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11 January 2007

iPhone - Resistance Is Futile


It is about time the personal electronics body count dropped instead of swelled. I for one am sick of carrying around a pager, laptop, PDA, music player and cell phone.

What, you don't have all that junk? How can you be happy?

Actually, I don't have most of that junk either.

I wait...

And I wait...

And I wait some more...

Perhaps the wait is over?

I've always been a Windows PC kinda guy. Price/performance and all that.

The Apple products, while pretty and capable, are both expensive and far from bullet proof when it comes to reliability. Yet recently I must admit to a bit of lust for an Apple Mac Pro desktop. They are brilliant for video editing work after all.

So the iPhone really peaked my interest. I mean, I've got iTunes but no iPod.

I've got a cell phone (and with the "right" carrier too).

My laptop died. I can't see how a PDA could replace one, so neither was on my shopping list for a while.

The pager has seen its day. Mine got fired when I could route my missed calls to my cell phone's voice mail at a reasonable price.

So, iPhone, can you handle this?

Well it is no laptop, but it does offer better than typical cell phone web browsing, the Apple-claimed "desktop-class email," and some other fairly typical web related features that ought not to be claimed as iPhone's goodies. For example, in the tour on the Apple website they claim the iPhone delivers "maps."

The flash movie simply shows the device browsing to Google Maps. Yawn. Not new.

What does set my techie heart a pitter patter are things like the "sensors." There are several. The accelerometer tells the iPhone which orientation to display the image (landscape or portrait - aka horizontal or vertical). Its proximity sensor knows when you are holding the phone up to your sweaty, greasy or make-up coated face. When you do it shuts off the display to save energy (battery life).

And finally it knows how bright the room is - so the display can adjust itself - automatically for best power use and readability.

All and all pretty cool. Me thinks that when they are available retail I'll need to see one face-to-glowing face. Maybe, just maybe, the iPhone has brought real device convergence home. Finally.


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Apple News: Devices: iPhone

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