After years of resistance, I recently gave in and purchased -gasp-

an iPhone.

“A Breakthrough Internet Device”

Well, not exactly. This slogan is misleading because all of the technology

that the iphone uses is capable elsewhere, and has been for some time. For example, Danger, Inc. produced the T-mobile sidekick 6 years before the

original iPhone was even a conceptual product. The sidekick offered the same ‘real’ web browsing over EDGE, the same radio technology in the first

iPhone model. Another example, the Google maps mobile application is available for free and will run on any device you happen to have laying around.Â

All free. Note: A recent iPhone update gave Google maps increased functionality with streetview, and this too will most likely be added in to the

other GMM clients too eventually.

Messages like “it just works” are misleading – in my experience, apple products have similar hardware problems

to other consumer hardware devices. I take offense to these advertising statements – in that they trick people into thinking that apple created brand

new technologies, when in fact they only created… (read the next heading)…

“A Breakthrough INTERFACE

Device”

Now that’s more like it. Look, you can do everything with a nokia n95 (n96,n97…) that you can do with an iPhone. The

Nokia costs at least twice as much, and let’s face it, it’s more difficult to use just by sheer fact that it is not a touchscreen.

In fact,

most of the functionality available on the iPhone is available in most other smartphone platforms on the market today. It’s the interface that is

revolutionary. I really didn’t think that interface was a big deal to me, being a person of technical nature. But with an iPhone, I can be

looking at traffic maps within 10 seconds and you just can’t do things that quickly on a nokia or a blackberry or a windows mobile app – it takes time

to navigate buttons and menus.

It’s the speed and ease in which you are able to do these things – that’s the differentiator for me.

Convergence

Phone, internet tablet, skype phone, gps, decent or backup camera, gaming platform, video player, mp3 player,

ebook reader. Â One charging cable.

I travel a lot for both pleasure and for work. I travel extremely lightly – I did a small shoulder duffel

bag for 2 weeks in Europe.

Before the iPhone, I carried three devices: (1) a nokia n800 internet tablet for email, browsing, some games, and

skype phone and (2) a samsung blackjack II for phone, other email, backup camera, GPS and (3) an MP3 player – along with the various charges. The

iPhone replaces both devices, naturally.

If I carried a gaming platform like a PSP or Nintendo DS, then the iPhone would replace those as well –

there are thousands of free and low-cost casual games available on the appstore – I’m sure I’ll download dozens the next time I’m waiting at the

gate.

I also carry a canon powershot camera and battery charger – the 2mp cam on the iphone isn’t going to replace that, but it will do in a

pinch. This past September mid-way through a trip to Negril, Jamaica I hopped off a snorkeling boat with my camera in my swim trunks pocket ; I

photographed the remainder of the trip with the 2mp cam on my samsung blackjack II, and those were some of the best pictures I took – they came out

fine. I’m not ready to say I’ll leave the canon camera at home, but for the type of vacation shots that I take a phone cam is typically decent

enough.

We have a stand-alone GPS for roadtrips that announces street names and turn by turns and displays photo icons of upcoming overhead lane

assignment signs for interchanges. Google maps doesn’t do that today, but it could sometime soon and it would replace our GPS if it did.

The

trend across all mobile device platforms has for some time been heading toward convergence, and of course doing all these different things on one device

leads to…. ( read next heading )…

(less than steller) Battery Life

So the battery gets low after a day of heavy use.Â

Let’s talk about that.  My Samsung Blackjack II running Windows Mobile Standard Edition v6 with 3G, GPS, and Bluetooth radios lasted about 2 days

with light use. I could kill the battery talking heavily on it in under a day. The iPhone battery wears down by the end of the day, but I use the

device like crazy. If I use it casually, the battery is barely off full at bedtime – I think that’s true of any user, but you’ll use this thing

more than you’ll use a windows mobile phone or a blackberry, and you’ll use it for different things.

