Jason Elk

I like the iPhone 3G, I do. And it’s pretty obvious to see why so many other iOwners feel the same. Let me count the ways.

1. Before you even turn it on, the phone glistens and gleams and reflects, like any good piece of new media gadgetry should.
2. Once switched on (it’s surprising that it doesn’t play the Apple startup chord) it’s a thing of pure simplicity. Icons in front of you that are waiting to be pressed, not with a stylus or a trackball but with your finger. This is arguably the number 2 reason that the iPhone has succeeded so astoundingly: from the minute we first hang on to mom or dad’s finger at the hospital, human beings are suckers for anything involving touching and feeling. The number 1 reason for the iPhone succeeding is simply because it has a logo representing a half-eaten piece of fruit on the back.
3. Adding applications to the phone is addictive, easy and cheap. Addictive because you find yourself adding converters and translaters and organisers and reminder tools that you never knew you needed (because you probably don’t). Easy because all it takes is clicking the AppStore icon on your phone to browse and download. And cheap because there are tons of apps for free and the rest are mostly 99 US cents. Cleverest of all (from Apple’s point of view) is that you only put your credit card details in once online, and then never interact with any credit/purchase/checkout mechanism on the phone. So the app costs rack up and you’re none the wiser. It’s the same concept casinos use in their chips-for-cash plan. When you’re playing with plastic it’s easier to bet R200 a hand at blackjack. If you had to play in R50 notes, you’d think twice before splitting that pair of eights.
4. It takes decent pictures. If it didn’t, it simply wouldn’t sell. Phones are cameras for most people these days, so as long as the handset has a built-in snapping solution, most people don’t really care about the 2mp vs 3.15mp vs 5mp debate that some of us find ourselves bashing around whenever a new handset is released.
5. If you own a Mac computer of any kind, the match is made in heaven. It integrates seamlessly into iTunes, which takes care of all your synching requirements. And if you’re a .mac ( or mobile me) user, you’ll have push email at a reasonable price of $60-odd a year.
6. The conference calling feature is incredible. Make as many calls as you like and speak to each person separately while putting the others on hold. Or merge them to speak to everyone at once.
7. There must be another reason I paid this much for it. Um. Ja. It’ll come to me.
8. Oh here’s one. I have a cute Speed Dial app that shows me pictures of the people I want to dial.
9. Did I mention that the phone has a qwerty keyboard? It takes a week or two to get used to, so you start oof tpyning liike rhis.
10. Nothing, and I mean nothing, says connected coolness like pulling an iPhone out of your pocket at a business meeting or drinks with friends, diverting the call to voicemail and putting it away again, pretending not to notice the arching necks and elbow nudges in the group around you.

So that’s the deal. Yes it doesn’t record video, send MMS messages or copy and paste. Yes, there are many, many better options out there that would cost a great deal less and deliver far more. I still think my Nokia N95 8GB is the best phone I’ve ever owned. And I still have it close by, just in case. But until the novelty of the iPhone wears off, the sparkling-yet-oversized handset that lets me play with semi-realistic koi fish (that I can feed just by shaking the phone sideways) has my attention, and my pocket.

Tagged as iphone + Categorized as Everything