Re: Who bought an iPhone?
Caught on tape!
Hey, if you don't want an iPhone, you don't want an iPhone.
Yes, the "Rev 1" of any new device, particularly a company's first foray into any new market, is guaranteed to have issues. There's nothing wrong with not being an early adopter. You have fewer headaches that way. But, if you have that gene, well... you also know what you're getting into. It comes with the territory.
No doubt there'll be a new iPhone with 3G and all the bugs worked out. Oh well, them's the breaks. In technology, you're obsolete before you pull out your wallet. The way my wife looks at it is, it just means she'll be getting an iPhone soon (when I move on to the next one).
Yes, AT&T is such an evil company, Satan is a major stakeholder. Hey, if I could choose who Apple's partner was in this, it wouldn't be the Death Star. But, well, I'm hoping my admiration for Apple and satisfaction with its product line will outweight the AT&T issues.
The EDGE connection isn't fast. But I was used to browsing the web on my Treo 700p, and that was no Ferrari. And it had to "connect" every time, like dial-up. And I had to stick to "mobile" versions of websites to get around. The iPhone feels just as fast, with no "connect" process, and when a page loads, it's the real web page. Portrait or landscape, zoom and scroll, it's just like the commercials. It's fantastic.
Yes, most people don't need an iPhone. If you're happy with the phone that your provider gave you for free for a one-year contract, keep it! If you just make calls and send an SMS or so a week, hell, the iPhone would be a waste. But if you make heavy use of a smartphone, if you actually use all those features... the iPhone integrates them beautifully.
For me it comes down to my belt. For a long time, I had a basic cell phone, a PDA (a Palm Pilot, Palm III, Visor Prism, Sony Clie), and an iPod on my person. When the Treo came around, I finally got to combine my phone and PDA. And frankly, the Treo 700p remains easily one of my favorite pieces of technology ever. For the last few years, it ran my life. But, it still had to share my belt, my desk, my power strip with an iPod. Finally, the iPhone comes, and shrinks down three devices to one. And, most importantly, each of its elements -- the phone, the PDA, and the iPod -- are all individually improvements over the individual devices I used to have. The fact that I'm a Mac user is a big part of that, but... contacts, bookmarks, calendar, music, podcasts, whatever, everything works seamlessly.
And no, I didn't need to stand in line. Hey, I don't need to stand in line for an Apple Store grand opening, either. Is a T-shirt worth six hours being silently judged by passers by? Would I lose the ability to enter an Apple Store if I wasn't among the first few hundred to cross the threshold? No. What can I say, it's a social occasion, a special event. You know the people around you share at least one ridiculous bond, and I've yet to come away from one of these things without a new friend.
Yesterday? I got to know a Gundam-loving, Starbucks-working kid named Michael with whom we took turns watching stuff so the other could get food or take a bathroom break. I took his photo in line and with his iPhone so he could send it to his Mainland friends. There was the guy from a cement company on Sand Island who paid his secretary to hold a spot, and he talked for hours about skiing with another guy, who in turn asked me all about Macs and talked himself into making the switch (and took my card for some consulting). And a nice old lady who was in line to get two iPhones for her kids, except one of them called her from Seattle with his new iPhone, but she didn't care because by the time her husband arrived they both wanted one for themselves.
Anyway.
Trust me. Apple lines are different from, say, those lines for the Nintendo Wii. I mean, in most cases there's a serious scarcity issue, so people sleep outside WalMarts out of desperation. People got beat up over Wiis! (I almost understand, though. I love the Wii!) The iPhone? Apple's got as many as three million units in the pipeline. You could walk into the Apple Store today, no lines or crowds, and buy an iPhone off the shelf. I expected that. But I wanted to be there, for the fun and insanity of it all. I realize how ridiculous it is to be cheered like a rockstar for walking out of a store with a small black box, but I loved it anyway.
I've only had the iPhone a day, but so far, even with all the caveats, "yeah buts" and well-worn disclaimers about what it doesn't do? It greatly surpasses my expectations. It's elegantly designed, it's sturdier than I thought (yes, I've already dropped it -- one reason I'm glad it's an 8GB flash device and not a 30GB hard drive), dead simple to use (I never opened the manual)... I'm not just satisfied. I'm downright elated.
You might not want an iPhone, and you probably don't need an iPhone. But I'm absolutely convinced that this thing changes almost everything about mobile phones and devices in general. Whatever your preferred carrier, brand, design... finally companies will begin to invest and innovate seriously in this space. So things will get better for everyone, even if you're not an Apple fanatic like me!
