Apple iPhone Day One

So it is day one of my Apple iPhone adventure. Next I opened the back of my HTC 8525 and removed the battery, exposing the AT&T sim card. I then removed the sim card from my current phone and inserted it into the iPhone.

Then I plugged the iPhone into my laptop using the USB cable and turned on the iPhone. It is now time to activate the iPhone. In order to accomplish this, I need to use iTunes. So I fired up my Windows XP vmware virtual machine and ensure that the usb connection to the iPhone is enabled in the vm.

Once the Windows XP virtual machine starts and I log in, the iPhone is immediately recognized and iTunes starts up and asks me to activate the iPhone it has discovered. After about 15 minutes of installation, I now have a fully activated and functioning iPhone.

Now that the phone is working, I head over to the settings and add my Exchange e-mail setup which pulls in my contacts, calendar and email. I'm ready to go.

Now, the version of iTunes on my Windows XP virtual machine was outdated and so was my iPhone version so the next thing I want to do is upgrade the iPhone to the latest 2.2 firmware. One of the features of the iPhone I find most valuable is the podcasts. I have an hour+ drive one way between my home and work. Spending 10+ hours a week in my car, I find it extremely valuable for my work to spend those hours staying abreast of the latest technology news and innovations. Downloading new podcasts is easy with the new 2.2 firmware. You can update your podcasts right from the phone through the iTunes store without the need to tether your iPhone to iTunes on your computer. Prior to firmware version 2.2 this was not possible.

So I downloaded and updated my version of iTunes and then clicked on the update button. Here is where I ran into some difficulty with using a virtual machine to manage the iPhone via iTunes. For some reason I was not able to successfully upgrade the firmware to version 2.2. I tried a few times and each time my iPhone was left in recovery mode. So I followed the instructions on the internet to get my phone out of recovery mode and then used a native Windows XP computer with the latest iTunes and performed the firmware upgrade from there. This took about 20-30 minutes, including downloading the firmware and I now have an iPhone running 2.2 Firmware.

At this point, I no longer need the phone to be attached to the computer so I unplug the phone and proceed to download the latest release of my favorite tech podcasts for my drive home.

I access the iTunes store from the iPhone and search for and select:

* Cranky Geeks * Diggnation * FLOSS Weekly * Security Now * The Tech Guy * TWiT

After about 30 minutes or so, I now have my podcasts loaded onto my iPhone and I will be ready for my trip home.