I finally took the plunge and got an iPhone. Rogers has had them for some time now, but because of previous unpleasant experiences, I refused to buy from them. On November 4th, Bell began carrying the iPhone. I LOVED my Blackberry, but being the gadget guy I am, I HAD to have one. I was the first at the store the morning they became available, and the first one they activated on the system. This turned out to be quite an adventure. After waiting for almost two hours, I left the phone and went home and they called me when they finally got it activated.

There is a short learning curve and it was easy to set it up to do my email and other tasks. Apple has everything tied together and very tightly controlled so you can only install free or purchased applications (apps) from their site through iTunes. This is a big annoyance for me. There are lots of “games” and cute apps available, but not real workhorse apps like you can get for the Blackberry. I had one called iCallManager on the BB that solved the problem of annoying telemarketers. They only had to call once, and then I could go into the callers list and add them to the “blacklist”. Next time they call, you can send the call right to voicemail, but who would want to do that, or drop the call and your phone never rings. I loved this app. But there was nothing similar for the iPhone except one that downloads 35,000 known phone numbers used by spammers which loads down your phone. Those guys change phone numbers more often that I change my socks so a list would be useless. So, I did a LOT of reading about “Jailbreaking” my iPhone. It seemed fairly simple so I cautiously gave it a shot. Things went just fine and it allowed me to add an app called Mcleaner which is like iCallManager and blocks calls. I realize that I voided my warranty by doing this, but I wanted some control over my own device. Apparently when Apple does an operating system update, it will reset things and un-jailbreak my iPhone. I’m sure the hackers will come up with a fix in short order.

I’ve had a lot of fun with the phone. I’ve been playing with it a lot. The only thing I dislike is that the battery life seems very short. On the BB, I could use it for two days without charging. I found some neat apps after slugging through thousands of useless apps. The camera is better than the BB and I found a Photoshop app that lets me clean up my pics. Air Canada even has just come up with one that lets you check in for your flight and keep you posted about delays.

I’m not getting rid of my BB, even though I have had an offer to buy it already. I always tend to keep my last cell, just in case something happens to the one I’m using and I need to go back to it.

I was laying in bed the other night, fiddling with the camera (YES the camera!) and took a photo of myself just for fun. Jason liked it and said it was a good one, so, I added it here.

And big news…. I’ve got to be a geek… we get FiberOp on Tuesday! Our internet speed will jump to 20 mb down and 5 up. Bell is also offering BellTV, but we have one of the Bell ExpressVu satellite receivers and don’t need it. Eventually they will run the phone over the fibre and offer voip service. The cable company already has been offering voip foe some time, but Bell doesn’t feel its stable enough at this stage to market, but soon!

Back to my gadgets!

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