Caught on tape!
Hey, if you don't want an iPhone, you don't want an iPhone.
Yes, the "Rev 1" of any new device, particularly a company's first foray into any new market, is guaranteed to have issues. There's nothing wrong with not being an early adopter. You have fewer headaches that way. But, if you have that gene, well... you also know what you're getting into. It comes with the territory.
No doubt there'll be a new iPhone with 3G and all the bugs worked out. Oh well, them's the breaks. In technology, you're obsolete before you pull out your wallet. The way my wife looks at it is, it just means she'll be getting an iPhone soon (when I move on to the next one).
Yes, AT&T is such an evil company, Satan is a major stakeholder. Hey, if I could choose who Apple's partner was in this, it wouldn't be the Death Star. But, well, I'm hoping my admiration for Apple and satisfaction with its product line will outweight the AT&T issues.
The EDGE connection isn't fast. But I was used to browsing the web on my Treo 700p, and that was no Ferrari. And it had to "connect" every time, like dial-up. And I had to stick to "mobile" versions of websites to get around. The iPhone feels just as fast, with no "connect" process, and when a page loads, it's the real web page. Portrait or landscape, zoom and scroll, it's just like the commercials. It's fantastic.
Yes, most people don't need an iPhone. If you're happy with the phone that your provider gave you for free for a one-year contract, keep it! If you just make calls and send an SMS or so a week, hell, the iPhone would be a waste. But if you make heavy use of a smartphone, if you actually use all those features... the iPhone integrates them beautifully.
For me it comes down to my belt. For a long time, I had a basic cell phone, a PDA (a Palm Pilot, Palm III, Visor Prism, Sony Clie), and an iPod on my person. When the Treo came around, I finally got to combine my phone and PDA. And frankly, the Treo 700p remains easily one of my favorite pieces of technology ever. For the last few years, it ran my life. But, it still had to share my belt, my desk, my power strip with an iPod. Finally, the iPhone comes, and shrinks down three devices to one. And, most importantly, each of its elements -- the phone, the PDA, and the iPod -- are all individually improvements over the individual devices I used to have. The fact that I'm a Mac user is a big part of that, but... contacts, bookmarks, calendar, music, podcasts, whatever, everything works seamlessly.
And no, I didn't need to stand in line. Hey, I don't need to stand in line for an Apple Store grand opening, either. Is a T-shirt worth six hours being silently judged by passers by? Would I lose the ability to enter an Apple Store if I wasn't among the first few hundred to cross the threshold? No. What can I say, it's a social occasion, a special event. You know the people around you share at least one ridiculous bond, and I've yet to come away from one of these things without a new friend.
Yesterday? I got to know a Gundam-loving, Starbucks-working kid named Michael with whom we took turns watching stuff so the other could get food or take a bathroom break. I took his photo in line and with his iPhone so he could send it to his Mainland friends. There was the guy from a cement company on Sand Island who paid his secretary to hold a spot, and he talked for hours about skiing with another guy, who in turn asked me all about Macs and talked himself into making the switch (and took my card for some consulting). And a nice old lady who was in line to get two iPhones for her kids, except one of them called her from Seattle with his new iPhone, but she didn't care because by the time her husband arrived they both wanted one for themselves.
Anyway.
Trust me. Apple lines are different from, say, those lines for the Nintendo Wii. I mean, in most cases there's a serious scarcity issue, so people sleep outside WalMarts out of desperation. People got beat up over Wiis! (I almost understand, though. I love the Wii!) The iPhone? Apple's got as many as three million units in the pipeline. You could walk into the Apple Store today, no lines or crowds, and buy an iPhone off the shelf. I expected that. But I wanted to be there, for the fun and insanity of it all. I realize how ridiculous it is to be cheered like a rockstar for walking out of a store with a small black box, but I loved it anyway.
I've only had the iPhone a day, but so far, even with all the caveats, "yeah buts" and well-worn disclaimers about what it doesn't do? It greatly surpasses my expectations. It's elegantly designed, it's sturdier than I thought (yes, I've already dropped it -- one reason I'm glad it's an 8GB flash device and not a 30GB hard drive), dead simple to use (I never opened the manual)... I'm not just satisfied. I'm downright elated.
You might not want an iPhone, and you probably don't need an iPhone. But I'm absolutely convinced that this thing changes almost everything about mobile phones and devices in general. Whatever your preferred carrier, brand, design... finally companies will begin to invest and innovate seriously in this space. So things will get better for everyone, even if you're not an Apple fanatic like me!
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