Stephen's Personal Blog

So, back in June, just before the Seattle bike ride I got an iPhone. The expense is a bit much, but I would like to program it when summer is over. At least that’s my rationale.

For the bike ride, I looked to conserve weight were ever possible and the iPhone does a lot of things. The camera, internet, phone, and text messaging are the beginning. The apps are like the cherry on top. The inability to send or receive photos is annoying. So, I took the iPhone and left the Netbook and camera at home. There were reports of dead batteries and cracked screens (Jessica). So, I got a case that doubles as a spare battery, the Mophie.

Right before the trip I realized that I could put video on the iPhone and then, with a special cable, play it on the motel TV. This was an invaluable feature. I thought I had a cable to do it, but was mistaken. After a visit to a nearby Apple store in Seattle I was all set. The cable is pricey at $50, but probably a knockoff would be cheaper. Since then I convert all my DVDs to play on the iPhone so they can come along. When we went home to Canadian a couple of weeks after the Seattle ride we brought Gran Torino and played it for Grandma.

The phone worked great most of the trip. I got 150 photos in the first 3 days. The phone worked and the internet is just really handy to have. The motel’s internet was unnecessary and the lack of a tactile keyboard really just kept my typing short and my thoughts down to 1-2 sentences, because that’s all you can see at a time. The text messaging was very helpful. And I found an app for Facebook to update that status too. As I went along on the ride I would send a single word, the name of the town I was in.

Somewhere in the despair portion of the second day the iPhone died. Nothing I did would wake it up. It’s really too bad. I wish I had photos of the finish line and last rest stop. The best photos of me taken by Marathonfoto were of that last 10 mile or so stretch. I got 4 of them. They are really good. Because of the rain all the second day I thought little iPhone was dead, but I charged it up anyway to see and within 10 minutes it was apparent that the battery had totally drain somewhere along the ride and my backup hadn’t helped it.

It was great for the rest of the trip with my cousin and her family. Monday morning I got to listen to my TWiT (This Weak in Tech) podcast. Now, I did bring along my iPod Nano. That was and still is the music box. The battery life is just so much better than the iPhone. Which is one of the major reasons I got it. The Nano is 16 gig and it holds a lot more music without competing for photo, video, and app space.

The first App on my iPhone was Pandora. And it’s really helped me discover music like I used to. I can listen at work and tag songs. Normally streaming music is blocked. The iPhone’s Internet connection gives me a private “unfiltered” Internet. I’ve been playing with it to find and tag music to buy for the Mexico trip.

The second App was Facebook. My peeps are on Facebook instead of Twitter. And the third was a copy of the bible for when I forget mine for church. It’s come in very handy.

I really like the iPhone, much more than I expected. It’s very nice to have the Internet so close at hand. And I discover new apps or features. Some are quite amazing. For example the Amazon Mobile app lets you take a photo of something and then matches it to a product Amazon sells and displays a list of sellers. It’s not for everyone. The slick glass keyboard and 1 day long battery life are problems. And it would just confuse my grandmother. It’s a good device for me.