Me And My iPhone

I got an iPhone for Hanukkah this past week. Thank you Jaimi!

It's pretty much the best gift possible. Here's why:

It makes me smarter, cooler, more interesting, and easier to reach via email, text message, or cell phone. It's easier to reach me now not because the iPhone gets a better signal than a regular cell phone, or works underground. Rather, I never let the thing out of my sight for even a second. Basically, I'm in love.

I reviewed the iPhone when it first came out back in June of this year. Unfortunately, my review was written from the point of view of someone who had never actually seen an iPhone in person. That made it marginally difficult to judge the merits of its many revolutionary features, or to discover inconsistencies and flaws in its user interface or physical design. That being said, my previous review was quite positive. And even now, I stand by that entirely uninformed review.

The thing lives up to the hype, and then some.

I could sit for hours and play with the photo viewer, shrinking and enlarging the pictures by dragging my fingers across the screen. The internet also looks ridiculously good on the iPhone. You get to see the whole goddamn web page, and not just a crappy mobile version that's available on every other cell phone out there. But just as with viewing the photos, the coolest thing about browsing the web on the iPhone is zooming in and out by using your fingers. It's insane. Right out of Star Trek.

Also, I can't wait until they activate the function that allows you to use the iPhone as a stun gun. I heard it's in the next software upgrade. Steve Jobs is such a genius.

In the meantime, though, I'll still be able to use my iPhone to shock would-be assailants by way of its brilliant user interface, and stunningly beautiful LCD screen.

By way of example, here's a picture of me holding my iPhone with a picture of me on it:

Yes, that's a picture of me holding a picture of me. I took both of these pictures with the iPhone in my hand. Sound impossible? Think 'wormhole', which the iPhone was also able to open for me, along with local weather and sports scores.

If I were walking down a dark alley, alone and obviously vulnerable to attack, and someone jumped from behind a pile of trash - grabbed me by the throat and pinned me to the side of the dumpster opposite the big pile of trash - then I would simply whip out my iPhone (much like I'm demonstrating above) and let the goon check his/her email and play around with the iPod function while simultaneously checking stock quotes, and the current time in Bangkok.

Then, as the criminal was distracted by the astonishingly easy-to-use touchscreen display - and because the iPhone, when out of Wi-Fi range, accesses the internet via the relatively slow EDGE cell phone network - I'd have plenty of time to subdue my mugger with a combination of choke holds and heart punches. And as luck would have it, I would have learned these self-defense techniques via a Chuck Norris Podcast, just before getting out of the subway.

In other words, the iPhone just saved my life. And even without the stun gun function, it could save yours as well.

So yes, I'd say that my updated iPhone review (after having actually used one for a little while) remains quite positive.