My iPhone and me: initial impressions (including a FedEx vignette)

Regular readers — bless you — can boast that, among the vast stores of absolutely useless information we all have, they know I've acquired an iPhone — as many of you said I should.

I received it... hm, something like Tuesday, June 30. Its delivery was a testimony to how lame FedEx can be.

The FedEx part: skip if only want the iPhone part. My 9yo Jonathan has a forever-grudge against FedEx, and makes bombing sounds when he sees their trucks. It traces back to a story from several years ago. I am not making this up. My dear wife had had a procedure and badly needed rest. So as soon as we got home and I settled her, I made a big paper note saying "DO NOT RING; knock quietly." I taped the note — this is important — over the doorbell. In other words, it covered the button.

And what happened? Shortly my wife had settled down and was resting... the doorbellrang! Not once, but again and again.

Incredulous and furious, I stormed over and jerked the door open. To see what? The figure of our FedEx guy, waving cheerfully at me, please with himself, hopping into his truck and departing. He'd left a package.

I called FedEx, shoved my way through to the supervisor, complained vividly, and was told apologetically that that particular driver was not the sharpest scalpel in the tray, or words to that effect. I shared the thought that drivers should at least be required to be able to read and understand simple English. No argument.

Now, years later, I can only guess that the same driver has our route.

Our front door is at the end of a walkway and is visible from the street and exposed to sunlight. But the whole porch isn't. The right-hand side (as you face the house) is shaded, and occluded behind some plants and other things. Drivers regularly put packages in that area if no one's home. Some even to to some lengths to hide them from public view. Very thoughtful.

My iPhone arrived during a several-hour period when no one was home. I drove up, wondering what I'd see.

What I saw was the package, placed directly in sunlight, plainly visible from the street. Not six feet to the right, where it would be shaded and hidden.

I think those drivers are well-paid. Well-trained and well-disciplined? Not so much. Not this one, anyway.

The iPhone part will be shorter, because I've less to say just now.

You may have read dire warnings such as this, which may give the impression that the 3GS is a colossal failure dropped like a huge anvil on an innocent public. All I can tell you is: not me!

I love this phone. It is incredibly intuitive and powerful. I'm simply amazed at what it can do, and I've only begun to scratch the surface and skim the available apps.

While I'm driving through the Sierra with my fam, hiking and fishing and barbecuing, I get "ding" as I receive email. (You can turn that off, of course). The compass immediately tells me where I am, provides a map, advises me of traffic. The keyboard is about as terrific as such a tiny thing; my sausagelike thumbs do just fine with it.

My only gripes are with AT&T, not with the iPhone... and I've not many of those at present. (Mainly that their coverage is not as great as Verizon — but that was less of a problem on our trip than I'd expected.)

As you should see later this week, I took most of our 4th of July pictures with my iPhone (including videos). The iPhone makes it easy as pie to send a picture right off to someone.

If I ever become a significant person who actually gets phonecalls, I'm set!

Right now, I'm just beginning to check out apps, and should have some reviews eventually. For instance, I'm using Olive Tree Bible software. Initially quite impressed; more to come.