iPhone fanboyishness

OK, I'm an Apple fanboy. I've been using Apples and Macs since I was in grade school, and I've always loved them.

I wanted to get an iPhone last year, but I just couldn't justify the cost. I may be a geek, but I'm also a dad with a mortgage. I fretted about it for a year, and then heard that a new iPhone was coming out at a reduced cost.

So last Friday, Baby Bear and I went to an AT&T store out in one of the outlying towns to get in line at about 6:30 AM. I wanted to go to the Apple store at the mall, but the line was out the door and around the block. Not a scene for a geek with a baby. When I got to the store, there were only 4 people in front of me in line, so I knew they wouldn't sell out before I got in.

When they opened at 8, there were about 30 people in line. The store manager went down the line to make sure people knew what they were going to get, and was honest when he had accounted for all of the cheaper 8GB models. Several people left the line when they found out that all that would be left for them would be the 16GB model.

I got the 8GB model, and had absolutely no problems getting activated. I attribute that to being one of the first to get into the system. My gut tells me a lot of their problems later in the day were related to scalability on their servers when everybody in the Eastern time zone tried to get in all at once.

Overall, I'm very happy with my iPhone. The 8 GB size is big enough for the music that I like to have with me. I'll still carry my 80GB iPod that has all of my movies, podcasts, and music, but the phone will be good to have for situations where I don't have the iPod.

Likes:

The GPS function seems to work pretty well, and the 3G network works about as quickly as the air card I use on my work laptop. Getting onto my home wireless network went smooth as silk. Syncing to the phone from my Mac was as easy as it gets. I like the easy use of the App Store, although I can tell that only apps that Apple approves of will be available through this conduit.


Dislikes:

Battery life is a concern. I spent a lot of time on Friday playing around with it, and the batter drained after a few hours. When I plugged in the car charger I purchased for my iPod, the iPhone spat it out. I got a messages saying that the charger wouldn't work with the iPhone. I ended up spending another $25 at the store for another charger. I've had a couple of lockups, but nothing horrendous. Since the only browser is Safari, occasionally I'll go to a website that doesn't work too well. And of course, Flash content doesn't work.

Overall, I'm very happy. I'm glad I waited until version 2.0 came out.