Peace of Mind Organizing

I'm in love with my iPhone 4S

25 April 2012

Seriously, what took me so long to buy an iPhone? I bought a MacBook in 2007. An iPod Touch in 2008. (It was my third iPod.) An iPad in 2010. I loved them all dearly. Why did it take me so long to buy an iPhone?

I don’t know, but all that matters is that I have one now. I’m paying $100 more per month than I did for my cheap plan on my uber-cheap Droid smartphone from T-Mobile. And you know what? I’m happy to pay that money.

That's my cat, Joe, on my opening screen.

As much as I love my second-generation iPod Touch and first-generation iPad (click the links to read my love letters to them), my iPhone 4S has two things that they don’t have. A camera and Siri, the intelligent voice recognition software that turns my phone into the closest thing I’ve had to an administrative assistant since I became an entrepreneur.

In the spirit of my prior techno love letters, here are nine of the reasons I love my iPhone. I bought it six weeks ago today. I’m sure there will be many more reasons as time goes on.

1. The reminders. Many times a day, I’ll use Siri to create a reminder for myself. It can be something as simple as calling someone at a certain time or even putting the laundry into the dryer. I just speak the request, “Remind me to switch the laundry in an hour” and an hour later a reminder pops up on my phone, my MacBook and my iPad.

2. Easy texting. On my last cell phone I hated texting. On this phone, I can press the little microphone icon and speak my message. The voice recognition is amazingly accurate. When I’m in a quiet place, I can text with my thumbs and the autocorrect is also amazingly accurate. (I haven’t had any embarrassing autocorrects yet.) So now, texting is a viable—and handy—communication tool for me. Here’s something cool: I can even ask Siri to send a text message to someone in my contacts without having to look at my phone.

3. The amazing camera. I used to carry a digital camera with me. No longer. The camera on the iPhone 4S is actually better than my point and shoot. And I can easily send the photos to my computer, or my friends, or my social networks.

4. The size. I do love my iPad for web surfing. But the phone is just so easy to carry around. It fits in my back pocket. And since I love it so much, I do carry it around.

5. The seamless way it has integrated into my life. Since I was accustomed to using an iPod Touch and an iPad, there was no learning curve whatsoever for me. All the apps I had on those devices were transferred to the phone. So I didn’t have to learn a bunch of new stuff or give up anything.

6. The Maps program. If I’m on my way somewhere, I can easily check the route (not while I’m driving, of course) and even choose which route to take based on current traffic conditions. If I’m going to the home or office of someone in my contacts, I just touch their address and a map appears. It’s tremendously convenient. I no longer use a GPS.

7. iCloud. I was a Mobile Me user, but not entirely satisfied. iCloud has replaced Mobile Me and it seems to be working perfectly. Plus, it’s free. Anything I add to my phone appears on my Mac and iPad, including photos I take and music I download. Any appointments I make are automatically synched to the other devices, as are new contacts. It’s fantastic.

8. The apps. Of course I loved the apps on the iPad and iPod Touch. But I was missing out on the apps that required a camera or microphone. So whole new worlds of apps are now open to me. I’ll do another blog post on my favorite apps. I’m just so happy that I have so many to choose from.

9. The speedy internet access. When Wifi is available, I use it on my phone. But when it isn’t, I use the speedy 4G cellular network. I was able to ditch the $25 a month 3G plan for my iPad, since I can use my phone as a wireless hotspot for both my iPad and MacBook. How cool is that? (It requires me to buy the 5 gigabyte data plan for an additional $20 a month.)

I used my old cell phone to place calls and that’s about it. I use my iPhone for calls, emailing, texting, reminders, calculating, listening to music, web surfing, checking my calendar, adding to my task list, reading books, waking myself up, taking credit card payments…the list goes on. (In fairness, I was going a lot of that with my iPad, but in general, my iPhone is more convenient.)

There’s some serious infatuation here. But I think this love is here to stay.

Tagged with: ipad, iphone, ipod, productivity, technology

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