Why The iPhone Is Worth The Money

Everyone that is not a geek who sees me brandish my iPhone while checking text messages and such, is first mystified by the device and then they instantly hop on the “it’s just too expensive for a PHONE” train. I try to explain on the spot why it is worth it but that usually ends in failure as most on the spot thinking does.

Last weekend I was on the other side of the country in a town/area I had never been. I took no map, printed nothing from Google and didn’t plan anything. I had to fly there and back with connections in between but I didn’t print my e-receipt. I didn’t scribe into my moleskin the flight numbers or departure and arrival times. “No way,” you say. “That’s impossible.” I’ve got news for you Walter Cronkite, it’s not.

I had my flight plans emailed to me along with all the numbers I needed so when I approached the counter to checkin, I just turned on my iPhone, opened my email and punched in the number. The tickets spewed from the machine and I was off to security.

I arrived in Orange County, where a rental car was waiting for me. “Ha,” you say. “But you didn’t have directions so you got lost on the way to your hotel, right?” Well, of course I got lost. But not for long, as I just opened up Google Maps on my iPhone and typed in the address of my hotel. “Which you wrote down in your moleskin, I knew it!” Nope, I just got it from my email again. Are you catching my drift tokyo style yet?

I arrived at the hotel, checked in, once again using my email on my iPhone for the confirmation number and headed up to my room. As you can imagine, at this point I was itching to call my wife. I wanted her to know I was safe for the night and to hear her voice before I settled in to bed. I used (yes, you are correct) my iPhone and with one tap (ok, it was two), I was waiting for her to pick up on the other end. Oh, and my phone was sitting over on my desk as I was using my new Jawbone bluetooth headset which, obviously, just works.

Now you might think “that is a lot of iPhone usage for one day”. No way he is going to spring anything else on me, the reader of this magnificent article. I mean, he is just heading to bed now, right? Wrong. I need to wake up in the morning, don’t I? I softly tapped into the clock area, set an alarm for 9AM and picked Dropkick Murphy’s “Heading Up To Boston” as the ringer to wake me from my slumber. Then, I went to bed.

The next morning, I woke up to Dropkick and got ready. Yes, I even brushed my teeth with my iPhone. The one downside is that it only has mint toothpaste. Ok, that was a lie but I did unplug it from the charger, jump back under the covers, check my email and read the tweets that I missed during my night of beauty sleep.

I used the iPhone’s text messaging to update twitter and let the world know that I was alive and ready for the day. I punched in the address I needed to be at, again using Google Maps on my iPhone and the email, and headed out. Vroooom, vrooom. That was my car starting. I promise I won’t do that again.

I think by now you get the point but I really like to hammer it home. “What about life in an airport with an iPhone?” Well, I can’t answer that. Watch “The Terminal” or something. I can tell you that waiting for connecting flights, walking from terminal to terminal and sitting on the runway is far less stressful with iPhone in tow. Both to and from my destination, everyone in the airport seemed frantic or furious. I believe it’s because they didn’t have Dwight Yoakam’s “Honkey Tonk Man” ringing in their ears.

This is where the story gets interesting. It does, I promise. I got stuck in Chi-town because it was too foggy in South Bend to land. I was left with three options: rent a car and drive home, attempt to sleep in the airport or get a hotel for the night. I quickly grabbed a sheet from one of the United workers and within a few minutes I had called every rental car company at O’Hare. Unfortunately, they were all out of cars (or they didn’t like me) so I decided to take the flight home the next day. I called Steph and she talked me into staying in a hotel, so I called the number given to me and a few minutes later I was in the hotel.

The next morning, I received a text message from my buddy Oak, who saw my tweet the night prior that I was stuck in Chicago, saying that my buddy Matt was also in Chicago. I text Matt and a phone call later, he was on his way to pick me up and take me back home. But why, if I had a flight lined up would I take a car ride home? Because I checked the weather and knew that no flight was headed into South Bend for quite some time as it was still extremely foggy. Oh, and of course I did that from my iPhone.

So there. That is my iPhone story. Names were changed to protect the innocent. Oh, guess not. Well, at any rate, you can see how handy my PHONE was last weekend. So next time you see some egotistical web developer rockin’ out on his iPhone, don’t tell him it’s too expensive. Tell him that he is wise for purchasing such a helpful life device.

P.S. This is also a post about how much I love Twitter.

P.P.S. This is probably the longest article with no pictures that I have ever written.