The top 10 things I don't like about my iPhone

10.No MMS - can only send photos to an email address
9. The size and weight - doesn't fit as nicely in a pocket
8. The seemingly frailness of the screen - afraid of scratching it
7. Too many of the same type of apps in the app store - how to choose?
6. Can't easily organize the apps once downloaded on the phone
5. The battery life in comparison with most modern mobile phones (days...)
4. Apps can't run in the background, leaves out the possibility of really cool and useful apps
3. The synchronization issues with Outlook
2. Can't use as a modem "out of the box"
1. The greasy fingerprints on the screen

My Favorite Things

I have had the iPhone for over a little over a month now. I have used it for a couple of weeks now as my primary work phone. During that time I have found several things that I absolutely love about the iPhone. Here they are - in no particular order:

• How easy it was to set up email to my home email account(s) - I was never successful to do this on my other mobile phones
• How it automatically jumps on my wifi when I am at home to get me the best bandwidth (and does not use my not as good 3G coverage)
• The Facebook App, I am now always connected to my community
• The App store (easy to download, easy to update)
• All the the neat, cool, kooky and useful applications that make this the one device that can do almost anything
• Playing games with my 13 your old son who has an iTouch (like air hockey) over our home wifi network
• How easy it is to see your missed calls, number of voicemail messages, and contacts from a single application
• How easy it is to scroll through my 100s of contacts to find the one I want
• How the screen dims when you holding up the phone to your ear talking, and then comes to life automatically when you hold it horizontal
• How I continue to discover new things (like the normal calculator changing to scientific with screen orientation) and new applications (like paper football) from my son
• How you can magnify the size of the text on a web page or navigate through your photos with a flick of your fingers
• The single hard button to silence everything - don't need to unlock the phone (very handy)

Applications Update

I have downloaded quite a few applications now (have 4+ pages worth). Yesterday I had a buble with 7 on the AppStore icon on my phone. This was indicating that there were 7 applications that had an available update. This is pretty neat to show. I was then able to go into the app store and select the update icon and is showed me which of the 7 applications that I have downloaded had an available update. I could then click on the application and see what was included in the update. I could then select to ignore the update, or to download the update. The update download was similar to the original applications update in that it asked for my iTunes password. I also had the ability to update all of the applications at once if I wanted to.

This is a neat way to notify the user that there is an application update, and allow the user to decide if they wanted to take the update(s) or not.

Track Thing Accuracy

This morning into work, I tested the Track Thing accuracy against my car's odometer. According to my car I drove 12.4 miles, and according to Track Thing I drove 12.68 miles. So, the iPhone application does show more than what it is supposed to. I did notice that sometimes even when sitting still, the milage did increase by .01 mile or two. So, I don't know what sort of algorithm is used by the application, but it does seem to be off (show too much).

GPS on the iPhone

I have been doing some hikes lately, and I wanted an application that could record how long I was walking. I looked on the appstore and found quite a few applicaitons that were for GPS tracking or step tracking. Reading the reviews for these, however, did not give me a warm and fuzzy. There was not one program there that had more than 2.5 stars average.

The problems with the GPS tracking is that the GPS turns off if the screen is locked (Apple makes all applications run in the foreground only). Some of the applications made this clear in their description. The ones that didn't had many customer complaints. Some of the GPS applications included a camera icon so that you could take a picture while the application was running, and several applications suggested that you start your music (ipod) first and then run the tracking program. This doesn't sound the best user interface to me. There were also many complaints about the accuracy of the program, the programming crashing all the time, and that the application drained the battery. I was willing to pay for an application that works, but with the reviews, I decided to try "Track Thing" which was FREE.

The application was pretty easy to use. I went ahead and turned off the screen lock, and made sure I was fully charged before I set out on my 5 mile walk. The application uses GPS and so provides you with your coordinates (longitude, latitude, altitude, bearing) and provides you with a distance travelled (metric or imperial) and average speed. There is an ability to display a map, but this was default disabled, and so I left it that way because I thought that it would reduce battery consumption.

I have a SonyEricsson phone with built in GPS, and so I decided I would also take it along to compare with the iPhone. The SE application shows you a path that you are following (no map though) and also showed distance travelled and average mph.

