Internet Tech Boston

For a long time, the iPhone fervor had me completely disillusioned, bordering on disgust. People standing in line for days for the privilege of forking over a substantial sum of money for a consumer electronic device was bringing out the worst in me. On principle, I decided against buying anything like the iPhone. Like my 98 Camry with 200k on the odometer, my old LG flip phone was working just fine. I did not need a shinier new toy.

But things change, as they tend to do. A steady barrage from Apple’s marketing engine, and the adoption of the iPhone among my friends, family, and colleagues wore me down. I bought the damn thing after a long period of consideration. Like most new iPhone converts, I spent the first week or two focusing on the user experience – the shine, the gloss, the sex appeal. I waited for buyer’s remorse to set in after the glow wore off. To my surprise, my love of the iPhone grew from summer time infatuation to a deep and abiding commitment. Here’s why:

1. GPS / Maps: I don’t need to buy a Garmin or TomTom. I don’t have to carry around another device.
2. Twitterific: Yeah, I’m a social media spazz and man-about-town. It’s fun to take pictures and Tweet while I’m out and about.
3. Yelp: I was on the streets of San Francisco and was hankering for a good steak. Yelp’s iPhone application, combined with the GPS allowed me to find a list of restaurants nearby, complete with user reviews and prices. A few minutes later I was chowing on red meat and red wine. Yum!
4. Evernote: Ever finished one of those long planning meetings where you wish you could just take a picture of the whiteboard rather than copy down all your notes? Well, with Evernote’s iPhone application you can do just that. I’m a big fan of the Evernote service, and the iPhone application is a perfect complement.
5. GrandDialer: Having spent my entire professional career in some facet of professional services, I’ve grown to loathe the “always on” attitude that some people have grown to expect out of the people who work at the companies they hire to do their work for them. Instead of giving these unreasonable people my cell phone number, I give them my GrandCentral number and it helps me filter them out of my personal life. Now GrandDialer lets me use my cell phone to call them and my GrandCentral number appears on their Caller ID.
6. Shazam:Ever wondered what that song is that you’re hearing on the radio or at a club? Open Shazam and let it listen in and it will tell you. Simple as that.
7. Pandora / Last.fm:Online radio services Pandora and Last.FM allow you to find new music that you’ve never heard before, but are “guarenteed” to like. Recommendations are based on music you already like. For a guy that spends over one hour driving to work in the morning and again in the evening, it’s nothing short of a miracle to listen to commercial-free, DJ-free radio that is specifically tailored to my interests. I prefer Pandora over Last.FM, and ReadWriteWeb has named one of the great iPhone apps. 
8. WordPress: Mobile device + WordPress app = Live blogging brought to a whole new level. iPhone keyboard is a little tricky for long-form blog posts, I’ll admit.
9. iPod: Oh yeah, did I mention that I get to carry 16 GB of my music, videos, and photos along with me? Again, no extra device required.
10. Future of the App Store:As Apple’s TV commercial pitch-man states, there are currently over 1000 apps, and “this is when you realize, this will change everything.”

Overall, we’re not talking about a phone anymore. It’s a computer that you can put in your pocket, and we’re not talking about some bleeding-edge geek device that can’t be used by the average joe. Apple has applied it’s seemeless design sense and usability to make a powerful device. This is not a toy.

Tags: iphone

This entry was posted on Friday, September 26th, 2008 at 4:08 pm and is filed under web 2.0. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.