For me, I’m getting more “use-per-charge”

than I was out of my Windows Mobile device; it’s easier to use and therefore I use it more.

iTunes and the AppStore

The

AppStore is, by far, the best part of the iPhone and to me it’s main differentiator from the other platforms. With just a few swipes of your finger,

you have access to thousands (10,000+ and growing) free or low-cost applications. Some of these applications streamline the user experience of

existing services like opentable or amazon. Some are utilitarian, such as a sketchpad or skype phone. The ease with which one may add new

functionality via software apps is amazing and unlike any other platform I have ever seen. This will continue to bring new value to ones’ investment

as new software is developed and released. No hunting for applications, no installation through syncing – literally I can be bored waiting in a line,

decide I want to find a new game to play, and be playing it 30 seconds later. No other platform can beat that.

For a long time I have thought

that the price of music and video on iTunes is a rip off. I don’t purchase music or video online, or I haven’t in the past – that may change now.Â

I enjoy podcasts when I’m traveling, and they’re free. But I’ve been thinking about entertainment value and it’s cost – follow me on this:
It

costs $8 to rent a movie on a plane now – it costs $4 to rent recent releases on iTunes. An entire season of the tv show “24″ costs $40 on iTunes.Â

In both cases, that’s at or under $2 per hour of entertainment. That’s relatively cheap.

You *could* try to find video and music on a peer-

to-peer or via some other leecher tech – but how long will that take? Then how long will it take you to convert that video to an iPhone-compatible

codec?  Before you know it that *free* video you pirated just cost you an hour or more. Is it worth it?
So if I can get the thing I want right

now for a few bucks and be done with it, how much time does that save me? I’m valuing my time a little more than that these days. I know it’s a

granular assessment of time management, and yes I think it is unfair to charge ’so much’ for easily reproducible content – but this is the world we

live in, where new distribution and compensation methods cost real money. And, well – the artists, actors, producers, developers, and big Apple – they

gots to get paid!

That’s pretty cool that the active development of new software and media can and most likely will lead to new functionality

that will make other devices in your kit collection obsolete. In hindsight, that was a no brainer – application distribution convergence with the

handset should have been implimented years ago.

Geeking out

I think the marketing messages from Apple tend to shout “user

friendly” – which translates to “this is a dumbed-down product” to the geek set. That has been my take anyway, but the iPhone is so utilitarian that

the marketing people have not done justice to the technical capabilities the iPhone has already revealed to me.
This morning, within about 5 minutes,

i downloaded a free streaming media app from the appstore and configured it to listen to a radio stream from the ATL police, ATL fire, and Grady EMS (

Atlanta’s level 1 trauma center ). That’s a great example of a very specific technical thing I wanted to do that I could do very easily with public

streaming audio feeds and a free app called FStream from the appstore. Now it’s also a portable radio scanner – or at least it’s delivering radio

streamed from a scanner. Next time I see something happening I can tune in.

Using an app called Fring, the iPhone can connect to my Skype

account and I can make international calls over wifi – it also supports SIP and many other VOIP providers. One download from the appstore and a sign-

in to my Skype account – 3 minutes tops and I have a Skype phone in my pocket all the time now.

A 2 year contract…

You

could purchase a comparable device like the nokia n95 for around $400, or double the cost of the $199 iPhone, and avoid the 2 year commitment to

AT&T. Being well versed in the goings-on of mobile network development, I can advise that there should be no significant mobile network

developments in the US in the next 2 years that would offer the average consumer a ‘better’ network than what AT&T offers today. WiMax does have

potential, but it’s a ways off from being a practical replacement technology to 3G. Pricing for unlimited data plans will most likely drop as

competition increases from similar offerings from T-Mobile and even the CDMA network players. AT&T *should* reflect those drops too, whenever that

happens. In my opinion, the data services are priced too high and eventually they will drop in the free market much like the price drops of early 2000

with broadband internet service. Otherwise, the cost is what it is – and it’s worth it if you use the service.

Background

As a person of technical nature, I admire tools. I am not interested in the sex appeal of tools. I admire an iPhone in a simliar way that I

admire a dremmel rotary tool; that is to say, because of what I can do with it.

Before the 3G iPhone model, the device was cost prohibitive.Â

Now it’s dirt cheap for all that it can do. It eliminates tons of single-purpose devices from my life… and that’s hard to say no to.