After a couple of miles there was a difference in the distance travelled between the two devices. As I continued on this difference became greater. After the 5 miles, there was a difference of about .5 miles between the two devices. I actually think that the SonyEricsson device was more accurate based on my knowledge of the route I walked. I will try and test the iPhone on my way home tonight and compare with my car's odometer.

I think that I'll try another of the GPS trackers. Some of them will update your position on a web viewable map and so your loved ones can see where you are. That might be interesting. I think I may also try one of the pedomiter ones to see if they work for me.

Don't need iPhone Plan

I had to purchase a new subscription to get the iPhone. My goal is to replace the new subscription I bought with my current AT&T service, and the mobile phone number that everyone knows. Until I do that, I have to carry around two phones :-(.

We are working through the systems at work to get the new subscription transferred into Ericsson, and then to add iphone service to my current subscription, then moving my current SIM into the iphone, and then cancelling the other number. This is not a straight forward process, since the iphone is "not approved" at Ericsson.

Last night I popped out the SIM in the iphone, and popped in my current SIM, and the service works with no problems. I guess that there are a few holes in the AT&T systems, because everyone says that this should not work. Well, at least for now it does.

Interesting that I currently have an unlimited data plan that is $5 a month cheaper than the iphone data plan. I am now debating when I want to add on this plan to my current subscription.

Not Bad Camera

I have had the opportunity over the past three weeks to take some pictures. I was quite impressed as to the quality. I just used the default settings that came on the phone (haven't had time to explore much here), and these looked good. See below for some samples -





This was from our neighborhood Holiday parade. The fire department came out and showed us one of thier trucks.

The picture size is 422 MB












Launching a midsized rocket by the Dallas Area Rocket Society. This was a very overcast day, so not alot of lite. The picture size is 320KB.

This one was very hard to see on the screen of the iPhone, but looks good on the PC.



Our Christmas Tree.

The picture size is 93KB




















I was even able to compare a photo done on the iphone and my cannon digital camera that I will post in just a bit.

My Most Used iPhone App

I was thinking about it, and the application I use most on the iPhone is Facebook. I have had a Facebook account for over a year, and have played with it online a bit. I love the never ending quizzes, and the getting a request to help save the rainforests through lil green patch. Before the iPhone I couldn't get Facebook on my mobile. I had T-mobile at the time I tried, which wasn't one of the operators officially supported (I still have an outstanding mobile request). When I moved to AT&T I didn't have the time to try to set it up. With the iPhone, it was one of the Free apps I downloaded, and it worked right off.

Since I have gotten the iPhone, I have changed my status multiple times a day, I have followed and commented on my friends' status, and I have uploaded photos. I find myself going to facebook nearly everytime I touch my phone. They are both addictive.

Paying for the iPhone Apps

I just received my first invoice that lists all of the iPhone apps I have downloaded, both those for FREE and those I have paid for. It is a nice summary of what is on my phone. This summary came from iTunes. When I set up iTunes I tied a credit card to the account. So, the way that I am paying for these apps is through the iTunes.

That time of year - gifts

One of the things on my To Do list was to get the gifts for my family and neighbors purchased and sent/delivered. To keep track of who gets what, and what I needed to buy at the store, I decided to visit the app store to see what I could find to help out in these tasks.

I found several apps when I searched on "gifts". The search returned:

• gift planner (7)
  
• giftlist (1)
  
• gifter (2)
  
• gift grab (4)
  
• gifter stress lifter (1)
  
• gift cards (1)
  
• geschenkidee (giftidea) (1)
  
• gift list shopper (3)
  
• gift lists (54/19) - for some reason the MyWords app to learn a new language for several languages appeared under this category
  
• christmas gift stack (1)
• christmas gift tracker (1)
• Nice list holiday gift manager (1)
• mgifts - gift list manager (1)
  

(Actually as I was looking at the apps, I was funding so many more that had to do with gifts. It is never ending!!)

Under the items returned, there were a number of applications (see figure in parenthesis) ranging from free to $12.99. Actually the $12.99 one was iBear Money which is more of a way to control your money flow. I guess some folks have paid for this since there were 9 reviews.

There were applications specifically for an event such as Wedding, Hanukkah, Birthday and Christmas.

Most applications let you set a budget for your gift giving, and tracked how well you were doing and allowed you to send your list via email. Most used the contact list to select who to you wanted to purchase your gift for. Some protected the list with a passcode (good for households with snooping kids ;-), and tracked the number of days left to the event. Some applications allow you to upload photos of the gifts.

