Embracing the Dark Side

My last blog entry was made on my HTC Touch HD. I remember typing it out on my phone while sitting at a coffee joint thinking that Wow! This is the best touch screen phone I've ever used. What's more... it really satisfies my black lust. I mean... everything is BLACK! It's even called the Blackstone!

Ok... better not get carried away with the black thing.

BLACK!

Anyhoo... over the last week, both Weng and Kimmie got themselves iPhones. Well they both had problems with their W902 and since their telco contracts were up, they decided to get new phones and Weng started the ball rolling by getting the evil fruit.

At the same time, Kimmie also was also advised by her colleages that the iPhone was easy to configure to receive her office emails. This, together with encouragment from Weng, who was already completely fallen to the dark side, convinced her to get one for herself too.

Over the weekend, I got to play with Weng's iPhone and I was quite impressed with the touch screen. It was more responsive than the Touch HD and OH MY GOD THE APPS! There are so many different apps for both fun and function.

I guess it's a mixture of the impressive features of the phone and me being caught in the fallout of the encouragement for Weng and Kimmie to buy the iPhone but my phone contract was up and I thought... Why not?

My last experience with an Apple product was with my 3rd Generation iPod about 6 years ago. After almost a year of use, it died after 5 minutes of use on a full charge. Also, by that time, Sony Ericsson ruled the Empire with their Walkman phones and I ditched the fruit after the guy at the apple service centre told me that it would be cheaper for me to buy a new iPod than to replace the battery for my less than a year old but already obsolete iPod.

So after 6 "fruitless" years, I'm pleasantly surprised by the iPhone's capabilities. The user interface is simple and yet effective, connectivity is seamless and easy and THE APPS are FANTASTIC!

I was quite disappointed with Windows Mobile's lackluster store so Apple's App Store won me over as my army mates used to put it "boh beh zao".

What I don't like about the iPhone is the keyboard. It may be more responsive that my Blackstone (BLACK!) but I hate that I can't switch to a keypad mode where the buttons are bigger and I can type with one hand comfortably.

Also, I hate that you can't set your own mp3 files as ringtones. As a result, I decided to retain my (Gorgeously BLACK) Blackstone as my main phone with the help of Singtel's multi-sim service where all incoming calls and SMSes are directed to my Touch HD but at the same time, I can still make outgoing calls and SMSes and use my 50 gigs of data on the iPhone.

It also sucks that I can only add new music to the iPhone by importing it to iTunes on my pc and then synching it to my iPhone since the iTunes store is not supported in Singapore.

Since I am not using my iPhone as a primary phone, and I hate some of it's core features, some people might be wondering...

"WTF are you doing with an iPhone then?"

Well... I love the games and apps... and I love the fact that there are so many accessories, electronics and gadgets made with the iPhone in mind.

Damn my gadget lust.

- via BlogPress