It took me a while to buy the iPhone as I was on the Verizon network and was waiting for my contract to expire, so I have been anticipating the day I got my phone.   I’ve had my new iPhone for two weeks now and wanted to report some thoughts on the device.

In regards to the dislikes, there are a few:

1.  I’m not able to capture video, which I knew when I bought the phone.  The lack of functionality is really annoying, given that almost every phone currently available allows you to capture video.

2.  you are now allowed to download documents to the phone.  Given that I use my phone to check my work/personal email, which includes documents such as MS Word, MS Excel, MS Powerpoint, and Adobe Reader (PDF), it really limits my productivity by not allowing me to view and edit the documents.

3.  The keyboard continues to be a challenge for me.  I’m used to using devices such as BlackBerry and HTC, which provide a physical keys, which allow me to type very quickly and accurately (compared to the iPhone).  I’ve spoken to iPhone users who have had their device for a while now and they indicate that as time passes, the speed/accuracy increases, we will see.

4.  Battery life is short.  I have been able to manage my settings on the device to allow me to extend the battery life, but the fact is that my device runs out of juice toward late afternoon/evening.

Thoe are the main negative items I have found so far, but I’m sure that a few more challenges might arrive as I use my iPhone a little more.

Rather than discussing the positives items of the actual device, I rather review my top 10 free applications.

1. Facebook – use this every day to check updates, messages, invites, etc
2. Twitteriffic – use this every day to update Twitter and Facebook, great tool, which allows me to upload pictures to my tweet
3. Pageonce – use this almost every day, to check  balances on my bank accounts, credit cards, loans, etc.
4. Pandora – use this a couple times a week, when I’m in the mood to listen to some music, great service
5. Touch4 – for some reason I’m addicted to this game, it is old school, but still a lot of fun
6. 12seconds – given that I don’t have video capture (discussed above), this app allow me to take 3 pictures and layer audio to it.   I guess this is as close as I’m going to be to real video!
7. Yelp – use this a few times a week to look up restaurants and write reviews
8. iBART – use this a few tims a week to look up the BART schedule
9. NYTimes – I use this almost every day, to stay on top of what is happening in the world
10. Checkers – another old school game, which I really enjoy

I’ve only downloaded a few paid apps, but as I find some that I really like, I’ll report my top 10 paid  apps.  If you know of any “must have” paid apps, please let me know.