Other applications took the stress out of gift giving and provided gift ideas. (Gifter, Gifter Stress Lifter). These were free and tied into merchants such as Sam's Club.

There were applications that also let you keep track of the gifts that you have received (GiftList)

Some of them were not for gifts at all but were games (those under Gift Grab and Christmas Gift Stack)

So which one(s) to choose??? None of the above applications showed up in the Top 25 Lists, nor the Featured Lists, so, I guess it will be to read the descriptions and the reviewes to see what is the best for me.

One unique application I found was Gift Cards (by Trillusion Media). It makes it fast and easy to buy, send and redeem gift cards from your iPhone of iPod Touch. It includes top brands like Barnes & Noble, REI, Macy's, Gap and many more. It lets you send both physical and e-Gift cards from your iPhone. You can personalize with a message, buy now and send up to 30 days later (though this feature is not working at this time), find stores in your area and map directions, store gift cards on your phone for easy access. I will have to try this one out. This one was Free.

One that I downloaded and began to use was Gift Planner (by The Archer Group). It was at the top of the list and had several good reviews. It allowed me to set up a budget for each group (family, work, friends) and then for each person added within the group. I could add gifts with price and then connect the gift to the person. It had a nice looking interface. It was Free.

mGifts (by mSeven Software LLC) had good reviews. It allows you to customize stores you shop at and events you are interested in (bday, Christmas, etc.). You can attach a photo to the give and it gives you a summary view of what you have purchased and what you still need to purchase. This one was $1.99. I downloaded it and will try it out to see if there is any difference for the price.

There were some very nice looking ones like

• Better Christmas List ($2.99)
• Asking Santa ($2.99)
  
• Santa's Little Helper ($0.99)
  
• My Christmas List ($1.99)
  
• Santa's List, ($1.99)
  
• Christmas List ($2.99)
• Christmas Shopping ($1.99)
  

but I didn't download because I can't see paying for an app for a one time year use where there are general purpose apps, or free apps.

About Lists - To Do's

I woke up this morning with my mind racing of all the things I needed to do to prepare for the holidays. I am a big on making lists so that I can see all I need to do, then make a plan. I was reaching for the pen a paper and I thought, hey, I bet there's an iPhone app to make lists.

There were actually 3 that I found when I did a search in the app store for "To Do". Two were Free and one was $0.99. I read the reviews of each and decided to go with ToDo's, which happened to be one of the Free ones. The reviews really did influence me, since it seems that one of them is was to complex for a simple to do list.

I downloaded the app, and went to work putting in my list of things to do. It allows me to assign a low, medium and high priority which it will then display in a different color. There is also an option to sort the items by type, and status of completed or not - when you leave and then come back into the application again (a button to do this within the app would be nice - I guess I'll have to give a suggestion :-). When the application is closed there is a number indicating the number of outstanding items left to do. So far I have completed 4 (out of 14). I still have a way to go and the day is 1/2 over. But at least I am on track to finish the high priority items.

This is an application that I will use to keep me on track, and to save a bit of paper and ink!

iPhone can be used to communicate

Today I had my first real experience using the iPhone as my only communication device. I had an early appointment with the eye doctor. I had to drop my son off at school on the way. The roads were icy and my husband was a bit concerned. I accidentally left my other mobile phone at home.

I dropped my son off and proceeded to the eye doctor. As I arrived at my scheduled appointment, I received a phone call from my husband checking the status of the roads and if I was ok. The call came in over the car's handsfree system.

As I proceeded through the eye appointment I received the news that I have very healthy eyes, and I can see well enough to pass a driver's test, but I could see a whole bunch better with glasses. Since I had some money left over in my health spending account, I thought I would go for it. The problem is there were so many choices in frames. I narrowed it down to two, and I just had to get a second opinion. I was able to easily figure out how to take a picture of myself and send it to my husband at home. I didn't need to do any configuration on the phone to do this. Now, the only thing is that I could only send as an email (no MMS), so I was lucky that my husband was near his computer to take a look. I also discovered one other user friendly advantage the SonyEricsson (and most other mobile phones) has over the iPhone when trying to take self portraits, which is that little silver mirror next to the camera lense so that you can make sure you have yourself centered in the picture.

