Using the iPhone Outside US

I just returned yesterday from a 9-day honeymoon  in Grand Cayman. During our time on the island, both my wife and I used our iPhones extensively, even to make calls back home to our kids. How did we do so without going broke from international roaming charges? I’ll tell you.

First of all, I signed up for AT&T’s International Data Roaming plan at the minimum 20MB level. That seemed quite adequate for just a 9-day visit for checking email and occasional web surfing. In fact I ended up using just 15MB of data. One surpise for me was the fact that the built-in Map application worked pretty well on Grand Cayman, so we used it a couple of times – once to help us find our way back to the hotel when we were quite lost. It was slow with Grand Cayman’s Digicel’s Edge network, but it worked!

For calls home we used Skype. We had free WiFi at our hotel and the coverage there was great. We had a strong WiFi signal even when sitting on the beach behind the hotel. In addition, we found quite a few restaurants on Grand Cayman that offered free WiFi through Cable and Wireless Hot Spots. This allowed us to make Skype calls and access the Web and email a lot faster than with the Digicel Edge network.

So, between a small International Data Plan and free WiFi, our iPhones were completely usable and proved extremely helpful in navigating around Grand Cayman and staying in contact with our family.

On Honeymoon

Right now I’m on my honeymoon in Grand Cayman Island! We’ll be back next week.

Need for Speed Undercover

Need for Speed Undercover is a new game I reently downloaded to my iPhone. It’s certainly the most sophisticated racing program currently available for the iPhone/Touch. It has a simple story line complete with videos of the characters you are interacting with. It features a rock sound track and amazing graphics. You play an undercover cop attempting to infiltrate the illegal racing scene. The game is easy to control, and just difficult enough without being frustrating. You particpate in a vareity of races, and each race is challenging and not too long. All-in-all, I’m finding this to be a very sophisticated and very fun game on my iPhone.

Metal Gear Solid Touch for iPhone/Touch

Metal Gear Solid Touch is a fairly new game for the iPhone and Touch. It’s a shooter that makes innovative use of the touch interface of the iPhone and Touch. It’s got interesting graphics, a simple story line, and just enough challenge to make for an interesting but not overtaxing game. You’ve got access to an assault rifle, a sniper rifle, and sometimes a rocket launcher. I’m not a hard-core gamer, but I found this game to be enjoyable without being frustrating. Hard-core gamers my be disappointed but I think most people will find this game quite enjoyable.