iHeart iPhone

If I were going to marry an inanimate object, it would probably be iPhone.

For Better:
iPod. Music and video whenever wherever. The first time I watched episodes of Will & Grace to pass the time on a flight, I knew I was in love. Watching on a bus only made me love it that much more. As for the music, the best part is that I don't have to mess around with the little wheely thing from the regular iPods. I never cared for the wheely thing.

Google Maps. This is the 3rd most used feature (by me) after iPod and text messaging. Sometimes I look up directions to places just because I can. More often I look them up because I need them. The other day a woman stopped me on the street to ask me if I knew where a Currency Exchange was. I told her I did not, but that I could find out. Enter iPhone, followed closely by a list of Currency Exchanges in walking distance. Oh how I love to be helpful.

Even better, I was out of town last month killing time before a meeting when I decided to grab lunch. Out came iPhone. Search: Olive Garden. Result: Never-Ending Pasta Bowl, penne with meat sauce, salad and bread sticks. Delicious.

Internet. Having the internet ("just... the internet") on your phone is freakin cool. You know those moments when you're out and it's like "Oh, where's the meeting?" or "What was so-and-so's address?" and you know it's in your email if you could just get to it? Yeah... I don't have those anymore. If it's on the world wide web, it's in my pocket. Freakin hotness.

For Worse:
Stone-Age Text Technology You can only text one person at a time. This is either the greatest oversight in the history of cellular technology, or there's some Apple/AT&T conspiracy to control outgoing texts. Why that would be, I have no idea. Who else has a phone that doesn't let you send multiple recipient text messages? Everyone that I tell about this little oversight looks at me like with the same confused, bewildered look that I had when I finally realized that I wasn't just slow figuring it out, it can't be done. No freakin clue.

No Speed Dial. At least until the latest software update. In the original version of iPhone, you had to push at least 3 buttons to call one of your "favorite" contacts and at least 4 to call anyone else. With 1.1.2 your "favorite" contacts are essentially dropped into a speed-dial list and you can dial one of the homies in just 2 steps.

No GPS. Which essentially means you can't be lost. You have to know where you are to get to where you want to be, which hasn't been a problem for me so far. It'd be nice though if I could type "Borders" into a search box and just have it spit out the location closest to my present position. Of course, then Apple would always know where I am. For whatever reason that doesn't bother me as the prospect of being lost on a random road somewhere and having my magical little phone not be able to tell me where I am. I mean really, it tells me everything else.

Clutter. Now perhaps I'm not the prime audience for iPhone. But I could do without the YouTube and Stocks buttons on the homescreen. I'd like to be able to get to them, but I'm not so much of a compulsive YouTuber/stock checker that I need to be presented with the options every time I look at my phone. And with the new iTunes icon, the home screen is looking all too crowded.

No Batter Life Meter You have to estimate how much charge you have left based on the little icon in the corner. The phone alerts you when you fall to 20 and 10%. So if it's monitoring the percentage anyway, why can't it tell me when I have 50 or 60 or 75%? Just so I know what I'm working with. But this is a small thing. Definitely bottom of the list of things the Apple folks should be spending their time on.

Room for Improvement:
The Weather As it is, the weather icon is a sun with a random temperature reading (73 degrees) imposed on it. You tap it to get the actual weather. I figure if there's gonna be a graphic and temperature reading on the home screen anyway, why not have it display the actual weather, the way the calendar icon displays the actual date? Then you'd get the weather like you get the time or text alerts whenever you look at your phone. And you could just tap the icon for extended forecasts or highs and lows.

Reserving Judgment:
Ringtones iPhone comes pre-loaded with the most appalling selection of ringtones ever encountered on a phone. Of 25 ringtones, there are precisely 7 that don't completely suck, and only 1 that I actually like. The other 18 include things like "Bark," "Duck," "Motorcycle," "Robot," and my personal favorites, "Time Passing" and "Old Car Horn." Seriously???

Naturally, someone came up with a way to bootleg your own ringtones and sync them to the phone. Almost as naturally, Apple introduced an update that made the bootlegs obsolete, and introduced their own ringtone maker. Step one, buy a song from iTunes ($1). Step two, use the iTunes editor to cut a 30-second slice out of the song (another $1). So you're paying $2 to make a ringtone of a song you probably A) already own, and B) could cut up for free with software you already have. Unacceptable.

Fortunately (if accidentally) Apple's latest update actually restores users' ability to make their own ringtones. This was either an oversight that Apple will correct in the next update (Haters), or they realized how blatantly greedy and stupid their ringtone philosophy is (Thank you). I'm reserving judgment on this one til the next couple updates come out.

Bonus: Peep Apple's newest innovation, courtesy of MadTV: The iRack