Line Squatters
Camden and I successfully procured an iPhone on Friday. We had a pleasant six hours of sitting in line with a group of fellow squatters. One can only converse for so long about a cell phone no one has seen in person. Hence, after about twenty minutes we moved on to more interesting topics. Our little chat group included a guy from LA who was on his way to Denver for the national barbershop singing convention, a real estate professional named Marilyn who dislikes her first name and drives an amazing 1985 Mercedes that runs on biodiesel for 60 cents a gallon, and a guy getting ready to move to Grand Rapids who was being paid $50 to wait in line for a businessman who has to have the latest technology but is too busy sitting in meetings to sit in line like us common folk. The businessman’s grandson showed up to relieve the mercenary and make the iPhone purchase.
As for the iPhone, it is truly remarkable. The user experience is such a step up from my current Windows Mobile handheld that I would liken it to the sheer delight I felt when I replaced my paper calendar with a Palm V.
Google Earth takes on entirely new perspective when you can, as we use to sing as kids, “hold the whole world in [your] hands.”
Comments
Keep us posted on it; they do look very cool!
Posted by: Simmons | July 3, 2007 11:04 AM
Did you have a Treo before, JD? Do you sync corporate email with the iphone? That's the only thing holding me back--uncertainty re whether that will work.
Posted by: Lisa | July 3, 2007 10:48 PM
Lisa, my last phone was a T-Mobile MDA made by HTC. It was a Windows Mobile device so it used Active Sync to log-in to our corporate Exchange email server. From that aspect, it was seamless. Prior to that I used a Treo, which required setting up a forwarding account on T-Mobile's website. It was kind of a pain.
I am able to get my corporate email on the iPhone but it uses something called IMAP, which is essentially a web-based protocal to get access to email servers.
Not every corporation is willing to let their employees access servers using IMAP. Supposedly, Apple will be licensing Active Sync from Microsoft in order to allow direct intereaction with Exchange.
If you are a heavy mobile email user - in that you do much typing - the screen-based keyboard on the iPhone is not easy to use compared to a physical keyboard, such as the one on the Treo. I always carry a laptop so I don't type hundreds of emails on my phone. I just like to be able to read them on the phone so I can be aware of emergencies.
Sorry for the long-winded reply.
Posted by: jd | July 5, 2007 2:47 PM