Today I began a day in which many people (including myself) never thought would come. I have been a long time supporter of Windows. Not because I'm trying to hold out for something or be an idealist, simply because I'm not into "making the switch." I have always found the products produced by Apple to be overpriced and overhyped. However, one thing have done recently done has brought some sway (which it always does). They are slashing prices. The iPhone is now available for $99 (3G) and $199-$299 (3Gs). The prices for the laptops are still out of my price range, but you can't buy a smartphone for that price! That brings me to today.

My contract is up. I made the switch. However, there are a couple of assessments I think need to be made in order to help put some perspective to those who have an iPhomance (much like a bromance, only with iPhones). Here are a couple of assessments.

PROS

1. Lots of apps (most exclusive to iPhone)
2. Taking handheld gaming to another level
3. Lots of accessories
4. Slick interface
5. Email account setting detection (limited set-up required)
6. Visual voicemail (though I never allowed 10,000 messages to be there anyway so it's not AS big to me)
   
7. Noteriety
8. The ability to solve world peace
   

CONS

1. Most of the apps are pointless. They are built for fun and stupidity but have no real use in the real world outside of entertaining those who have nothing better to do in the moment. To say that there are over 30 apps that dealing with farting says it all
2. As with everything Apple, the cost of the device is one thing but the myriad of accessories are all rather spendy. I'm sure there is some site out there that offers them for less, but at face value and in most stores all the of the accessories are pretty expensive.
3. As slick as the interface is, there are a couple of issues. I'm sure all of the iPhomance guys will call me on this, but here is what "easier" looks like:
   

• CAPS LOCK is something you have to search and find. Though finding it was easy, in order to do so a Google search was required to track it down. Easy of use translated into a couple of responses with pushing the stupid up button over and over again. As you can tell, I'm an emotional guy and I NEED caps lock every now and again.
• The lack of ringtones / wallpapers for grown ups. My first complaint out of the box was the fact that none of the ringtones on the iPhone make sense. Such awesome sounds include alarm, bark, bell tower, boing, crickets, doorbell, duck, motorcycle, old car horn and old phone. All of which do nothing for an actual ring you would want to hear (mine has remained on silent since opening it).
  
• My next complaint has to do with above. I have a couple of ringtones from my WM device that were great! I sent an email to myself (reason why below) and when going to download the attachment, no dice. The iPhone does not have the ability to download attachments like mp3s. What the crap?! What in the world am I going to do with 16 GB of space that I can't download to!!!
• Sending an email to yourself makes sense when you have to hack your iPhone to have it sync to more than one computer (or you can sign up for MobileMe at the modest price of $99 / year). To those who have work and mobile computers, this presents an issue, of which there is no feasible solution.

All of this ends up meaning little when you think of how you can download an app to make Iran's elections fair and disarm North Korea...With all the above in mind, the storage space and price are hard to beat. Productivity is the same and I'm sure will continue to be as I go into the future. You can't really be more productive when it comes to email, contacts and calendar. Those just are what they are. However, should my calendar get fiesty with me, I do have the ability to become a ninja or jedi knight in order to throw down against it's digital revolt. The hype that Steve Jobs is able to cook up each and every time there is a new modification or addition to the Apple family is quite impressive. What it looks like at 7:00am in front of the AT&T store and how it continues to play itself out in the mainstream and day to day becomes rather trite.