iPhone Breakthrough

When you get your first cell phone, it is a life altering experience. You are now connected. You can reach anyone you want anytime you want…if you can remember to charge your battery. But now cell phones have become so common place that it is increasingly being viewed as a necessity. Now people have moved beyond the basic cellular service and are experiencing the increased feature set of smartphones. The ability to be connected, not only by voice, but by data and the plethora of data services hosted on the cloud is truely a breakthough in mobile technology.

When I bought my first PDA, the Dell Axim, but ended up leaving it in my desk drawer I discovered that mobile technology wasn’t yet meant for primetime. Although it had many cool features, it was a second device I had to carry with me and it was just too awkward to use effectively in everyday life. After that experience, I resisted moving to a SmartPhone because although I recognized that mobile technology was necessary, it just wasn’t worth the hassle for mainstream America.

When the iPhone was released, I noticed a significant amount of industry buzz that flared up and it seemed as though many businesses were really taking SmartPhones more seriously. I think much of it was due to the fact that Blackberry and other device manufacterers such as HTC stepped up their game and started producing much higher quality devices.

Since my Sales Director used a Motorola Q, I decided to give it a try. At first, I was impressed with the Motorola Q’s features and capabilities. Although web browsing was very painful, the ability to stay in sync with my email was very nice. But as time wore on, I found that I used it less and less for email and with the keys being so small, I had trouble dialing phone numbers without hitting a wrong key a larger percentage of the time. In short, I found the Motorola Q to be a decent PDA, but a terrible phone. I went back to using a clamshell flip-phone from Samsung.

Then HTC came out with the Touch Pro. By then I had started looking into the iPhone but since I was a Microsoft fan, I didn’t seriously consider buying one, I just wanted to know what features Microsoft was behind on. I was impressed with HTC’s touch screen and navigation. I thought it was a little sad that HTC had to build a UI abstraction to make Windows Mobile more usable, but I thought hey, Microsoft will get this figured out, there just a bit behind.

The HTC Touch Pro was the first truely usable smartphone that I had ever used. It’s web browsing was a little painful because the zoom feature was a bit clunky, but I did use it. The email was usable and the large keyboard was great. For a while, I was really happy with it. But once again, as time rolled on, I found myself rarely checking my email with it. Although texting worked well enough, the UI just wasn’t friendly enough. And sometimes the navigation froze for several seconds while I was switching from doing one thing to another.

About this time, one of my employees showed me his iPhone, and I was anxious to show him how my HTC Touch Pro was superior. Although my phone had better technical specifications, his phone seemed so much simpler and so much easier to do common things. And although I was a Microsoft fan when it comes to their desktop, enterprise, and development technologies, I came to the conclusion that they missed the boat entirely when it came to mobile, and although HTC did a great job in trying to make up for it, they just couldn’t.

A few weeks later, I realized that I left my HTC phone on the airplane as I was leaving security, and they wouldn’t let me back in without a boarding pass. The airline’s office was closed for the night and after calling all week to see if it turned up, I knew someone had walked off with it for good. I decided to try the iPhone. At that time the iPhone 3G was the current model, but everyone expected a new version, so I went back to the Samsung until the 3Gs was released and bought one.

The most I had ever used my cell phone for anything other than calling was probably 20 min per day. Right off the bat, I realized that emailing, texting and web browsing took on a whole new level of usability. Returning email was a piece of cake as was texting. But the web browsing was unbelievable. Here at hh2 Web Services, we build web sites and the iPhone’s easy multi-touch pinch zooming capabilties made it easy to view the full size website and then effortlessly zoon the section you wanted a better look at or to read the text. There were a few occasions right off the bat where I someone called and referenced an email while I was out of the office and I was able to pull the email up during the call and respond to their questions.

Lets also not beat around the bush. I don’t just use my iPhone for business use. The iPod functionality is oustanding. My three year old daughter loves watching movies on it, especially the short films Pixar puts on the end of its DVD’s. Also, there is a thriving gaming industry with the iPhone. By looking in the App Store one day while I was bored waiting for my wifes turn to dance at an Irish dance feis, I discovered tower defence games. They involve much strategy and are very addictive.

The iPhone is definitely the most impressive and useful peice of hardware released in the past 15 years. It has accomplished what many before, and after, have not. It has brought the majority of things that a person uses his or her desktop or laptop for to a personal device that is small enough to fit in your pocket and useful enough that you wouldn’t go anywhere without it. Now, I never forget to charge my cell phone. Its just too important to forget.