The Bathroom Door

Well, I did it. Actually, I’ll say we did it. The Woman on the Door and I were due to upgrade our phones, so we re-upped with AT&T and took the plunge on some iPhones. I’m really not sure if I’m completely sold on it yet, though. I mean, I like the thing and all, I’m just really not sold on the forced data plan. My wife’s company will pay for her data plan, so that helps, but I’ve yet to ask my company if they’ll cover mine (my hopes are low but I’ll ask anyway).

[I'm trying something new, click below to keep reading this post...]

The phone I previously to use was a Motorola Q. It was a basic smart phone, but I got it before the data plan was forced upon the customers. It did everything I wanted – synced my calendar and contacts with Outlook, had a full keyboard, opened Office documents. It was pretty cool, but I didn’t have the internet and it had no WiFi. What I was really really wanting in a new phone was a smart phone with WiFi that didn’t require a data plan. No such luck. With any carrier. They’ve found that they can charge outrageous rates for sending a text message, so why not flog the customers a little more with the data plan. It’s to “provide the best experience possible” or some garbage like that.

Anyway, so now I’ve got an iPhone. Like I said, it’s pretty neat. The battery doesn’t seem to be very long-lasting though even without using the internet very much. I’ve got my personal email to come on demand (I don’t have it checking every so often, only when I ask it to) to try to conserve some battery.

The one thing I wish it would do that other smart phones can do is tether. This isn’t something I would do very often. We wouldn’t be able to use it for our home internet with the Woman on the Door working from home and I’ve only been out with my laptop without internet (and needing/wanting it) a handful of times. This is just something I would really like to be able to do. Now, I do know there are ways to enable tethering — I just don’t think I’m that desperate for it.

So, now I’ve downloaded lots of free apps. I’ve actually found one that I would actually pay for though. Gas Cubby looks like a pretty good app. I’ve got a pretty long spreadsheet that I’ve used to keep track of my mileage on my car and was always thinking something would be handy to remind me to get various things serviced based on mileage. Especially since I apparently like to let timing belts break. This looks like the app to do it. I’ve played with the limited trial version and it seems like it will work. Now I just have to convince my cheap self to actually buy it. Really though, this should be pretty handy. I was actually thinking that I should learn how to program for the iPhone just so I could make such an app.

So, maybe I really am sold on it. Now, I suppose I can’t make fun of people’s “Jesus Phone”. I’ve set up the phone to connect to our home wireless network, but if I’m paying for the data plan, I might just keep using AT&T’s network just out of spite — even if it is slower.