Hype: Alive and Well

It's hear. Go ahead believe the hype. Actually, go experience the hype. Ever since the first fully functioning micro drives where developed by Toshiba about 8 years ago, I have been waiting for the day when a whole computer could fit in your hand... or pocket... or wherever. I know that the iPhone was first released last summer, however because I have chosen to live in what some may categorize as a barren and destitute land, we did not get them. Idaho, more specifically Eastern Idaho, had no authorized AT&T dealers; therefore no iPhone. So yesterday was the first day that you could buy one without testing your connections on the grey market and or your skills as a full fledged computer hacker.

The new iPhone has some major geeky upgrades, the in depth discussion of which I will leave to more capable and competent hands. However, here is my list of the top improvements in no particular order.

• The change from a metallic back to a plastic back may be viewed by some as a inconsequential, but it actually has a purpose. Have you ever been deep in the catacombs of a large, mostly steel building like Home Depot or Costco and lost your cell phone signal? That is because steal inhibits a cellular signal. Thus causing poor conversation quality or no conversation at all. The plastic back alleviates this problem and provides exceptional signal quality.
  

• GPS. This is great for fun little tricks like "Geo-tagging" your pictures, locating things like the movies or a new resturant, or every one's favorite goofing on Google Earth. There are already numerous applications that have been designed to take advantage of this new feature. All available through the app store which I will get to in a minute.

• The addition of 3g is great because of the ability to stream media live anywhere. My first example of this was driving around last night streaming Pandora through my iPhone and into my car stereo. Look for live TV (my guess is ESPN) shortly.

• The app store. The greatest thing about a computer is what we can do with it. For example the Internet is made possible because of the Internet browser. Music was completely reinvented because of the software compression algorithm known as mp3. Pictures, word processing, email and on and on. All of these are made possible because of software. The app store will open limitless opportunities to create new wonderful, addictive software applications that we can take with us. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise, the iPhone is a handheld computer with the ability to make phone calls on a cellular network.

So as I mentioned above find someone that has one and play around. Or if you have the means to do so, get one yourself. Heck, my father Bill is on board. He stood in line in Las Vegas for 8 hours yesterday to pick one up. Who knew!