Like an arranged marriage - fondness grows over time

Time for an update.  More and more hacks are beginning to appear that can be implemented by meare mortals such as myself.  These are allowing me more flexibility with the device as a Blackberry replacement.

I thought I would start by recapping my positions from previous posts.

From posting 7/4/07:

1) Battery - Still very poor if you use WiFi, Bluetooth and the cell radios. See previous post.  In other words its a great battery for an iPod.

2) Keyboard - Still sucks, but learning some things that are making it suck less.  Point in case, the period key no longer requires three key strokes, if you press the 123 key, then slide up to the period and release.  Its a single stroke, which is a great improvement.  

3) Alerts - I have replaced the standard alerts with much longer and louder sound files and this has resolved my issue for the most part.  I still miss the repeated alerts until acknowledged.

4) Bluetooth - Still a huge disappointment.  Discovered that even when paired with a headset, if you attempt to answer an incoming call with the slider bar, the iPhone ear hole is the selected as the audio device, and not the bluetooth headset.  The work around is to use the answer button on the headset.  

5) Email - Holding my breath until I get landscape.

6) iChat - Lots of websites offering web 2.0 apps, but they are just not a real workable solution.  Still waiting....Apple.

7) 3rd Party apps - A huge boom in the applications (ajax) on the web.  Still no on phone apps though.

From posting 7/19/07

1) Email - Attachments still suck

2) Camera - Still sucks due to light metering

3) Battery - no change

4) Calendar - Missed appointments have been resolved with better alert sounds (hacked)

5) Accessories - disappointed for stated reasons.

So what do I think after almost a month.  I am very much enjoying the iPhone.  I find I am hitting the laptop less and less and am able to get a lot done on the phone.  The WiFi coupled with the browser is the first real handheld solution I've found to my liking.  If I could switch back to my Blackberry 8290 tomorrow, I would decline.