iPhone Love

I had the occasion to drop by the AT&T storefront here in Alvin this evening. It seems my wife’s phone finally succumbed to the material fatigue that mine did several months ago; it broke in half.

She called and asked if I could maybe go to the phone store and check availability of new handsets, and to see if they were going to give us any trouble.

As I entered the store, I asked the pair of workers if they would be open tomorrow, and if so, what-time-to-what-time. I glanced in the direction of the display by the door. It was a pair of Apple iPhones with a spiffy flat panel display above them touting the features and desirability of the new geegaws. I suppressed the urge to grab-and-dash in favor of getting some other business out of the way with the worker bees first. On completion of the task, I wandered forward like a zombie, my eyes trained on the sleek, utterly cool devices standing at attention.

I am not an early adopter by any stretch of the imagination. If I were, I could not claim the envious title of “geezer”. Nor would I pay $400 or $600 for a phone.

But to touch and explore the wonder that is an iPhone, I was transfixed by the beauty, speed and elegance of the interface and the gadget itself. The simplicity of the workings of the interface is pure Apple. The photo gallery was just like shuffling through small but perfect prints. You simply drag your finger across the screen and the thumbnail-sized prints accelerate then slow to a stop. You scroll like that till you get to the one you want, at which time you tap it to zoom in.

I emailed myself from the iPhone, too. Simple note-taking by tapping a miniature keyboard on the screen, even my hammy fingers made few mistakes. I pressed another “button” and the email application appeared instantly, accepted my email address, and then “whoosh-ed” it off to my gmail account.

The music interface was slick, too. You scroll just like the commercials show, with the same swipe of your finger as the list zooms by, then decelerates to a stop. It shows the album artwork at the same time.

If you’re interested or even curious as to why over 730,000 of these puppies were sold in the first 24 hours, then go by the store and pretend to be interested. 30 were sold in Alvin yesterday.

You don’t even have to be an Apple nut to love this thing. Don’t believe the media attention, pick it up in your own hot little mitt and experience it.

My experience will be limited to the sample table, however, at least until the price drops by $500!