David Szpunar: Owner, PC Help Services & indeedIT

David's Church Information Technology

July 18th, 2008 at 1:15 am Print This Post Print This Post

iPhone has been ordered!

I ordered an iPhone 3G today! (Well, yesterday technically…on Thursday) Should be here in less than a week supposedly, and I’ve already downloaded 71 of the free applications from the iPhone App Store in iTunes, ready to install! The WordPress app is done (Matt Mullenweg posted about it) but hasn’t been put in the store by Apple yet (oh yeah, WordPress 2.6 is out! Woohoo!). I’m looking forward to it! There are several paid apps ranging from $1 to $10 that I will consider at some point after I have the phone in-hand (and maybe some more $$!).

Why did I choose the iPhone? Well, I’m tired of my Treo 650, which is showing its age. I like the multi-touch interface, I like the data speeds, I like the screen size, and I like that, because it’s so popular, people are writing sites and apps (both!) specifically to work well on it. That means I can do more with it than with any other phone, or at least I can do so much so easily compared to other phone options right now. OK, I have to correct myself, will be able to do…gotta get the thing first! Oh yeah, and now it does Exchange ActiveSync with Push email, calendar, and contacts! That’s the one thing that made me sit up and take a look. Before, I at least told myself (and others) that I was OK giving the iPhone a pass–yes it was cool, but it wasn’t truly functional if you need Exchange access. Supposedly, that’s no longer true! It seems that the $30/mo data plan, unlike AT&T has been claiming per my previous post, works just fine with ActiveSync, which makes sense from a technical level.

It’s a 16GB black iPhone, if you were wondering, and I’m going to use it to replace my iPod Classic 80GB I think (the first Apple product I’ve ever owned) which is why I opted for the larger version; my iPod has over 20GB of podcasts and I’ll still have to pare that down to fit on the iPhone! Shouldn’t be hard; I didn’t try on the iPod because there’s plenty of space. I’m already with AT&T (but no longer in a contract), and the monthly plan will only cost me $10 per month more than what I’m already paying as part of my family’s FamilyTalk plan, so while I considered a 2G used iPhone, the 3G made enough sense given the subsidy for me.