There are countless blogs written about the iPhone so I don't want to duplicate what's been said in many other places on the internet, but I felt I should talk a bit about the iPhone and why it's especially good for me.
#1 - It's the phone I know. In Taiwan it's hard to find good information in English about the different companies, what phones they offer, and what features each one has.
I've been an iPod touch user for the last year and a half. For those who don't know, an iPod touch is basically an iPhone will all the phone and cellular network cabilities stripped out of it. It will play your music, show photos and videos, store your contacts/calendars etc. and it even has e-mail and web features. But it has one crippling limitation - with no access to the celluar network, you need to be within the range of a wi-fi hotspot to be able to connect to the internet. For a long time I've always thought that the device would be so much more useful if only it had constant internet access. With the iPhone, I get such capability as well as many other things.
#2 - International inputs - I can change my iPod to English, Chinese, Japanese or countless other languages just by clicking a few buttons. I have mine set to English, but I have four virtual keyboards installed: English, Chinese (pinyin), Chinese (bo po mo fo), and Japanese. I can swap between any of these keyboards on the fly, so it's easy to write e-mails or text messages in any language (or multi-lingual e-mails).
#3 - Camera and Video - I love taking pics to put on Facebook and videos for YouTube, but the process of shooting, then loading on the computer, then editing, then uploading is a time-consuming pain. With the iPhone, I can do all this right from the phone while I'm waiting for other things to happen (waiting in line, waiting for the bus, waiting on the toilet, whatever). I'm hoping that I can capture my travels more frequently with this added convenience.
#4 - Reading/YouTube - Whenever I eat, I like to either read something like a newspaper or magazine, or watch TV. But the selection of English material here in Taiwan leaves much to be desired, and I don't have a TV on the go. With my iPhone, I can browse all my favorite blogs and news sites wherever I am, or watch my favorite YouTube videos.
#5 - Internet Tethering - I just found out about this feature a week before I got the device, and this is a pretty sweet feature! I have two computers, a MacBook and a NetPC (Acer Aspire One). While I enjoy the portability of each machine, they both suffer from the same problem as the iPod Touch - it's frustrating to find a wi-fi hotspot when you're out on the move. But with the iPhone, you can very easily set it up so that if you plug it into a computer, that computer will be able to get it's internet from the iPhone. Although I've only had the iPhone for about 48 hours, I've already used this feature a couple times and it's fantastic.
#6 - Google Maps and GPS - The iPhone model I got (3GS) has a GPS inside it to instantly show me where I am on Google Maps (or Google Earth). It also has a compass, so that I can have the map automatically rotate as I walk around, so I know exactly which way I'm going. This feature is invaluable when you're walking around a foreign city in a neighborhood you're not familiar with. I still hope to get a scooter at some point, so this would be fantastic if I ever got lost on the road.
#7 - Voice notes - So many times I think of a question I should ask my Chinese teacher, about how to say a specific thing, but then I forget - because I don't have a pen/paper handy to write it down. But with the iPhone it's easy to take voice notes and label them for later use. So if I have a Chinese question - or an idea for this blog, I can make a note of it so I don't forget. A simple feature but very useful!
Of course, it still does all the great things my iPod touch did, like play my MP3s, show my pics and videos, keep my contacts/calendar etc. Oh, and I forgot to mention - it's a phone! I can make and receive phone calls on it ^_^
Of course, not every feature of the iPhone is something I really need. Here are some other features on the iPhone that I don't really care about:
#1 - Added speed. Every review I've read on the iPhone 3GS raves about the speed difference. And as a former iPod touch (1st generation) user, I can say that yes the speed difference is noticeable, but honestly I never had a problem with the iPod touch being too slow. So the speed boost isn't a big deal for me.
#2 - 3D graphics. I'm told that the graphics chip in the 3GS is more advanced than the PSP. But honestly I don't really care. I have a PSP and a DS and both of them display amazing graphics in my view, and the iPhone really can't compare to either machine when it comes to playing video games.
#3 - Voice Control - it's neat to be able to use voice commands to control the iPhone, but honestly is it that hard to just touch the screen or the included remote?
All-in-all, I'm very happy with the iPhone (as I knew I would be). It was expensive to buy it though. In Taiwan the contracts work differently - you have to pay a large sum up front, and then the amount you paid is used to discount your monthly fee. So I had to pay NT$28,800 for the phone in total, but roughly NT$21,000 of that will come back to me in monthly fee discounts and returned deposit, so the actual phone itself will cost me $7,800 in the end (about $250 Canadian dollars). I've been told that Taiwan is one of the cheapest places in the world to buy an iPhone, if you look at it from a total cost of ownership perspective (phone + monthly service fee), but still - dropping that big a sum all at once made me wince!
I hope that this device enables me to keep in contact more often, both here on the blog and also on Facebook.
