I broke down and bought an iPhone. Hmm… maybe “broke down” isn’t the right phrase. I’ve been wanting one since the 3G came out. I’ve been wanting one ever since I played with the Touch my dad has. I spent months telling myself that it wouldn’t cost me any more money because I was already paying for a data plan on a phone that wasn’t as cool (or as good at browsing). I found myself doing that whole, “If only I had an iPhone right now…” game. So, really, you could say that I just gave in, splurged, and bought myself and iPhone. I should probably note that this was right after I also bought myself the brand new Nano. In blue.
But, now I can check e-mail anywhere! My contacts list is full of all sorts of information – birthdays, addresses, random notes. Now you’re totally curious what I’ve noted about you in my phone. I’ve been downloading free applications like crazy. It’s almost an addiction. I have lots of games – some good, some lame – but also some pretty useful applications.
I’ve been using the ToDo app to keep track of things that I think I need to do but inevitably forget about by the time I get to a pen and paper. So, as I think of them, I write them in my to do list and my screen tells me exactly how many things I think I have to do. I also have a shopping list app that’s pretty handy.
There’s the typical Facebook (ha! I’m never on Facebook!) and Twitterific and Google apps. I can get to the NY Times Dining articles pretty quickly. And Urbanspoon has become practically indispensible. I can look up restaurants that are around me (yay GPS!) or in neighborhoods I’m going to. This came in handy in Denver when we almost didn’t get breakfast (but then T came through, somehow, and we ended up with a really tasty free breakfast).
The other thing I’m loving the iPhone for is making OpenTable reservations. I can make dinner reservations at a moment’s notice without ever having to talk to a person and bargain over dinner times! Awesome. That’s how we ended up at Osteria Marco for dinner after the beer tasting at GABF.
One of my favorite things about my old phone was that it had a program that would listen to songs playing and it would tell you the title and artist. Except, then the program became subscription only and I didn’t want to pay for it. But, now I have an iPhone app that does the same thing, for free! I also started using the Pandora application to listen to music instead of the radio. One, it comes through better than the radio I have in my office. And Two, I can listen to music that I don’t have loaded on my iPod.
Yes, I’m pretty happy with my frivolous purchase. The only problem I have right now is when I’m doing something on the phone while in the car. My car is set up to connect with phones via Bluetooth, but for some reason I can’t hear phone audio through the car if I answer a call in the middle of something else. If my phone is just hanging out doing nothing and I get a call, it works just fine. I’m sure there’s a forum that could answer this for me, but I haven’t gotten desperate enough to go look for it yet.
Ahh… the country is in economic turmoil, the DOW doesn’t know which way to go, and our presidential candidates spend hours debating and talking about blah, blah, blah and all I can do is wax poetic about my cell phone. Hee.
Three Dog Kitchen 