The New Apple Toy

My oh My

The new Iphone is hot.

What it is not.. it doesn't come with instructions. This is the one thing that drives Heather crazy.. and also me at the begining. The interface is supposed to be so complete that it is intuitive.. well not exactly.. as the old ad would say,

I left the Apple store with my new phone ready to work. I even made a call right out of the box.. almost. But for some odd reason, probably tied to my not completely understanding the interface, I got the new phone off to speaking DANISH. All the menu commands, all the program instructions.. almost everything was written in a language that I could not even begin to understand even with my Romantic language exposure. So how to fix it? I went on line and looked at how to solve it. Everywhere I went it said go to settings and choose international and from international choose the language. This left the the hanging question, "How do you say international in the language that this device is stuck in?

Eventually I came down to find something that was close to international in the settings panel and about half way down was able to change the language to US English and son of gun the thing worked! It was not going to be a fancy brick toy after all.

With this information I was able to get in my internet account and yahoo mail translated to and from pac bell dot net. And so the oddesy began. The interesting thing about the whole platform in the beginning was the disappearance of the barrier between mobile calls and the internet. Mobile calls are run on text messaging (with the new generations) and internet messaging is through email. The interesting concept is when a text messsage becomes an email pulled off the air and referenced with a web page that is collected with the cell phone (the Iphone is hardly a cell phone but from past understandings and usefulness it may serve this purpose). The metaphor changes when a device is able to do both. Throw in the abilty to be an Ipod (although limited by its size) The abilty to take credible photos and movies and to move them into an editting program such as Iphoto or Imovie.. you have really changed the concept.

I am very impressed with its abilty to pick up internet Wifis and use them when permitted. This would be pretty important to slower phones. It dosen't seem particularly slow in my environments becuase of the built in speed. I also am used to being in slower iternet environments having lived through 24K dial up.

It does facebook. It does flickr. It can even read my blog. I like the abilty to make pages bigger with a very sensitive keyboard. I learned the thumb and forefinger pinch move easily. I am still a little slow with when you tap and when you double tap. I like moving the pages the Tom Cruise.

I can see why people are spending their lives looking down and touch keyboarding.

Linzi recommeneded a couple of good "Apps" one is the Bart one for the Bay Area Rapid Transit schedule and Pandora that lets you set up an individual radio station. Both are great. I saw an add for the AAA discount App. It lets you know the merchants in any given area that will honor your AAA card for discounts. Its free too.

Its amazing how much more you can text with a decent keyboard. I was watching "THE" Wimbledon mens final today and the adds for the new Plam Pre looked cool. One problem, their keybord is limited to those darn little buttons. I like the abilty to turn it on its side and click away. I need to learn how to copy and paste.

The girls are learning from each other. One shared with the other about when the keys are shaking they can me re arranged. I have experienced that on the phone but did not know what precipitated the keys to start to shake.

I wish you all a new Iphone.. they are wonderful

: ) Pat