has it got you signing up for the service or feeling better about your ongoing investment? Or were you hoping for more? (I know this wasn’t what Chris was hoping for, sorry buddy!)

I spent some time this morning analyzing the Adjust palette in iPhoto ‘08, and Apple has done some nice work here.

At the top of my happy list are real Levels controls complete with a gamma slider — very similar to what you see in Photoshop, and now residing at the top of the Adjust palette. We also have Shadow and Highlight recovery, which is so important when you’re editing images captured in contrasty light. There’s also noise reduction, and the ability to copy and paste corrections to other images.

These improvements will make iPhoto more valuable to serious amateur photographers who can now stay within the application for the bulk of their corrections. I’ve already plunked down my $79 for iLife ‘08.

I was somewhat surprised when I saw the following sidebar in my GMail earlier today:

Yep, that’s a UPS tracking number. Perhaps this is one of those great little features that they’ve had all along, and I just haven’t noticed it — or maybe it’s new? At any rate, I couldn’t help but be strangely mesmerized by the sheer convenience of it all when I first saw it.

An e-mail provider identifying simple things like tracking numbers in my data and giving me those little extras seems dirt simple, doesn’t it? But it also makes me wonder just how many other things in my data Google can (and does) index and track about me.

Call me apathetic, but these little niceties are exactly the kinds of things that drew me to GMail in the first place, and despite the fact that I *know* Google is harvesting the heck out of my information, I seem to be strangely okay with it.

I’m feeling a bit of cognitive dissonance over here: they’re harvesting my data to the point that it’s starting to make me feel a little bit weird, but I don’t want to leave, because I just don’t know of a better free e-mail provider. (And heck, even when I was willing to pay good money for .Mac e-mail, it was mediocre at best.)

A question to GMail lovers: what would it take for GMail to lose you as a customer?

That is, just how much of their uncanny ability would they have to expose to spook you away for good? There has to be a tipping point somewhere…I wonder just how carefully they’re factoring this type of calculus into what they actually expose about their magic…

From MacJournals, Let’s make it “Understand the Dock Day” instead:

Yet from the first public descriptions of “Mac OS X” from Apple, the company has made it clear that the Dock is not optional and not replaceable. It’s a poor amalgamation of a program launcher, status center, and application menu/switcher–but Apple has affirmatively acted at every revision to make sure that you can’t do away with it without losing access to exclusive features like badges, notifications, and Dock menus.

I read this piece and nodded my head in agreement with every point, but there’s one point I’d differ with: the Dock is optional, and you can live without it. There’s a minority of people who do, including me.

The gist of the MacJournals argument is that you need the Dock visible to make use of its unique ability to display changing icons. Third-party Dock alternatives like Dragthing often do the Dock’s job better than the Dock does, but they cannot display dynamic icons - those icons that act as status indicators in the Dock.

Personally, I think the Menu Bar is a much better place for anything that displays any kind of small-scale, constantly changing information. That’s where I want my status indicators to live. I don’t want them in the Dock. The Menu Bar takes up less space than the Dock, and is always present without being intrusive.

Furthermore, a little searching uncovers third-party Menu Bar status displays for many commonly used Apple apps. What to keep an eye on the unread message count in Mail? Try Mail Unread Menu. Need access to iCal? MenuCalendarClock or High Priority might do the trick.

I’ve been living without the Dock for a while now, probably 18 months or so. I didn’t bother to kill the process - as the MacJournals article points out, that would also kill Dashboard, which I occasionally make use of - I just kept it hidden out of sight. It’s no big deal. And on the rare occasion when I need to drag something to a Dock icon (this happens about once a month), it’s right there.

Using a combination of Quicksilver for launching apps and finding files, the Menu Bar for keeping me informed about what the system is doing, and my frequent use of Command+Tab to remind me what’s running, I managed to go Dockless without any problems.

Craig Hockenberry makes some excellent points about the possibilities and pitfalls of using multi-touch technology on a desktop computer:

The iPhone’s multi-touch UI works similarly: if you watch people use it, I think you’ll see a lot more people working at waist level than at chest level. The only time you need the interface close to your head is when you’re enjoying those 3 pt fonts in MobileSafari :-)

He’s not the first person to point out that no-one will want to spend hours reaching up to touch a notebook computer’s screen, but his reminder is useful nonetheless. If multi-touch is indeed coming to our computers, it will have to come via a different route.

There are delicious avenues for exploration, though. Bigger, wider touchpads. Or perhaps, using iPhones and future iPods as wireless touchpads, complete with interactive display elements that marry up with on-screen controls. Or just giving into geek demand and creating a Mac tablet - think iPhone, but stretched until the screen’s about 13 inches big.

Over at iPhoneWebDev at Google Groups, Blake Burris has posted that iPhoneCamp will next stop in Dallas, after the success of last week’s event in San Francisco. The specific barcamp wiki site is here. Dallas-area iPhone enthusiasts and developers may want to check this out. For sponsorship ideas, space available or questions, Blake requests you ping him at his AIM account, which can be found in the first paragraph on the about page.

