Telephonemania

So yes, when the 3G version comes out, I'm buying an iPhone. Yes, I know the arguments for the Blackberry, etc. But my hands are a little large for those tiny keyboard keys. And I'm trying to pare down how much I carry. Consolidating my modest PDA needs, MP3 player, and phone into one advice will make amazing progress towards this worthy goal. Ideally, I will have only six items in my blogger bag:

1) Macbook Pro
2) Kindle
3) iPhone
4) USB headset
5) Broadband modem
6) Digital camera

I know what you're thinking: this bag is an invitation to one hell of a mugging, and also, needs a cappucino frothing attachment. But The Atlantic is a Mac shop. I am still not a Mac evangelical--unlike my colleague, I was perfectly happy with my Sony Vista laptop, at least after I uninstalled the crap Sony loaded on there. But just as I couldn't blog American and write British for The Economist, I found it too annoying to switch back and forth between platforms. That means that I favor Apple products.

There's also the fact that the ubiquity of the iPhone means that there's lots of development for the iPhone. My iPod accessories all work with it. Driving back from North Carolina, a friend not only played music from his iPhone through my little Belkin iPod car dock, but also used its quasi-GPS to get us unlost. At this point my heart was lost. The new one is rumored to have actual GPS.

Besides, I am perfectly fascinated by the hype surrounding the iPhone. It's not just the probably-fake photographs, the speculation about the exact day it will go on sale, or the uncomfortable mental picture of all those salivating mac-bloggers. It's just the sheer, amazing lengths to which people will go to get information about the damn thing. For the first time in my life, I'm planning to take part in one of these events, and buy my phone on the first day of release--whenever that might be--not because I can't wait two days to get a new phone, but because I want to enjoy the show. And thanks to the broadband modem, I'll be liveblogging it.

Comments

I'm curious as to your opinion of the value of a Kindle...

Posted by susan | June 1, 2008 4:02 PM

Replace the USB headset with a Flip Video Ultra, and you've described the contents of my bag of tricks.

Posted by Gil Roth | June 1, 2008 4:08 PM

So yes, when it comes out, I'm buying an iPhone.

Is this a particular new iPhone or something? Or is this article something that got mistakenly cached from a year ago?

As for the broadband modem, check out something called PDANet. It turns certain cell phones into broadband modems for the PC, so you can tether (or bluetooth tether) your phone to the pc and surf the net on your PC at 2.4 mbps.

Posted by gmr | June 1, 2008 4:12 PM

That seems like a big camera to be carrying around all the time. It's a great camera, but do you need all that it offers over the typical compact camera (e.g., Canon Powershot), or even the camera on the iPhone?

Posted by Trieu | June 1, 2008 4:33 PM

The real win of IPhone ubiquity isn't the number hardware adaptions available. The real win is going to be in the pending flood of software that will start hitting the ITMS shelves any day now. There are a lot more clever things that can be done with an always-on-web-enabled device of the IPhone's power and footprint than the handful Apple shipped with.

Posted by Dave | June 1, 2008 4:48 PM

I know what you're thinking: this bag is an invitation to one hell of a mugging, and also, needs a cappucino frothing attachment.

No, it needs a mid-sized Glock (the baby Glocks probably won't fit in your hands well).

Posted by Rob Lyman | June 1, 2008 4:49 PM

gmr - the new iPhone is coming out and it will be G3 - meaning it can be used anywhere in the world. It is also rumored to have numerous improvements.

Megan - I highly recommend going to the iPhone launch event. My wife, who isn't a technie in the least, decided she wanted and iPhone and took the day off work to wait in line at the Columbia Mall Apple store (she was #20). She had an absolutly wonderful time with the fellow iPhoneiacs. Starbucks employees came around and gave people free short lattes and bottles of water. Godiva employees gave out free chocolates. She described it as a tailgate for geeks.

And she loves her iPhone.

Unfortunately for me, I had to miss the launch last year. But I think I'll go for a G3 iPhone, since my stupid cell phone is on its last legs. Which Apple Store are you going to? Maybe we can have a blog commentator section for our iPhone tailgate?

Posted by szr | June 1, 2008 5:15 PM

It's not out yet, but a G3 iPhone should be usable as a broadband modem, which would make it possible to drop the dedicated broadband modem (and service). But if 'The Atlantic' is paying, I suppose there's no reason not to have both.

Posted by Slocum | June 1, 2008 5:47 PM

Hrm. My bag:

Thinkpad with integrated WWAN.
Blackberry.

(Insert snark about easy life of journalists here)

Posted by Bob Dobalina | June 1, 2008 10:01 PM

I can't believe the keyboard key size is a reason for favoring iPhone over the blackberry-- you'll benefit from that dreadful on-screen keyboard instead. If you want big keys, get an HTC phone with a slide-out keyboard. They run WM6 these days and they'll connect to 3G today, on the service provider of your choosing. It'll also do the work of your mp3/video player and meet your PDA needs. Your call.

Posted by LAN3 | June 1, 2008 11:53 PM

gmr - the new iPhone is coming out and it will be G3 - meaning it can be used anywhere in the world. It is also rumored to have numerous improvements.

Whoa there, little bit of technical correction required here:

1. It's 3G (as in 3rd Generation), not G3 (an old Mac CPU).
2. The part about "can be used anywhere in the world" refers to GSM. The iPhone, as an AT&T Wireless phone, is already GSM, it's just 2nd Gen GSM as opposed to 3rd Gen.
3. The improvement from 2G/EDGE to 3G is to significantly improve data speeds, not to make it work in other countries.

See the Wikipedia link for a bit more info on 2G vs 3G and GSM vs CDMA.

Megan,

Like LAN3, I'm surprised to hear "keyboard size" as an argument for iPhone over Blackberry. My co-workers have quite large hands and are able to type just fine and at high speeds on our 8700's. Plus, from my brief hands-on time, I found the iPhone's "keyboard" to be just as small, though also quite usable anyway. I can see other merits to the iPhone, but I wouldn't have listed the keyboard as one of them...

Also, I was going to say exactly what Slocum said about the iPhone as a broadband modem.

Posted by Geoff | June 3, 2008 10:58 AM

Megan, how many people were in line at the Columbia Mall last year for the iPhone?

Posted by PacMon | July 5, 2008 11:54 AM