The Third Degree

One Week With The iPhone

I know everyone says "they've been waiting a long time for the iPhone," but over the past 7 years I have avoided buying an iPod and avoided (as best as possible) upgrading to the latest mobile phone... Let me explain. In late 1999 / early 2000, I was working for Cingular and we heard rumors that Apple was supposedly releasing a portable device that may or may not include a phone. Of course, by the time I heard the rumor I'm surprised that it didn't contain tales of being a portable rocket ship. But none-the-less, I was hopeful. Since then I have avoided ever purchasing an iPod in fear that as soon as I did Apple would release such an amazing mobile phone. At the same time I have managed to only own 2 mobile phones in the past 7 years, a Nokia 8260 and the Nokia 6230 . Both Nokia's have served me well, but when Steve Jobs announced in January that they were releasing the iPhone... You know you stayed up all night watching to keynote too.

I thought about camping outside of a local AT&T or Apple store, but then I saw the weather report; rain, rain, heat, rain... So I took my chances. I arrived at the Apple store in Ardmore, PA at 5:30pm on Saturday to find a croud of people surrounding the iPhone display table. I elbowed my way in, grabbed the nearest display unit and tested until my fingers bled. An hour had past, and I was convinced. I went up to the counter, laid my debit card down, and hoped for the best. "I hope that paycheck cleared..." It did, and I was now $528.94 poorer.

Wait, am I revealing that I only went with the 4GB iPhone? Yes, in fact I did. Reasoning:

1. I'm cheap.
2. I still cling to my CD collection like a toddler to his nighty.
3. I'm cheap. 

But, I've waited this long and could have doubled my memory size with only $100. Yes, but I have bills to pay, and a $100 pays this month's electric bill.

On the way out of the store I was bombarded with people asking me questions about the iPhone... "Is it worth it?" "How much?" "Are you crazy?" So I fought through the crowd and raced home to start an endless evening of "eewww's" and "aaahhh's."

Activating the phone was seemless, I was already a Cingular/AT&T customer so I didn't experience any lag time with the transition, unlike others. Once I had the phone up and running I configured about every possible setting I could find just to see what the phone was capable of doing, how easy it was to change settings, and if there were any restrictions of features. I was happy to find the phone amazingly simple to use, and easy to configure. I do have a small wish list of things that were left out, but hopefully will be introduced in future updates:

1. Ability to add multiple email signatures and associate them with their respective accounts
2. Add Contacts to the main menu so you can manage/view your contacts without having to access the phone first.
3. More powerful speakers

Even with these minor issues, I feel that the iPhone is simply the most advanced mobile device we have ever seen. It simply does exactly what you need it to do. Most other mobile devices: Windows Mobile, Blackberry, and Palm seem to take great pride in overcomplicating things.

As the week progressed, I was still in awe of the iPhone. I was able to freeze iPhone in 2 cases, both email related, so I'm not sure if it was due to IMAP server hang or the operating system, only time will tell. Even when the iPhone froze up, I was able to hit the sleep/power button on the top of the phone to cancel out all operations and return back without an OS crash.

This past Friday (at my 9 to 5) I was informed of a "mandatory company meeting" to take place at 3:30pm. We usually have Friday meetings, but I thought it was interesting that it was emphasized "mandatory." We went over the usual weekly status, and then progressed into some "new company policy changes..." 1st on the list was the change in our health care provider, which was still in progress, and the 2nd was to notify us that we were switching our company cell phone plan from T-Mobile to AT&T. We were told the new plans were going to be individual plans, due to AT&T's lack of corporate plans, and then it happened. They opened up a large cardboard box and one-by-one pulled out an 8GB iPhone for each of us... all 30 of us. I was amazed. I've been with WebLinc for 7 months now, and needless to say I've got nothing but great things to say about the company and the people.

Now... what should I do with that 4GB iPhone... 

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About The Third Degree

The Third Degree is James Van Arsdale III's personal blog. Topics covered will range from web design and development techniques to rants about cabs hitting cyclists, and everything in-between. I encourage all to join in on the discussions, or contact me directly.