Just an observation… I read an item over in TUAW the other day noting that Apple’s stock (AAPL) hit a record high and that its market cap was over $100 billion ($114.51B as of July 11). I wondered where Dell (DELL) and Sun (SUNW) were since both had been sometimes (jokingly sometimes not) mentioned as possible acquierers of Apple in the pre-iPod pre-iMac days. Looking them up, I found their caps at $63.38B and $19.21B, respectively. So, Apple’s market cap is now greater than Dell and Sun combined..

Question: Why did Apple not make iCal todos synch with the iPhone?

My first reaction on hearing about this problem was astonishment. I couldn’t understand it - if they went to all the trouble to make sure the event data was used, why not go that final step further to get the todo data synched as well? It just seemed like a bizarre omission, especially given the iPhone’s role as a PDA.

But since then I’ve started to think. Perhaps the iCal todos were ignored because in Leopard, the focus of todos has shifted from iCal to Mail. The official Leopard iCal page doesn’t even mention todo items (but the official Leopard Mail page does). I say the focus has shifted, because there will be some way of viewing your todo items in iCal. They will still be there. But Apple’s pre-Leopard publicity only talks about todos in reference to Mail, not iCal.

Now consider the Leopard launch delay. In April, Apple released a statement saying:

We had to borrow some key software engineering and QA resources from our Mac OS X team, and as a result we will not be able to release Leopard at our Worldwide Developers Conference in early June as planned.

So here’s my theory: todos are coming to your iPhone, but they’re coming in the Mail application, after Leopard has been released. If Leopard hadn’t been delayed, todo items (and possibly a few other things that are missing, like synching of notes) would have been present on iPhone from the start.

Just in case you’re worried about the glass screen, don’t. The iPhone is designed for the road. I slipped mine into an InCase sleeve that provides protection on the corners (which is where my devices always land when I drop them) and hit the road yesterday. I had a great day, and the iPhone helped facilitate that.

First of all, I’m not a fan boy here. Over on The Digital Story, I published a post yesterday titled, Lots of Reasons to Buy an iPhone: The Camera Isn’t One of Them. I think the iPhone camera suffers from too much simplicity. But then again, I’m a photographer.

Where I am thrilled is with email, web, and maps. I’ve been waiting for years to have a mobile email experience like this. The “Mail” app on the iPhone is stunning. I’m testing it with both my IMAP O’Reilly account and a personal POP account. It is fast, beautiful, easy to use, and did I mention beautiful? I have the iPhone set to check mail every 30 minutes. While I was on the go yesterday, I was easily able to keep a few plates spinning with work-related issues using this device, and I had fun doing so. In my opinion, the iPhone is worth the purchase just for the email client.

Another big joy was Safari RSS. On my Mac, I have an RSS Feeds folder set up on my Bookmarks bar. The iPhone grabs all of this stuff on its first sync. When I had a few moments to kill, such as waiting in line, etc., I’d hit the “Safari” button on the iPhone, then check out the news from my RSS sites. It’s fast and easy to read. And the EDGE network is performing much better than I had anticipated. I’m guessing there is some network optimization in the iPhone.

I then needed directions. I hit the “Maps” button, entered my starting and ending points, and was treated to written directions, street map, and satellite view — easy to read, easy to use, and once again (I know), beautiful. I arrived to my destination with time to spare.

I’m having good luck with most of the other features too. The battery life is great (I’m on the second full day of use and still have half a battery to go). And this thing is a joy to use. I know we like to pick apart highly-hyped devices when they hit market. It’s human nature. But I have to tell you, the iPhone is worth the investment. And thanks to Software Update, it’s only going to get better.

At the top of my wish list: iChat for the iPhone.

David Pogue got an iPhone before almost anybody, and he’s already written a 304-page book of tips, iPhone: The Missing Manual. O’Reilly will offer a downloadable version within the next three weeks and the printed version later this summer, but you can see a sneak preview right now.

I especially like this shrewd tip for prolonging battery life:

By covering the [ambient-light] sensor as you unlock the phone, you force it to a low-power, dim screen-brightness setting [and bypass] all the taps and navigation it would have taken you to find the manual brightness slider.

I wonder how much ability developers will have to exploit the phone’s other sensors in new ways. It would be cool to control widgets with the accelerometer and proximity sensor.

Anyone else getting cognitive dissonance? On the one hand, the iPhone requires an EDGE-based data plan that takes several minutes to load up many web pages. On the other hand, the iPhone commercials expound upon the fact that the iPhone offers full-leaded iPhone, avoiding those “watered down” versions of the Internet. So what’s a web designer to do? Should you design your site for WiFi iPhone access or water the site down for EDGE? I say you should probably forget EDGE and just assume your site will be viewed with WiFi.

After doing some calculations today, I stared at a minimum $2000-plus price tag for a mandatory 2-year iPhone contract commitment. There are no discounts for AT&T employees or Students or Academics or State employees, etc. Full price for everyone. 2 year contract for everyone. And about $500 of that price tag is EDGE data for the multi-minute-per-page unwatered-down Internet.

As for me, I’d far rather get an iPhone without a data plan and with the cheapest and most limited voice plan, preferably prepaid. Seems to me that unless you’re in a WiFi hot zone, that the iPhone Internet capabilities are pretty awful. Sure, you get push-email, but if I really cared about push-email I’d have bought a Blackberry years ago. (I love the visual voice mail feature that isn’t really worth $20/month.) No, it’s the WiFi smart-phone features that make the Internet. Design for that.