iPhone

I discovered that my mobile phone contract had run for over 30 months, giving me the option of renewing the contract, with the benefit of purchasing a new phone at a discounted price. It also meant that I was finally able to register the line under my name (it was previously under my dad's) and set up a Giro payment scheme for my phone bill (the bank account name must the same as the person to whom the line is registered to).

In the end, after weighing up the various options, I ended up getting myself the new Apple iPhone. My mom's plan was also due for renewal and because she is on a more expensive plan, purchasing the iPhone on her renewal meant that I could purchase it for $520 instead of the $870 that it would have cost under mine. However, given that I wanted to sign the new contract under my name, that necessitated purchasing a discounted phone on my plan as well, unless we wished to forgo the opportunity to buy a new phone at a cheaper rate. My mom, after a rather protracted selection process, ended up getting a Motorola V9, the main drawback being that the phone was a tie-in with Ferrari, and had a Ferrari logo stuck on the back. My dad tried to convince her that it was not worth getting a Samsung phone, similar in design (they were both flip open models) that cost over $200 more, the main additional feature being a 5 mega-pixel camera.

As for the new iPhone, I have only tested it out briefly so far, and the general impression is that it is unlike any phone I have ever seen before. It is more or less identical in design to an iPod touch, modified to include phone functionality. This means of course that it is completely touch screen - no keypad at all, and it is quite a kick to dial a number by pressing virtual digits on the screen. SMSing can be somewhat clumsy at times on the virtual QWERTY keyboard, but something that one could get used to. An additional feature for SMSing is that the iPhone tracks SMS 'correspondences' (similar to the way Gmail tracks email conversations) featuring a chain of SMSes linked together in comic book style speech bubbles. Another potential benefit I can see is being able to sync the phonebook with all its stored numbers, with my macbook, giving me a back-up copy of all my various contacts and phone numbers in the event (God forbid) that something were to happen to my phone.

In sum, it was a grand idea for Apple to move into the phone market, and the iPhone represents more of an addition to the existing design and technology rather than a fundamental new development. However, where Apple succeeds is that the iPhone represents a very real integration of technologies like music, photos, organizer etc. with phone functionality that the latest generation of phones have been moving towards, but which most existing phones have not quite succeeded in achieving thus far. It is easy to see why the iPhone, at least for the moment, is the hottest phone on the market.