iLemming
My latest 2-year commitment to Verizon Wireless expired last week. Phone tech has come a long way in the last two years, so I've been thinking hard about what I want for my next upgrade.
Mandatory:
- Strong signal reception
- Compatibility with my existing bluetooth headset
- Contact sync with the Mac address book
- Task sync with iCal (ok) or OmniFocus (preferred)
Nice to have:
- Calendar sync with iCal and gCal
- Mobile Web access
- Full keyboard, Graffiti, or handwriting recognition
- Camera sync with iPhoto
Don't really care:
- MP3 player
- Mobile versions of desktop apps like Word
I looked at a bunch of the Verizon smartphone/PDA/mobile Web gadgets and was surprised to find that almost all of them are running Windows Mobile. The ones that aren't are still pretty Mac-hostile according to user reports. So much for Verizon.
Once I started looking outside of Verizon, it became clear that the iPhone is really the only gadget out there that fills all my mandatory criteria...and all my nice-to-haves as well. So I bought one. It seems strange to me that Mac users have such slim pickin's - I wonder why. Apple's developer support, maybe? Manufacturers unwilling to create gadgets for a relatively small market?
I'm liking it pretty well so far. It's a relief to have my GTD system with me at all times now without double-entry or the kloodgy multi-app sync process required by my Palm. Having a real UI to deal with call waiting and hold and so forth is fantastic. My fingers are a little large for the keyboard - I wish I could re-orient it to landscape from any app (especially SMS) but no such luck. Location services + map has come in handy once already. I feel somewhat uncomfortably trendy whenever I take it out of my pocket in public, but hey - it's the right tool for the jobs I want it to do. How can I argue with that?
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