My stupid red slider phone was showing signs of aging and abuse, and I was starting to outgrow it. It was pro at using the internet 120×120 pixels at a time, texting, and streaming internet to my laptops via bluetooth (still a favorite trick of mine). But the signs of aging and abuse were starting to show… the chassis was made of cheap plastic and was getting beat (the battery cover didn’t really “stay on” so much anymore), and the battery life was standing up well to time, but still degrading. And there may or may not have been a rapid deceleration incident involving my hand and some asphalt. The phone was a trooper no doubt, but my 2 years was up and I had the opportunity to look around.

There was a buzz about my workplace when the new iPhone 3GS came out. The regular iPhone 3G was getting cheaper, and my company is in bed with AT&T. When the new 3GS came out, the price for an 8 gig 3G dropped to 50 bucks for employees here, along with a discounted rate plan including enterprise unlimited this-and-that. That put it into “I’d be stupid not to” territory. So 50 bucks later and a few clicks on a web form, and I have myself an iPhone. Don’t get me wrong, I hate Apple as a company. I think they have terrible business practices when dealing with other companies, and their dedication to customer lock-in is worse than Microsoft. But They have some really good hardware. My boss put it best, “I had so many reasons to hate the iPhone before I got it, but now it’s probably the coolest thing I own”. Gonna have to agree with him there. I still hate the company, but this is an awesome little piece of hardware.

Originally published at The IggBlog. You can comment here or >there.