One thing, to begin with. Some of these things I appreciate you might say "that's not necessarily just a feature of the iPhone, that's a feature of having a cell phone" as well as "well, that's a trait of a palm pilot, not necessarily an iPhone," while other features will definitely be the sole territory of the iPhone. Let's know that I remark on this simply as someone who has not had a cell phone for a while, as I shut mine off a year or two ago. Also know that I haven't had a cell phone in my own name since I lived on the Upper West Side of NYC in 2001. I've been an added line on other accounts, lingering in the netherword of NotSureIWantToBeOnTheGridville, and such. So this is not just a new toy, not just a new Mac toy, not just a new phone, and not just a new phone in my own name, but all those things at once. And it's a hell of a way to get back in the game, let me tell ya.

You know, I grew up reading Le Guin and Asimov and Bradbury and Clarke, and as I said the other day, when you are learning BASIC language in grade school and using reel to reel tape decks in the school's library at the same time, you grow up with all that Promise of Computers rap in your brain. Nowadays, kids don't really get all that. We just use computers all over the place, and we don't talk much about what they will "one day" do for us as a society. They are part of everything from the tags on our clothes in stores to our cars diagnostic systems to our phones. So they are doing it as we speak.

But youse peeple born in the late 60s or early 70s, do you remember? Computers were supposed to make everything easier on us. That was the idea. Not for government agencies to spy on you, not for stores to make it easier to embarass you when one of your RF chip tags isn't deactivated properly, but our everyday lives. Easier. Computers were to take over those parts of our lives that our brains found tedious and slow. Adding, listing, searching, connecting, crossreferencing, remembering. And yet, it seems sometimes that we are not quite there. We use new means in old ways. Not all the time, but too often. Computers need to be smarter, or need to be presented smarter. I shouldn't have to read a book on how to use my computer. I shouldn't get messages on my computer that require a college course to understand. Yes, I like to know as much as possible about my computer, how to force empty trash using the command terminal if I have to do so, etc. But people shouldn't really ever feel "dumb" on a computer. The maker of the system needs to be smarter so that the computer makes use easier. That was the promise. It seems we are getting there...just in the last year or two, computers are beginning to get smart in ways that matter to a person's everyday life. Now if you have money to always buy the newest best thing, maybe they have been doing that for you for a long time. I don't know.

But the iPhone looks to me to take this to a level that I can personally appreciate. And I think some of that is GPS technology, some is having mobile internet use, some is online banking, some is what Apple has done in integrating iTunes and videos and music and their hardware; some is just all of this meeting up at once, and some is the extremely visual and tactile nature of the iPhone. I don't mean to make definitive sweeping statements on technology or computers, etc. I'm not an expert. But I do know how to write top ten lists.

TOP TEN REASONS TO OWN AN IPHONE:

10. It costs a ridiculous amount of money.

9. It WILL keep you hard longer than Viagra.

8. All emails that end "Sent from my iPhone" gain +10 on all Charisma and Logic rolls.

7. All emails that end "Sent from my iPhone" may possible be interpreted as "you are bolted to your computer desk. And I am on the move and looking sexy."

6. Sites are beginning to design access simply for your iPhone. Just like fancy cars and hotels now sport iPod docks as a matter of necessity and status. House of Nezua is hosted on mediatemple servers as a matter of fact. So now, with my iPhone, I can administer the server. Even while sitting and drinking wine on the back porch. That not only feels extremely summery, but also makes both mediatemple and H.o.N. quite cool all at once. See how that works?

5. How many years have you been staring at your screen? Just you and the screen. Your thoughts and eyes skating over its alluring surface and yet you've never been allowed to touch. It's sort of like the longest foreplay session you can imagine. Finally, you can consummate the union between body, mind, and computer screen by using touch to do everything from delete emails, control volume, click links, move the cursor, zoom in on fotos, and rearrange your desktop. I don't claim to be the first one to say this or even the tenth, I don't know, but I really do think the iPhone moves a big step toward where computers are headed. I sit down now to use my graphic tablet (don't use a mouse) and even that feels "old school" now. I whip out my iPhone and suddenly I'm Tom Cruise in Minority Report. Okay, not a huge selling point, but you get me.

4. The iPod just won't make you as cool as it did once, face it. Especially the mini. Please.

3. Late Night Drunken Foning is ameliorated by .03 BAC when done from an iPhone.

2. You are giving money to a Microsoft rival.

1. Hey. After all those deep and caring thoughts about the poor people down south, you really do deserve this.

Apple's site can tell you all about the things the fone will do. I'll try to stick with what really works for ME.

FEEL/LOOK/USE: FONE

As with most of Apple's products, you feel ultra classy just holding one.