So, now I am just waiting to see how much battery life my phone has with "normal" usage. I have resisted the urge to plug it in to see how long it will last. There is a neat usage meter that right now shows:

Time since last full charge
Usage: 4 Hours, 8 minutes
Standby: 1 Day, 3 Hours

The little battery is just about empty.

What iPhone app would I be willing to spend money on?

Ok, so I've downloaded several Free iPhone applications. But is there anything out there that I would be willing to pay for? The answer is yes. I did find a couple of applications that I thought would make my life easier.

The first application I purchased was something similar to what I had purchased a few years ago for my Visor. It was a Shopping application where you can create an electronic shopping list and then check the items off as you go. The neat thing is that you can group your items on the list by aisle, so you are not running around the store looking for things. The application also tallies the cost of your shopping basked, so you know what you are in store for. There were a number of applications I looked at in the category. The one that I settled for was Shopper. It had the best reviews. I paid $0.99.

The second application I purchased was Gesture Dial. It was touted at "The fastest speed dial for the iPhone yet!" I bought this one because it was really cool. It allows you to use a gesture (shape) to either call or SMS one of your contacts. It does work quite well to dial 1 handed while busy doing something else ;-) . I don't know how often I will use this after the newness wears off, but it is still really cool. I paid $1.99.

Another dialing application I purchased was Smart Dial for which I also paid $1.99. There are so many different dialing applications, but this one had good reviewes, and is neat. When you open the application it brings up a phone keypad. Then you start typing in the first or last name of the person in your contacts you want to call using the keypad. As you type in the name, matches from within your contacts are shown then you can click to call.
Note: My husband informed me that the Ericsson/SonyEricsson phones have had this feature since the T28. I tried it on my W850, and sure enough it worked. It does not work on the standard iPhone dial function, so something that Ericsson has is more user friendly than the iPhone :-)

I am sure this list will grow as time goes on since the available applications changes on a daily basis.

Passing time with the iPhone

I had to go into Walmart and return two items. I throught that there shouldn't be too long of a line during the middle of the day on a Monday. Well, I got to the customer service and saw there were 10 people in front of me. I thought ugh. However, I took out the iPhone and checked my eamil and browsed a couple of web sites. In no time, it was my turn. I don't know how much time it took, and it doesn't matter. I was otherwise occupied. It was so easy to kill time with an iPhone app. I am sure that holiday stress would go down if everyone had a way to occupy themselves in otherwise trying situations.

Other uses for the iPhone

Ok, so now I know how to download apps, what else can I do with the iPhone? I was going through the different buttons on the iPhone home screen. At the bottom are 4 prominant buttons for Phone, Mail, Safari (browser) and iPod. I thought I would start there - Email and Phone functions.

Email
I clicked on the Mail icon and was taken to a screen where I was able to select my email carrier (Yahoo) put in my userid and password and - wala - email. Boy. I now no longer need to boot up the PC, open the web browser, put in the address, put in the user id and password. I just click on a button and there it is. I went back to the Mail icon and saw I could add another email account. I selected "other" and put in my Verizon information. It is so cool, because now I can see from my home screen if I have any email. Now, I just need to have the ability to put in my Ericsson email and I will be completely set.

Address Book Synch
The next thing was to set up my address book. I asked about synching with Outlook when I purchased my iPhone, and the AT&T rep said I could using iTunes. So, I connected my iPhone to my computer, I went into iTunes and found the button labled "Synch". I pressed it and received an error message that the synch application stopped working and I needed to close it. I Googled the error message, adn it seems that it was a popular subject for several folks. Luckily most of the issues I read about were with very early versions of iTunes and the original iPhone. I finally got to some more recent postings and the issue is either with Outlook plug-ins causing the issue, or using Chached Exchange Mode. The posting with about the Cached Exchange Mode included instructions on how to turn that off, and when I turned it off, my synch worked. Now I just need to go back and find out why this was selected in the first place. I remember it was recommended from out IT department. Oh well, I set the cached mode back to yes, and will just remove it when I need to synch again. Hopefully this will be fixed soon.

Bluetooth - Handsfree
It took me a bit to find out how to turn on the bluetooth. The structure on the iPhone is a bit more flat than the folder structures on the other phones I have had. I turned on the phone and was able to synch it with the handsfree system in my car. I was able to make and receive calls with no problems using the handsfree.

