iReview the iPhone

So I bit the bullet. With my Verizon contract approaching an end I decided to cut my ties with them and head to AT&T for the iPhone. It was a long time coming. Ever since I was a wee one I was a Mac user. I remember way back in the day when it was System 7, and the big technological jump was going from 16 colors to 256 colors (wow, I feel very dated). I’m getting very scared for when I get older and have kids, “Back in my day we didn’t have neural implants, had to type with our hands…”

 But before jumping into the good of the phone (cause there is plenty), let me first give the bad news: as a phone it’s fairly weak. While I could easily dial up people with a few quick button presses on my old phone, I now find myself constantly waiting for for my iPhone to catch up so that I can dial out. Plus my entirety of my contacts are now in my phone, and sorting through to find names can sometimes take more effort than you wanted to spend. 

The goods news: as a gadget it is very cool. 

I was a subscriber to .Mac before, it allowed me to store my contacts online, gave me an e-mail address, as well as a small amount of online storage all for a yearly fee. The site changed, and it’s now called ‘MobileME’. This service links my iPhone to my computer. THerefore if I change a contact on my phone on my computer it syncs up with my phone, and if I erase e-mail from my phone it erases on my computer, and visa versa. It also has my calender, world clocks, an alarm clock, notepad, maps (with SIGalert traffic), calculator, and weather, plus more. On top of all that, you can also download new applications to customize the iPhone more to your personality/usage. Some programs inclue:

Taxi: locates your location through GPS, then gives you numbers  to local taxi companies (plus show the cross streets of your area)

urbanspoon: the program picks a random restaurant and shows the food type, area, and cost. If you don’t like it just shake (yes, shake) the phone again and another random restaurant is picked. Links to the internet to show you reviews and sometimes menus. 

Trulia: links you with the Trulia website. Finds your position on the map and shows you open houses within your area. 

Yelp: links with the Yelp! website. Uses your location to find local restaurants, bars, coffee houses etc… Then links you directly to the user reviews. 

Moves: Search out films by either location, film, or theatre. 

Mobile News: Shows you news articles from around the world through AP. 

Remote: Maybe my favorite. This allows you to control your iTunes from your iPhone. That means I can be in my kitchen playing my music from my room and change it via my iPhone. Too cool. 

Of course the other bad news is that with so many cool features you can easily kill your battery if you play around with your toy too much. But all in all I’m loving my new toy, and it’s blowing my mind how much smaller the world just got.