For years I’ve avoided getting a fancy cell phone, instead making do with the low-middle level phones that Cincinnati Bell Wireless was offering.  I didn’t feel like I was missing much, I found that I mostly needed a mobile phone for actually phone calls and the occasional text message.  Last year I started hearing my wife’s pleas for a new phone due to the fact that texting was such a pain on her standard flip phone.  As it turns out, last year my company worked out a corporate discount with AT&T Wireless, and I decided to take the opportunity to see what AT&T was offering.  At first I thought I might just get her a phone with a full-keyboard, and I would continue to slum it with an el-cheapo flip phone.  However, I also noticed that several of my co-workers had jumped on the iPhone bandwagon thanks to this discount, and some of the apps they had been using would actually be useful in my own life.  With that kind of peer pressure (and the shiny appeal of a phone that made web-surfing easy), I begrudgingly took a bow to the altar of Steve Jobs and sprung for a pair of iPhones (3G for her, 3Gs for myself as I needed the extra space).  I wouldn’t say I did a full-out comparison between the iPhone and the other offerings AT&T had.  I just knew that I did not want a Blackberry, and in my gut the iPhone seemed to be the best phone for our purposes. 

Now that we’ve had the phones for 5 months (what can I say, I’m slacking in taking so long to post this), I feel I could give a fair assessment.  This won’t be in-depth, you could find full out reviews from more reliable sources.  I just want to post a few thoughts on my experience with the phone.  First, the good:

• Instant access to email has been tremendously useful.  If nothing else, I can clean out useless emails instead of having to do it at home.
• Texting isn’t a pain anymore, and is actually quite easy.
• It’s great having much of my music collection with me without having to carry a separate portable music player.
• I have found several apps that have been really useful in simplifying my life, or at least giving the illusion of simplification.  Actually, a couple of the best apps are native – the calendar and contacts apps.
• Being able to surf the web almost wherever I go has been useful.  Mindless Wikipedia anyone?
• The camera is good enough where I can capture a quick moment without having to haul around the D70 everywhere.  Sure, the camera capabilities aren’t nearly as good as a standalone camera, but you can actually get away with some pretty good pictures with it.
• It’s a fun tech toy!
• The user experience is terrific.  The touchscreen makes it easy to access what I need with ease.

Granted, some of these high points could be found with all smartphones, and are merely dependent on the network.  I have heard of some poor experience with AT&T’s 3G network in some cities (mostly the really large metro areas), but here in Cincinnati the service has been pretty solid.  The number one thing why the iPhone may be better than other phones out there is the last point – user experience.  I’ve seen plenty of Blackberries through the people I know, and the iPhone just seems more user friendly.  Perhaps Android-based phones and Windows Mobile based phones have something to say about that, but AT&T’s offerings weren’t nearly as strong (at least from my rudimentary shopping back in November).

Now, of course, there are some things about the phone with I don’t love. 

• Lack of Flash support.  This is a bit ridiculous.  Flash is ubiquitous, and I’m sure the hardware would support it.  Perhaps there is a technical reason for the lack of support, but my guess is it’s just Apple’s stand against 3rd party application platforms being present on the phone.
• Multi-tasking leaves a bit to be desired.  Granted, if a user had the ability to open every app and seamless switch between them, available memory may become an issue.  So with OS 3, multi-tasking is limited to some of the native apps and not to any 3rd party apps.  Apparently, iPhone OS4 will address this with better multi-tasking support.  Of course, that remains to be seen.
• Battery life.  To be fair, this is probably an issue with any smartphone.  These phones just take more juice since they are more akin to a small mobile computer than they are to a traditional phone.  The longest I’ve ever gone without charging the battery has been 3 days (due to limited use of the phone on a weekend), while I typically need to charge it every day and a half.
• The wifi is wonky.  Even at home where our notebook computers have few issues with using the wireless network, the iPhone seems to be on 3G half the time.  The router is old (from 2003), but it still is reliable.

Overall, I have been pleased with the phone and the experience that I’ve had with it.  It has been quite useful at work, and I still find useful apps every once in awhile even after the initial mass app download.  And no, I have no intention of going all-in with Apple (I’ll spare the reader my opinions of the company despite my love of the phone).  Truth be told, in a few years when I may be in the market for another phone, I still will consider Android or Windows mobile phones.  Perhaps they will make great strides towards improving the user experience after the smashing success of the iPhone.  But for now, I am quite happy with the iPhone purchase!