Simplicity

Along with approximately 73 billion other bloggers I’m going to say something about the new iPhone from Apple. Many Buddhists seem particularly prone to technolust for some reason, and I’m no exception. I bet even the Dalai Lama’s drooling over this particular gadget.

At the moment I regularly carry a cellphone (nothing fancy — one of the cheaper models T-Mobile offers), my beloved iPod (which I got free from freeipods.com), and my pride and glory — my 4MB LifeDrive, which is a Palm OS handheld computer with the ability to surf the web and check email wherever there’s a wireless network, as well as the usual contacts, calendar, memos, the ability to carry around and edit word documents, etc.

There’s a considerable amount of overlap. The phone contains my telephone contacts and doesn’t sync with anything, so I often end up with conflicting information. Both the LifeDrive and the iPod sync with my Mac PowerBook and so I have two copies of my contacts and calendar, which is handy in case I forget to bring a device with me.

Both the iPod and LifeDrive sync with iTunes and so I can listen to music on both, although the sound quality on the iPod is far superior.

In theory the phone can surf the web, although it’s such a painful experience that I’ve never tried. Heck, getting a good enough signal to make phone calls is hard enough; I often have to step outside the house to make a call.

The LifeDrive is great for surfing in small doses and excellent for reading email, although I prefer to write replies on the PowerBook.

The LifeDrive also has a photo album and I believe it would let me watch video but I’ve never tried.

It’s a pain carrying around three devices, plus syncing the LifeDrive and iPod with the MacBook. So I’m really excited about the new iPhone, which will combine the functions of all three mobile devices and allow me to make calls, surf the web and check emails, listen to music and Dharma podcasts on the go, and even watch videos. What simplicity! And it doesn’t even have any buttons! Cool!

The only glitch at the moment, discounting whether I can get my wife to agree to my splashing out $500 to $600 for a new piece of male jewelry, is that the phone service will only work with Cingular, who to the best of my knowledge* have no service in my area. The phone may well be available in unlocked form so that I can just slip in my T-Mobile SIM card, but I can expect the price to be double the price of the locked version.

* Update: Cingular’s coverage map says they have a “good” signal where I live (that’s one step down from their “best” signal). However T-Mobile’s map says the same thing and as I mentioned I often have to step outside to make calls. When I’m inside the house and more than six feet from a window calls will generally be dropped. These maps seem to be more wishful thinking than anything.

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