I hate Apple Computer Corporation.  I hate their disingenuous advertising filled with at best half-truths about Windows, mixed in with their own exaggerated performance claims.  I hate Steve Jobs and his ridiculous black turtleneck.  I hate the smug Apple users who constantly run off at the mouth about how Apple OS is so easy and Windows machines are so complicated.  I hate how those arguments often boil down to “I’m smarter than you because I’m stupider than you”.  Seriously?  I hate Apple’s inflated pricing and their general lack of acknowledgment that Apple OS isn’t a whole lot more than a co-opted unix with smoother graphics.

For all of these reasons, and many, many more, it is extremely difficult for me to write what I’m about to write.

I love the iPhone.

In fact, I’ll tell you how I really feel…

I love the stupid iPhone!

There, I said it.

How I Got Here

Quite frankly I have no idea how I got to this point.  I’ve had Verizon Wireless service for years, and have generally been happy with it.  I will admit to being more than a little bitter about overage charges that occurred during the month we moved last year.  I mean, for 5 or 6 years we used Verizon phones and never went over our limits, in fact, most months we weren’t close.  Of course, the first time we did, Verizon was none to happy to saddle us with over 40 cents a minute in overage charges.  So yeah I was a little bitter…and a little bitterness can open a lot of doors for your customer’s competitors.  Hey Verizon, they’re called rollover minutes.  You don’t have them, now I do.

Getting back to the iPhone… I’d been on the fence for months about moving up to a data plan, but wasn’t impressed by any of the Windows Mobile Smart Phones currently available for Verizon.  I came close to pulling the trigger on the HTC Touch a few months back, but when Verizon told me a data plan would cost me an extra $50 a month, and since I wasn’t love the phone, I dropped the idea.

A couple of months pass, and now my Mac-loving brother, his wife, and her parents are all on iPhones.  My buddy Kevin is moving into his 2nd year of iPhone ownership, and 2/3 of my Verizon contract is expired, and despite their persistent phone calls, I still haven’t re-upped.  So here I am surrounded by these stupid iPhones, and as it often does, curiosity got the best of me.  I picked one up, started playing with it a little bit, and after a couple of minutes I decided I had to have one.

Long story short, with some contractual wiggle room comes options, so I crunched the numbers and discovered that an iPhone and a data plan with AT&T actually made a hell of a lot more sense (financial and otherwise) than a Windows Mobile Device, data plan and Verizon.  Apart from slightly better pricing in general, AT&T offered a better education discount (my wife) than we were getting from Verizon.  Looking at the equipment alone, the HTC Touch is priced exactly the same as an 8GB iPhone.  From an ease of use, feature, and capability standpoint it’s a bit like comparing Kobe beef to chicken feet.  The devices aren’t even in the same league.  If an iPhone costs $299, the HTC should retail for $19.99 on a 2AM infomercial.

Why I Love the iPhone

While I won’t say the iPhone has transformed my life it has put a lot more capability in my pocket.

As I said, I’m a Windows guy.  To me it is easy, it is intuitive, and believe it or not, I find that it “just works”.  That said, for all the lipstick, every version of Windows since ‘95 looks and feels pretty much the same.  It’s not a bad thing.  In fact, I appreciate the consistency, but as hard as Microsoft may try, the Windows interface, love it or hate it, doesn’t translate well to the mobile environment.  Email is one thing, but have you ever tried to use a web browser on a smart phone?  Sure, many sites offer mobile alternatives, but for the overwhelming majority that don’t, the Windows Mobile OS and Internet Explorer are nearly useless.

So what does the iPhone do better?  Again, sadly (for Windows guys anyway), pretty much everything.  The Safari browser and multi-touch interface make just about every web site readable.  It’s difficult, if not impossible to piece together a rational argument that there is a better mobile media player than the iPod.  Throw in mobile access to the iTunes store and you’d be pressed to find a more complete portable media player.  Actually, now that I’m thinking of it, having iTunes as a central management console for all things iPhone really makes things easy.  I hate that I don’t hate this.  With everything the iPhone can do, one almost forgets that it is actually a phone too.

Setting up and accessing multiple email accounts (including my corporate Exchange account) was simple too.  I love that the iPhone has built in configuration screens for popular email services such as GMail, Yahoo, and AOL.  For anything it doesn’t explicitly support (like Fastmail), setup is still so easy my mom could do it…almost.