Vegan-dispelling case sold separately.

This thing makes using a fone so fun you end up hoping someone will call you already.

Macintosh has always won me over because Mac products are designed by artists. And design and aesthetic are very important to me. Doubt I'm alone in that. Products that are fun to use, that make you feel cool, stylish, soothed, or dextrous are products you will buy and use often. Just as stores that make you feel welcome and important when you are there will get more business even with higher prices. This damn thing makes you want to make fone calls just to see the keypad show up, to see the buttons turn a royal and translucent blue when you hit them. All the choices of audio show up, bluetooth headset (if you have one), speakerphone, or iPhone receiver. Hold button shows up, and if you get another call, you can merge them with the touch of a button. You can add a third call very simply. And there definitely is a lot to be said for not having to navigate tons of menus, but instead having the choices be visual, tactile, and few—and always relevant and right in front of you.

I mentioned my bluetooth earpiece/headset. I opted not for the Apple one, which was nice, but instead for the Motorola pictured here...looking much larger than it actually is. It's about the size of a walnut. Ish.

This bad boy has a very selective noise filtering system that allows you to be heard even when in the midst of a loud crowd, etc. Plus it's very small and sci-fi in that retro-fifties sort of way. And dig the very awesome charger! It's got a magnet deal so it seats very snugly easily.

If you get caught with a phone call when you are listening to the iPod function with the earbuds, the music will fade out and the earbuds will let the phone call through. Not that you can tell, but the earbuds also have a mouthpiece mic built in right around where your mouth will be.

When your call is over, the song will fade back up.

INTEGRATION WITH COMPUTER:

This is some of what I was talking about with making things easy.

Not shown above are the messages "syncing bookmarks," "syncing fotos," etc. Basically, any area you determine (see tabs at top of screenshot below) will be checked whenever you plug in to your dock (unless you set it so that you sync it manually), and synced with address book to internet bookmarks to playlists created in iTunes, to notes made. This is wild stuff! You can automate your own behaviors on computers, relegate many organizational tasks to the robot.

When you can get a call, add the contact to your phone book with a button, add an address to your address book simply because your email app recognizes what an address looks like, have your computer back up your fone, and/or add and delete contacts on computer or phone and have it affect both, it just makes certain parts of computerlife pretty smooth. When you can connect your Paypal to your fone to your bank to your calender to alerts to notes youve made...you don't have to waste a lot of time on tasks your brain might not be so great at to begin with, you can shop online while sipping spendy coffee and hijacking the café's wifi it's all just so fuckin american i can't stand it.

ONLINE BROWSING. And Tools.

The last fone i had, the Motorola V505 was a nice one, nice enough. pretty pricey, could do just about everything, quad band, etc. But I never used the internet. Not only was the cost too much, but I felt lost on it. It wasn't the same internet I would see at home on my desktop. It was some cheapass 8-bit atari DOS screen amalgam that just didn't work in the same way. But with the iFone, you may as well be looking at the same computer, but with a small screen. And again, a touch-responsive screen. There is the magic. Tickle that C-spot all day. Touch the page to make the page change, coax a zoom-in from it with only two fingers, a quick little nudge and ZOOMP, flick pages aside with a fingertip, close a browser window by touching a small red X.

Since the browser looks exactly as it does on the internet, reading online is not tough at all, especially cause once you master your little handmotions, you can move around very easily. It's not hard to "master" those motions, either. One or three times and you're there. It becomes a fun physical act to use this machine. Not just a mental one.

Even my grafiks-heavy ass site loads up, taking no longer than it does on my desktop computer. Complete images and all! You can touch a link with your fingertip and that page loads in a new window. It's extremely intuitive. More so than using plastic tools to translate your will to the machine.

One of the things that used to always bother me about being away from my computer were the spam comments that will inevitably find their way to my comment form. For reasons too boring to list here, I can't get a good spam killer working on my blog, so I have to check it after stretches of hours to make sure insane and creepy spam is not littering up my blog.

Now as you can see in the next picture, I have made a button right on my iPhone desktop that i can click and i will be logged in to the admin panel of the blog on the Manage Comments page, and I can delete spam right from there. That's faster than I can get there on my desktop Mac! Tho I could save a URL to my dock and do it in one touch there, too.

This is the home page of the iPhone, called "Home." You can make more pages and you just flick them aside with a swipe of the finger. You can make buttons of any page online, or use the apps designed by many developers and listed and linked on the apple site.

You can see how my day begins. Calender, which will have notes I make on my computer or on my iPhone, world clocks in case I have to talk to someone in another part of the world or country and want to see what time it is for them, weather so I know the outlook for myself or anyone else, map in case i need to find my way somewhere, calculator, notebook, etc.

