The Apple of my "i"

It was back in the January of 2007 when I was seeing a live stream of a MacWorld keynote presentation from a small company - Apple. This guy, wearing a black turtle neck and denim looked nothing like a corporate guy. Slightly balding, he had an aura around him. When he spoke, people lisened. This 6 foot something, thin guy was Steve Jobs.

And the product that he unveiled that day was the iPhone! He went on and on about this legendary device that had this huge capacitive touch screen, a widescreen iPod, an revolutionary internet device and lest we forget, a phone all rolled in one beautiful shell of aluminium.

Since that day, I have been drooling for one. Why shouldn't one. The thing is the best handheld device that the  world has seen till now. And we keep forgetting, its also a phone. A lot of companies have made these claims, but this truly is a computer in your palms. And then, about 9 months ago, out of the blue, I found one sitting in the palm of my hand.

The one that I own, is the second generation iPhone - The iPhone 3G. Apart from the cool things from the last release, it now sported a GPS, native third party apps, ability to tune into a fast 3G network and the list goes on. Mind you, the original iPhone still kicks all other smartphones' asses, no questions asked. The Androids, the Blackberries, the WinMos they are still a generation behind it. And what I have is the second revision of the best... how cool is that!! (Well, the third generation iPhone is also out and the 'Whats new' list continues to grow... do you hear the other phones crying?!)

Nine months, and anyone would start getting bored of their old phone and starting craving for that cool new phone that their friends have. Not me. I am still so overvelmed by the things that phone can do that I have even stopped noticing other phones.

Lets start with the most basic of its features, the phone. There is a great phone app that springs up the second you touch it. Just touch the name in your contact list and thats it. It does what its meant to do in the simplest of ways, making and receiving calls. Most devices will have the phone as the core with the other features being sidelined. But the iPhone is not a phone, it also has a phone that is seamlessly embedded in the smooth interface.

The other thing that I use is the web-browser. It nicely renders pages like it were a desktop PC. And with the touchscreen its so easy to navigate. And now with all big websites like Google, Yahoo, YouTube being rendered for the iPhone, things are even better then before.

The music players is an iPod. Nothing more needs to be said about a music player after that. But this is so much more! The touch interface makes it so easy to browse through the music library and the videos on the 480x320 screen look simply gorgeous. Making playlists is so yesterday. What I do is simply select a song that matches my mood, hit the 'genius' button and boom, I have a playlist that I am sure going to enjoy.

To add to the list is the Maps app. Using the huge and continuously updated Google maps data with satellite imagery along with the really nice A-GPS, finding places has never been so easy. My friends would mock my of being too advances and literally living on that device everytime I and use it to find something or am accurately able to guide them where that cool food joint was. But I know its just envy speaking! Every now and again, they would pick it up and adore the great things that I do with it and wondering how is a thing so small even able to do all this.

This has just changed the way I communicate. With my mails being pushed to me the movement they arrive, and my contacts and calenders being continuously sync with my Google account, I have never felt more connected. And did I mention there are more than 100K apps just waiting to be downloaded at the app store? Facebook, Twitter, chat apps, Doom, Photoshop, Remote desktop, Skype... you name it!

Words just can't describe this amazing thing. You have to see for yourself. With the third generation iPhone sporting a faster processor, more ram, a compass, voice commands to name a few, I feel a shiver down my spine everytime I think of what the next revision will hold.

The Apple of my "i"