What Sucks

You’ve probably heard the stories of the iPhone 3G’s shortcomings.  I’m certainly in no position to discount them.  In my first week I’ve had a few dropped calls.  Despite AT&T’s claims of more bars in more places, I had fewer bars in the same places I go every day (although reception itself seemed ok).  Battery life was deplorable (I haven’t made it through a day without needing a recharge along the way).  Every now and again the text messaging engine would get untenabley slow.  Several times I lost my connection to the data network and needed to reboot the phone.  I’d be lying if I didn’t find some of it annoying, but for the additional capabilities, I was leaning towards keeping the phone and AT&T (I’ve got a 30 day trial period for both).

Why the Suck Might Not Be That Bad

Of course, all of that was before last Friday when Apple released a software upgrade.  Now as a Windows guy, neither the irony nor the hypocrisy of Apple, who constantly chides Microsoft for releasing imperfect products, releasing a substantial collection of bug fixes several months after their product was introduced into the wild, isn’t lost on me.  In fact, if I didn’t own a buggy 3G iPhone, I might have found it downright comical.

Granted it’s only been 24 hours since I installed the update, but so far, I’ve got more bars in more places, I haven’t dropped a call.  My battery life appears to be holding up much better.  I haven’t had to reboot to fix a network problem, and I haven’t experienced any sort of SMS bog down.  Final judgment is open-ended, but so far so good.  I’m also waiting on pins in needles to see if the rumors are true and the 2.1 update opens the door for turn by turn navigation software.

For everything I’ve done with the iPhone (a list which includes)

• Send and receive email and text messages with the help of a very well designed touch-screen keyboard
• Check sports scores in real time
• Track a hurricane
• Check IMDB within seconds of wondering “Who is that guy, what’s he been in”
• Bet the ponies (this may not be a good thing)
• listen to music (iTunes, Pandora)
• Look at pictures of my buddy the Bean’s brand new daughter, Irene
• Watch videos (YouTube)
• Navigate using Google Maps
• Shake virtual maracas (why?  Because I can)
• Visit the AppStore countless times, download countless applications, and not spend a dime.

There are some things that are missing, or could be better

• Email folder management is lacking.  Push mail is great for the inbox, but what about the ability to automatically check sub-folders?  The same holds true for the IMAP connection to my personal mailbox.  If everything is so simple, how come I have to check my own folders?  Why, Apple, why?
• No picture messaging.  Apparently this is a decision Apple made consciously.  Good, but it’s the wrong one.  I had MMS on my old Verizon Motorola RAZR, why can’t I have it on my brand new iPhone?  Quite frankly, it’s stupid.
• At least where I live, Verizon’s network has better coverage, especially indoors.  This cannot be disputed.  AT&T needs to improve its coverage, and needs to do it quickly.
• “Enterprise Data” plans, which include Microsoft’s ActiveSync for connecting to Exchange-based mail accounts, and a native Cisco VPN client, cost $15 a month above standard iPhone data plans.  I’m guessing Apple and AT&T figure that the corporate world will foot the bill, and individuals won’t need that kind of access.  It delights me (but not my wallet) to say that AT&T (and Apple) is wrong, and that the extra $15 is little more than money-sucking shenanigans.
• No turn by turn GPS navigation.  Maybe it’s coming.  Maybe it’s not.  Either way, I had it with my old Verizon RAZR, and I don’t have it with the iPhone.
• The lack of one killer app.  If there’s a must-have application for iPhone, with all deference to “Super Monkey Ball”, I haven’t found it yet.  Some would say the Safari and Google combination is that app, and while there might be more than a grain of truth to that, I want something more.  Maybe it’s turn-by-turn navigation, maybe not.  Quite frankly, I don’t know what I’m looking for, but I haven’t found it yet.

Final Thoughts

Nearly a week into iPhone ownership and a 2 year AT&T contract I’ve had a few problems (the same ones every other iPhone 3G owner has had), but I’m optimistic the new software will solve most, if not all of them.  I have no regrets about leaving Verizon, or about passing on a Windows Mobile “Smart” phone.  When it comes to my new stupid iPhone, I’m pretty much like a 2 year old who just found his penis; I can’t stop playing with the thing – and I’m enjoying every second of it.

I won’t tell you that you should buy an iPhone.  I won’t tell you it will change your life, or even make it a little better.  What I will suggest is that you find a friend with an iPhone, play around with it a little bit, and decide for yourself whether or not it’s a quantum leap from your current cell phone.  For me it was, which is why as much as I hate Apple Computers, I love my stupid iPhone.