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eye phone jaw bone

After recent discussions with Los Angeles' most mildly mannered Superhero, StainBoy, led to my enlightenment regarding the TCO of Apple's amazingly sexy iPhone, what else could I do? I took a slightly longer-than-usual lunch and purchased one for myself. And if you aren't jealous, you really should be.

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Considering that $60/month provides plenty of rollover minutes, unlimited data transfer, and sufficient (for me) SMS Text Messaging, and considering further that my current plan (SprintPCS - the worst cellular service on the planet) gives me pretty much NOTHING aside from old-school, non-rollover minutes and charges me even MORE for the opportunity, it was pretty much a no-brainer for me to cancel my current service and take up residence in the Brave New World of Apple.

Talk about an upgrade!

I also picked up a top-of-the-line, noise cancelling bluetooth headset, the jawbone. Although mine didn't come with the sexy, brooding black woman featured on the website I wasn't too disappointed . . . one of those is pretty much all I can handle anyway.

*ducking whatever deadly object Nurse Ratched has just tossed at the back of my head*

The iPhone is certainly not perfect. As utterly AMAZING as this next-generation User Interface is, it is not as wonderful for music and video playback as the classic iPod's dedicated control wheel. The specialized nature of THAT interface allowed it to be both (a) incredibly intuitive and (b) usable by touch alone. This latter point is a large part of the original iPod's true genius. I can reach down and turn my iPod's volume up or down, skip to the next or previous track, and pause or resume playback without looking away from my computer screen, the road, or what have you.

Not so the iPhone.

With the exception of volume, all other playback-related actions require looking at the UI so that one knows where to touch the screen. While this isn't really too problematic with a device that is primarily, as the name suggests, a telephone, it makes the iPod Touch (essentially the same device, sans telephone) a bit less compelling. The iPod Touch is, like its predecessors, first and foremost a device for media playback. No matter how sexy the new UI may be (and it happens to be VERY VERY sexy), it just isn't optimized for media playback.

Oh well.

I'm sure that Apple will eventually find a way to give us the best of both worlds. In the meantime I must run, for mine iPhone awaiteth me.

Your New Toy-totin' Tango Terroriste,
---the PseudoLatino

Posted by earwicker at December 5, 2007 08:00 PM