In search of FREE apps

Ok, so now I have gotten the hang of how to download applications. I thought that I would be on the hunt for what interesting "Free" applications that I could find. I accidentally found that there were alot of Free applications when I hit the search button and a bunch of apps with "Free" as the price or even title appeared. I don't know how this happened, but I suspect that one of my sons' had typed this in, and the iPhone tends to leave things between sessions. However it happened, I was happy to see that there were so many to choose from.

The search produced a list of 25 free apps and a button to get the 25 next. When you load the 25 next they are added onto the list you already have, so you don't have to move between screens, you just have a longer list to traverse.The neat thing going through the list is the iPhone scroll by just sliding your finger on the screen up or down. It has a real cool action if you scroll fast and a bit to far, it looks like the screen hits the end and bounces a bit (just something cool).

I found a whole bunch of cool free apps that I subsequently downloaded. The neat thing is that I only had to input my iTunes password in once for all of the downloads that I did. One thing that I did not like, however, is that after I did the download, I would go back into Facebook. I would be place back on the download screen of the application I just downloaded, but when I went back to the list, I was put back at the top, and had to scroll down again. This was a bit painful if I was down to app number 60 or so. Maybe there is a better way to get back to where I was that I haven't discovered yet.

When I was going through the apps I would alway read the reviewes. I would read a couple that had 5 stars, but focused most on the ones with 1-3 stars. This really did influence if I took the effort to download the app or not. I haven't been disappointed with a download yet.

After I did most of my search and download this way, I found out that the "Top 25" button has both Top paid and Top Free. I will use this from now on to make further searches and selection of apps (let folks with more time than I do the leg work ;-)

There were different type of Free Applications

• Promotion of app by provider for a limited time
• Preview version of a priced application
• Most probably ad supported (or some other means supported)
  

So, what are the Free Apps I chose to download?

(in the order that I discovered and downloaded)

• A Free Level - A bubble level and ruler. Not that accurate, but cool.
  
• Stop It! Free - A reaction game with a twist (tap when timer reaches 5 seconds).
  
• i Say Free - A copy of the game Simon Says where you have to copy the patterns of the computer.
  
• Sol Free - Solitare with 4 different (standard) games.
  
• FreeSaurus - Thesaurus (have not used yet)
  
• FSS Hockey (Free) - One of three cool games that allows you to play the computer, another player on the same phone, or another player via wifi. I played my son over wifi (he used his iTouch. It was really cool).
  
• Touch4 (Free) - Game of Connect 4, can be played via wifi.
  
• Shanghai Free - Majong
• Sudoku (Free) - Sudoku
  
• TicTacTouch (Free) - Can be played via wifi
  
• Tap Tap Revenge - Like Guitar Hero. I have not played (actually, my 13 year old dowloaded this for me and has played it).
  
• SnapTell - A cool app that lets you take a picture of a CD, Movie, Book, and then will find information such as prices and reviews.
  
• Password - Just like the TV game to guess words with three one word clues.
  
• Labyrinth - Shown on the Apple commercial for the iTouch where you move the ball around the course with holes that you must avoid.
  
• Shazam - Shown on the Apple iPhone commercial where the app recordes part of a song and then information about track is displayed.
  
• The Weather Channel - Weather application showing forcast, videos, etc. Uses current location or city selection.
  
• Google Earth - (I have not used yet on iPhone. Actually, a mapping program comes loaded on the iPhone that uses Google Earth).
  
• Urbanspoon - Shown on the Apple iPhone commercial on how to select a place to eat. Works just like on the commercial, but also has a community aspect where you can invite friends to input on the choice.
  
• Darts - (I have not figured out how to work this game yet)
  
• Flixter - Information about movies showing.
  
• Amazon.com - (I have not used yet)
  
• Lightsaber - Turns you iPhone into a light saber. However, I have not figured out how to turn on the sound of my iPhone (something I need to focus on next, the basic operation of my iPhone) so it looses some of it's appeal.

App store and iTunes

What was the first app I selected to downlad . . . Facebook

I clicked on the Facebook icon and was immediately asked for my userid and password. I entered in something and got the message that my userid and password for iTunes was not correct. I guess I forgot that I needed to set up an iTunes account.

