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We recently switched to iPhones and I have used it long enough now to offer up a review in comparison to what I looked at for alternatives in getting a new cell phone and our experience with our previous cell phones. And now I have purchased a MAC for her and for my father as replacement computers. My workstation at home is "adequate" for now, so I have not gotten one for myself yet, though when I do replace it, it will be a MAC. In this first part I will cover the conversion to the iPhone.

Now here is the thing, it has nothing to do with the operating system. It is the hardware platform. Starting out at the phones, Erica had a Motorola Krazr with a proprietary carrier OS, and I had a Windows mobile Pantech duo. My wife began to have problems with her phone over time, and trying to keep her contacts and calendar synced with Motorola's proprietary software was just horrendous. My phone running Windows mobile just worked. It synced w/o issue using Active Sync. The only issue I had over time was that the phone would reboot itself. Which was tied to a design flaw in the hardware of the Pantech Duo. Basically the sliding of the keyboard would cause it to reboot. It really became annoying. The other downside was I had a proprietary connector, so if I was out somewhere and needed a charge, I was SOL since it didn't have a standard USB mini adapter. Motorola at least had a standard USB mini so chances were always good you could bum a charge off someone.

Over time we have had various iPod incarnations and I had a 1st gen iTouch. I had seen and played with the iPhone a bit from colleagues.

So when we were due for new phones. I looked into all the phone available with our carrier and narrowed it down to either the iPhone or a Windows mobile device. Additionally for the Windows mobile it needed to use a standard USB mini connector, non of that proprietary connector crap. Given our travel, the phone needed to support international travel. If it had Wi-fi, that was a bonus but not a requirement. The iPhone is a proprietary connector, it has enough share such in the music player and phone market, that it really is a "standard".

I was very happy with Windows Mobile software, in that it just worked. My big concern with the iPhone was that Apple's delivery system for it, iTunes, is a piece of crap. It bricked my iTouch on many occasions. And I was not eager to see my phone get bricked and leave me high and dry before a trip the way my iTouch bricked itself just prior to us leaving for our two week road trip. Windows mobile never did that, it synced contacts, calendar and music w/o a issue. The applications on the iPhone/iTouch were compelling, but I could live without it.

In looking at all the phones given the criteria, the iPhone really stood out. I went and checked out all of the Windows mobile devices that fit into the criteria: HTC Fuze, Samsung Propel, LG INCITE and the Nokia E71x. The last device in the list, the Nokia wasn't windows mobile, but the design intrigued me. I went to an AT&T store to try out all the devices. Basically, all the devices, except the iPhone failed. Why? Simple, they were "clunky" and very difficult to use. It felt almost painful with some to use it. And not just in non-phone applications, but the phone applications as well. They were not simple, elegant or easy to use. The best of the pack was the Nokia, however I could not bring myself to like it because it was proprietary operating system. The foremost the feature after usability as a phone, is that had to be dead simple syncing of contacts and calendar items to the phone. Of those phones, the ones that had "touch-screen" capability felt wrong. They felt cheap and like they were not solid devices. Given that all of them were around the same price as an iPhone 3GS 16GB phone, that was not acceptable.

I brought Erica in later in the week to have her try out phones from the list of candidates I put together so we could make sure she got a phone that works for her. Hands down without blinking she picked the iPhone after looking at them all.

We have had the phones for several weeks now and they have been working great. We both love the over the air connectivity of the applications - maps, weather and web browsing mostly. It really makes it easy when you are somewhere without Wi-Fi and can still look something up. The ability to be able to check traffic as you are walking out the door, or look up something is tremendous. My concerns about using it as a phone and music player have been appeased. Despite my issues with the iTunes software, the device itself has worked great. The reason it works, and the iPod works, is that it is just a very natural and intuitive to interact with the device. Anyone can pick it up and within a few minutes get where things are and how to use them. Even as a technologist I struggled to figure out how to use the other phones. Their interfaces were severely lacking in ease of use when stood up next to an iPhone. And these were phones that are supposed to be in the same class and price range as an iPhone.

- Stephen