Even though it doesn’t work in 64-bit Windows and I have to use another computer to sync it, I honestly really like the iPhone. Having just upgraded from a staple RAZR, this thing is incredible. The first few days I had it I couldn’t take it out of my pocket without people asking me about it. Whether I was at work, on the beach, or at the bar, everyone wanted to look at it, touch it, and play with it. It’s easy to use, it’s sexy, and everyone wants one. Even the people I hang out at the bars with, most of whom don’t use a computer for anything other than MySpace, know about and desperately want an iPhone.

I was going to compile a top 5 list of the questions that people ask me about the phone, but really there are just two questions people ask when confronted with My Amazing iPhone:

1. Can I play with it? / Can I touch it? Sure, go ahead J Everyone wants to play with it! And not just my coworkers or other tech aficionados, either. I’m talking about another market that is much harder to appeal to: 20-something, bar-hopping women (I hang out at the bars around here, I tend to run in to them). They all know what it is, they all want one, and none of them can afford it. I predict a huge Christmas market for Apple with this device. (Yes Cassandra, I can load up the beat-boxing flute player video from YouTube on this thing. Yes, it’s awesome. No, you can’t have it! Yes, I agree, it’s time for another round of rum ‘n cokes.)
   
2. How long did you stand in line for it? I didn’t. I went in around 3pm last Saturday, walked right up to the counter and said, “Give me an iPhone.” The gentleman at the counter said, “Ok, how would you like to pay for that?” There were a ton of people in the store, most of the playing with iPhones, but only a few up at the counter actually buying stuff. I probably just got in at a lucky time.

After having used this thing for over a week, I do have my top list of feature requests:

1. Flash. Dang it, I want to play Desktop Tower Defense on this thing. And all those embedded YouTube clips on celebrity gossip websites are completely inaccessible!
2. Auto-Login / Password Saving for Safari. I wish I could load up my “web apps” without having to type in my login and password every time. It’s extremely tedious to load up sites like Facebook, Google AdSense, MySpace, Hotmail, PayPal, etc. on the iPhone because you have to type in your user name and password every time. The passwords that I use aren’t in the dictionary, with randomized casing, numbers, and special symbols. I usually type them from muscle memory and it’s very difficult to touch-type them on this thing. So please, Apple, let me just add a bookmark with a login so that I can just push Bookmarks, and then push Facebook, and then have it log in for me. Maybe force me to type in a 4-digit PIN first to get access to the password repository, similar to what Firefox allows you to do.
3. GPS. How cool would it be if the built-in Google Maps was tied to a GPS chip in the device? It would also be nice to have for when you’re walking to a destination (“where the **** is EMP?!”), something that car navigation systems just can’t do. Why pay $5000 for car navigation on a $60,000 BMW when you can just rest your iPhone near the dashboard? Goodbye iDrive, hello iPhone. (2008 E92 M3, I’m also talking to you.)
4. Make all apps rotate-aware. Sometimes I want to access the Maps app in widescreen. Or I want to lay the phone at the sideways angle while I’m in my car so that it won’t be as likely to fall over. Right now only Safari is rotate-aware, and it’s just inconsistent. Also, the YouTube app forces you to switch between landscape and portrait depending on whether you’re browsing or watching, and it’s clumsy.
5. 64-bit Windows compatibility. Duh. Although, in Apple’s defense, this has been a major failing of the entire industry. I can’t believe how many people have told me, “Why should I install 64-bit? There’s no advantage, and my printers won’t work!” Argh! Heck, Microsoft doesn’t even ship 64-bit DVD’s with most editions of Windows Vista. The latest Photoshop CS3 isn’t 64-bit native, albeit because of sound engineering and scheduling tradeoffs (I have even written in their defense). But hey, that’s another blog post (question: anyone interested in some 64-bit ranting? J)

This is a version 1 product and it shows. However, unlike other v1 products, the features that are there do truly rock. Instead of 100 features that suck, we have 10 features that are rock solid. It’s like they took the Paint.NET philosophy and applied it to a phone. (Actually, it’s more like I took the Apple philosophy and applied it to Paint.NET. Shh, don’t tell anyone.)

Anyway it’s Sunday. Time for some weekend stuff, like … not doing any work. Where is the beer.