I did have iTunes downloaded on my work pc. I don't remember when I did it, and I never did create an iTunes account. My husband was the one that kept my iPod up to date from his iTunes account. So, I opened iTunes on my PC and clicked on the "Sign In" button which took me to a window where I could sign in or Create a New account. I selected the latter option and received an error message. My husband took a look at it, and did a Google, where we found out that there was an issue with the firewall. Now of course with an ESOE machine there is no changing these sort of things. I was trying this just connected to the Internet via our home wireless network. I went ahead and signed in via RACOM, and I was now able to create an iTunes account. I don't know if the RACOM had anything to do with it or not, and I really don't care since now I have my iTunes account set up and I can download my apps.

So, I went back and clicked on the Facebook icon from the app store again, put in my iTunes userid and password and the application was successfully downloaded.

I am very happy with this - Free - application. I was never able to successfully get a mobile Facebook app to work on my other mobile phones. I find that now I am much more likely to update my status, and it is really fun to see the status of my friends when I have a few minutes in between tasks. I am still trying to get a handle on this app, since I haven't figured out all of the features. But I was able to upload photos of my neighborhook holiday parade, and I attempted to chat with a friend who didn't reply :-( . I think it would be cool to have some of the fun Facebook apps also available on the iPhone.

My first trip to the app store

The whole reason that I got the iPhone was to take a look at the App Store. I had a bit of experience looking through the app store a couple of days ago on my sons' iPod Touch. However, at that time I didn't really have the handle on how to go about finding apps. There seemed to be so many. Which ones did I "need"?

The first thing that came to my mind when I started looking through the app store is that this is similar to what I found several years ago when I had a Visor. I wanted apps and found the site "Tucows" http://www.tucows.com/. That is a great site that has a whole bunch freeware/shareware/paid programs for several different operating systems (windows/mac/linux/web/pda). The thing that is different about the app store is that I don't have to synch with my pc to get the app on the iPhone.

I found out that I would be looking through the store and got a bit overwhelmed with reading about so many apps, and alot of them seemed to do the same thing. The cool thing about the app store is that there are user ratings and reviewes for each of the apps. This way I could be spared alot of grief on some of the applications where several other users had issues. I could also see if two similar apps had different user experiences, and perhaps that could help me choose the best one for me.

There are a few different ways to find apps. The app store has:

• Featured applications (new and what's hot)
  
• Top 25 apps (both paid and free)
• Categories (20 in total including - Games, Entertainment, Utilities, Social Networking, Music, Productivity, Lifestyle, Reference, Travel, Sports, Navigation, Healthcare & Fitness, News, Photography, Finance, Business, Education, Weather, Books, Medical
• Search

The apps ranged in price from Free to $40. All prices ended in .99.

Ok, I was ready for my first download. . . .

The Purchase

I was excited about my trip home Friday evening, since I was not only starting my long holiday vacation, but I was stopping by the AT&T store on the way home to pick up my iPhone. We had finally exhausted the possibility to order the phone via the corporate account, therefore I was to purchase the phone myself (expensing it of course) and then later we would move it into the corporate pool, and I could transfer to my existing mobile number.

I approached the store, and was pleased to see that it was not too busy. I was greeted by an employee who asked if they could help me. I indicated that I wanted an iPhone. She led me to a kiosk where she input my mobile number and that I wanted to make a purchase. My name showed up on the kiosk screen. This was the AT&T version of "please take a number". There were two people ahead of me in the queue, so I was directed to a station where I could play with the iPhone (they had 3 there to use).

I can tell you that the AT&T phone store purchase this time is quite different than the past. It is most probably due to the iPhone sales. The people in the store were very knowledgeable about their products, and were very plesant and seemed genuinally happy to be there. And they were very proficient at the upsale. Even before I could get my iPhone I was already assisted in selecting the proper case to "protect my investment"

It was my turn! I was asked two questions, did I want the 16GB (yes of course!) and did I want white (another yes). I selected my phone number and agreed to the cover and phone charger. The sales person placed my new purchase in the cover, and showed me a few things (like how to turn it on) and reminded me that "this was just like a computer, and it needed to be rebooted sometimes." She wanted to save me the drive back to the store to reboot it for me (as she had done for several other customers).

After all of the boring paper work, phone activation, and instruction, I was on my way home. On my walk to the car I took a quick look at the applications that were loaded. One that caught my eye was YouTube. I opened that app, did a search, and viewed one of my favorite videos. This was great. I can't wait to explore more apps.