Resistance is futile

Well, the new phone for my wife apparently was delayed in shipping long enough that the order was cancelled. Or something like that; the person I spoke to at AT&T didn't really understand why the order would be cancelled. Anyway, she re-placed the order. But, since that would put me well beyond the 14-day time limit for returning the iPhone, I got my iPhone activated on an individual plan, with my wife's phone retained on the old plan, and with the AT&T's representatives' assurances that the billing will all be worked out when we activate everything under the final family plan so that it won't cost any more than the plan would have cost in the first place. I'll let you know how this turns out, so others who are still under old AT&T family plans will know what their options are.

Anyway, I've now been playing with the iPhone for two days, and I have to say that it's like carrying a small work of art in your pocket. When I use it, I get the same feeling I get from looking at a Movado watch. That's not to say that there aren't some improvements that could be made to the software, of course. Meanwhile, here are some interesting web applications I've found:

• The AccuWeather.com iPhone widget is maybe the slickest one out there. Fifteen day forecasts and animated satellite imagery in a quickly loading, nicely formatted web page.
• There are web-based "desktop" applications, like AppMarks and MockDocks that provide web pages that look more or less like the iPhone home screen, except that you can choose which icons appear on it.
• The whole idea of an always-on, full web connection in my pocket is changing my thoughts about small tools. One PIM tool that I've been investigating is Tasks. It has a mobile interface, and would give me access to all of my to-dos everywhere, all from a central repository on one of my web servers.
• Gas.app is a good idea, except that it sometimes doesn't return known cheap gas stations. Still, if you're on the road and you happen to know (or know where to look up) the zip code you're in...

Topics: iPhone.