I swore in a previous post that I would wait, order an iPhone online, and avoid the long line at the local Fashion Valley Apple Store. Well, THAT resolve didn’t last. I now have THREE of the eight-gig models… One for me, and two for a favored client. It only took me a few minutes of waiting (with around two hundred other folks) before I was able to buy the first two iPhones. Then, I went home, came back, walked right in and bought another one. The Apple employees were charming, ultra-friendly and a constant source of pleasure. I didn’t expect to see them erupting from the store just before opening time, hooting, hollering and slapping palms with jubilant customers.
There’s very little new that I can add that hasn’t been said and said and said, over and over. I love the iPhone. I have no objection to the keyboard, at least for basic usage. My short-subject nature documentaries and Tom and Jerry cartoons play flawlessly. In fact, it’s mesmerizing to watch a full show from start to finish. I’m doing it too much, though - I’m getting a crick in my neck!
My iPhone wish list is not so important - I would love to use a folding Bluetooth keyboard with it for longer posts, such as blog entries. I like the onscreen keyboard, but it’s still a pain to edit something complicated, such as today’s entry.
Being me, of course, I had to do something that nobody else gives a hoot about. I emailed myself (from the Mac to the iPhone), sending an MS Word copy of “Our Lady of Chernobyl” by Greg Egan. Why? Because I wanted to evaluate the iPhone as an electronic book. I like the idea of reading, even though I do it so rarely. On my previous phone (the Treo 650) I always kept a minimum of 200 (and sometimes as many as 1,500) electronic books. It actually works very, very well - It’s much clearer than a regular dead-tree-technology book, and it doesn’t flicker like an old picture-tube display, so I don’t expect tired eyes fom reading on the iPhone.
I’m sure that I’ll have plenty more to say eventually, but I can easily say that the iPhone is a breakthrough device that will change the rest of the portable phones on the market - ALL of them. Once a customer has experienced having all of the world’s online knowledge available in their hands, 24 hours a day, anywhere at all, using a phone in the old ways will seem repugnant.
I forget where I saw it, but somebody said that this iPhone is the worst one that will ever exist. No matter what, they will get faster, more capacious, friendlier and less expensive. So will all of their competitors, and it’s all to the good.
The next step up the evolutionary ladder, of course, is the little StickerPod that goes just behind your ear, allowing you to gain access to the planet’s accrued information just by thinking of it. Steve Jobs and his crew are probably already working on it. I think I’d better patent that idea, fast!