As I said, developers have made so many widgets for the iPhone. Linked from the Apple.com site is everything from texts of of the constitution, to the britannica encylopedia, metronomes, jogging tools to measure distance, bartender drink mixer recipes, stocks, iPhone-as-Flashlight widget, electronic dice to roll...more than you can imagine. (Yes, I have all these.)

Take notes, and they sync up with notes made in your Mail app on your desktop computer. My father always had legal yellow pads when he wrote (poet, not a lawyer). Now I have them, but it's a new generation of yellow pads.

Have to say, I have big love for the mapping feature, integrated with google maps. Type in addresses, get directions, save them, spend less time getting bad directions from humans. More time for you to be touching your computer in the confines of your own vehicle. And isn't that what it's all about?

EMAIL

This might be the best part. Checking the mail on the iFone, dealing with the mail...for some reason, it's very easy, so much less stressful than on my regular computer. If you've read for a little while here, you'll remember that I have been increasingly voicing my annoyance with email. I hate opening up my email app.

Having to use a keypad on this fone forces me to keep emails short and to the point. I like that. And I can always sit down and write one up at length on my computer. I've configured it so that checking my email on my fone leaves it on the server to be pulled to my desktop, but I think I'm going to change that. If I've read it on my fone, I'm going to have the server delete it. If its i'mportant, I'll fwd it to a gmail acct for storage or later reference. No more desktop mail for me except outgoing responses that require much typing and stuff I save for filing.

Sigh of relief.

And again, the iPhone is a physical experience.To get that red delete button you see above, all you do is swipe your finger from left to right. It's almost feeling like flicking the email away and into the air, so a good psychological connection to your activity. Button pops up, press it, mail is gone. Fwd or reply or file once the email is open with one touch.

Get your email in HTML style, pictures show up, everything. Just like on the desktop. Clickable links. Just touch them with your finger and browser loads.

You can see that if you rest your finger on key, options pop up. Even if you don't rest your finger on a key, the key you hit gets big for a second so you can see what letters you're hitting as you type.

What I love about this is that I've separated my email use now from my applications use on my computer. This frees me in a few ways. Often, when I'm working, I end up getting pulled away from my work (which I do on the computer, too) and battling with email. Its always showing up. "Ka-ching!" New email. I can't resist. But now, I just quit the Mail app. Yeah! Freedom. No more interruption. If someone calls, cool. I don't have to stop what I'm doing, have my headset. But I've often said "man, if I could only disconnect the computer from the Internet so I don't keep getting distracted." This takes care of that. I use my desktop now for work. And my phone for browsing the internet and doing email. And remember, all AT&T plans have unlimited data transfer when it comes to Internet. So you don't have to freak about how long you are on.

A friend voiced concerns about Internet being slow. Haven't run into that yet, but I've mostly been home on my wi-fi connection, so I'll let ustedes know how it works moving around more. I've been down to the mini-mall, and eaten lunch and checked my mail using the AT&T connection, no problem. But I'll report in a week or two with more info. (I can't load embedded youtubes, and I need to track this down and see if its a bug or a feature of the iPhone to only be able to view YouTube at youtube.com. Update: It's a feature, but here's a fix).

Don't get me wrong, I do believe in smelling the roses and such. I don't need to always be online and multitasking. But I like to work efficiently when it comes to tools. And I really like that if I want to check my email, I can do so from anywhere, which means I can be out and not feel I have to rush back at any time for email.

Funny. I thought I was freed up by not having a cell phone, but in actuality, it may have just made me feel more dependent on my computer. Now, I think with an iPhone and Obama I can finally be happy in this life.

MUSIC AND VIDEO

Right on the home screen is a YouTube button. Click it, and you're there. Searching is easy, and the videos play flawlessly for me. No skipping, no hanging up. I'm guessing the are optimized for the phone, I don't know, but amazingly enough, they seem—so far—to work better than on my desktop computer.

Videos play in landscape orientation, very viewable size. Touch the screen and these controls show up. You can email someone the link easily,

yes you can.

Of course we know how iPods work. And this fone works just like a touch iPod.

With no album cover art, a song will play like this.

Or like this.

With album art, the Cover Flow feature looks like this.

And that, my friends, is the wondrous new tool/toy in my life. I think I've probably given you a good idea of what the fone can do and why I'm pretty impressed with it. I'm not sure there's even much to say in the way of a conclusion. You don't even need me to recommend buying one because you should have a good idea by now if it will fit your needs. But if you do get one, remember, you can call any iPhone from your iPhone and its free!

Talk to you later!

Nezua