For Apple Mac-wielding photographers, the iPhone is an attractive proposition, but it’s worth doing your research to see if it suits your needs. Certainly, for anyone with a small business reliant on answering emails on the move, there can be few phones that combine the ease of use and downright sex appeal of Apple’s iPhone. We took the plunge and signed up for an iPhone Autumn 2007, and haven’t looked back. Compared to setting up the iPhone’s baby brother, the Nano, the startup experience with the iPhone has had us checking question and answer forums more than once in the first week, trying to figure out all the little things you need to know that just aren’t obvious in the beautiful but minimalist packaging and instructions that the iPhone ships with.

Questions like: ‘Can the iPhone cut and paste?’, ‘Can I use the iPhone before o2 connect me?’, ‘What’s my SIM number on my iPhone?’, ‘Does the iPhone have a junk mail filter?’, ‘Can iCal update itself via the web connection?’, ‘Can I sync my Mac laptop to the iPhone via bluetooth?’ and ‘How do I transfer an image from my laptop, and email it from the iPhone?’ are some of the pitfalls we’ve worked our way round - to discover a simple phone with superb web connectivity which for those of us comfortable with the Mac way of doing things, will thoroughly enjoy.

Any downsides so far? Well, the iCal issue would certainly be helpful, at present you have to physically connect the iPhone to your Mac to update the diary / calendar software. There is a rumour this will be fixed in next years updated firmware expected early 2008. Aside from this, we’re struggling to knock it - OK, the keyboard will not suit those with big hands, it’s a gadget you need to try before you buy, but on the plus side, the automatic spell corrector picks up nearly all our ‘mistypes’ and fixes them without worry.

It’s the way the iPhone handles your email on the move that we’ve really come to like - it’s childs play to sync accounts using your .Mac account, check, send and delete emails, as well as adding various POP accounts based on domain names you may own. Although you can achieve this with a Blackberry, we challenge you to try one back-to-back and see which you prefer using.

Oh, and get yourself the rubber case and iPhone screen protectors from your nearest Apple Store. You won’t regret it, as this svelte little gadget slips easily from your grasp - ours has hit the tarmac whilst jumping out of the car in it’s first week, and is wearing a new ‘battle-damaged’ look.