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Wii’s ARE good, but iphones……

iPhones are amazing. I've finally got one after a frustrating wait since they came on the market last last year. Now that it's half the price, twice as fast and you can insure the thing against loss or breaking it, my wait is finally over.

The advertising strapline for the new 3G iPhone here in France is "L'iPhone que vous attendiez", which means "The iPhone you've been waiting for". Never a truer word written.

I'm going to struggle to convey just how good it is. I wanted to say that it's the best thing since sliced bread, but I've always found that a bit of stupid phrase. Sliced bread really isn't all that. The iPhone is the best thing since Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone.

OK. Here are the top 3 coolest things about my new toy:

1. Interweb access.
Not only does connect to the Internet via 3G through the mobile network, which is so much quicker than the old GPRS i used to use on my Pocket PC a few years ago, but the device has wireless networking built in. This means that if you happen to be in range of a wi-fi connection, at home for instance, then the iphone will use the that to connect to the Internet, making downloads as fast as they are on your computer. That's all well and good, but the older web browsers on hand held devices were..... in a word..... shit. Safari on the iPhone is brilliant. You see the web as it is supposed to look. Smaller of course, but that's where the squidgy, pinchy touch interface comes in. The iPhone has brought the Internet onto a mobile, handheld device in a truly usable and useful way for the first time.

2. GPS
It's got built in GPS (Global Positioning). Awesome. First the iPhone checks with the mobile network to get your location, then it goes on the interweb and gets the google map for the area and drops a pin on your exact position. It's amazingly accurate. I was hooning down the motorway to Geneva the other day and Sarah had the map application open. The little blue dot was totally moving down the little map of the motorway. So clever. I've even got another little bit of software which allows you to track the route you've been taking over time, then publish it as a google earth file. So come the winter when I'm ski-touring again, I'll be able to create accurate maps of touring routes all over the valley. Or if I need to get choppered off the mountain, I'll just email the helicopter pilot my exact location.

3. More Applications
There's tons and tons of useful/cool or simply crappy time-wasting applications you can download and muck about with on the iPhone. F'instance I've got a French English dictionary which not only finds the exact words I need quickly when I'm talking to the bank manager in French, but also conjugates the verbs so that I can use and learn more accurate French. Numbers are always hard in another language, so I just type in 11900 and read off "onze mille neuf cents" in words. I can use the "remote" app to control my itunes based sound system in my office over my wireless network from the bath. And and and..... well, to be honest I could go on all day.

So obviously I'm getting carried away & perhaps geeking out a little bit, but trust me - this thing is good. This thing is a glimpse of the near future. It's so very close to being able to replace a laptop for people who don't really need the power of a laptop, but just need a communications device for email, Internet and to mess around with photos etc. The only thing that stops it being that right now is a slight lack of processing power due to it's size, and the lack of a good typing interface that makes it possible to input large amounts of text if you were trying to write a long email or type a document on a train or something. Limitations which I have no doubt will be addressed over the next few years.

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