Matt Wood at 43Folders talked about life without a laptop earlier this week - he'd decided to ditch his notebook and go with Apple's iPhone instead. Certainly it's a very covetable and fully functioned device, but do you really need it?
One thing which might help you decide is considering how many of the features you use in your current phone. I have to admit, I'm a bit of a luddite in this regard. I make calls, I send SMSs and I browse news headlines. I wanted a camera phone but I have never downloaded any of the photos I've taken with it, which makes it a bit redundant.
When I look at it this way, it's hard to make the case for upgrading to an iPhone. I'm wondering whether I should go in the opposite direction and just get a basic mobile phone for calling and texting.
Of course, it's not like Apple's the only horse in the race anyway. If you've decided that the iPhone's not your cup or tea, or you don't want to wait for the local release, Wired's published a list of its top 5 "iFraud" phones today. Top marks went to Samsung's F700, which was awarded five Steve Jobs black turtlenecks out of five as the best iPhone imitator. Another nice looking phone on the list was the HTC Touch.
So I'd be interested to know, from those of you who are using or considering the purchase of an iPhone or other smart phone - how many of the features do you actually use? What's useful, what's frivilous and what's just nice to have?
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Kwiry, the text-yourself-a-reminder service, has added a potentially neat feature for shoppers, urban adventurers, and anyone who wants a visual element to their memory-activators. Snap a picture on your smart phone or standard set, email or text it to Kwiry with some explaining text (i.e. "Must check out this restaurant soon"), and it'll come up with your reminder when you head to Kwiry's renovated mobile site to dig through reminders. There's a lot of uses here if you buy into Kwiry's system of forget-me-nots, and it's a free place to store phone pics for any reason.
