It’s been over two and a half years since the orig­inal iPhone was released. I’m not ashamed to say that I was at the Apple Store in SOHO that day to make my pur­chase. In con­trast to the lack­luster iPad pre­view that was given by Apple this past week, the months between the orig­inal iPhone pre­view and its release dragged with the weight of anticipation.

Despite the avail­able updates that have since been offered, I still have that orig­inal iPhone. The camera doesn’t work. The metal frame has sev­eral dents – there was an unfor­tu­nate acci­dent involving an ellip­tical machine about a year ago. Occa­sion­ally, the phone will freeze up. I’m not sure if this is because it’s old and beaten up or slowed down by newer iPhone appli­ca­tions. Even with these prob­lems I con­fi­dently say it is the best phone I have ever owned and I have no plans to trade it in any­time soon.

It took me a moment to remember my last phone. It was a very sturdy Sam­sung camera phone I picked up on 6th Avenue after ESPN’s short lived mobile ser­vice was can­celled. It was ser­vice­able, but I didn’t really love it. It was the best of the avail­able choices and I wasn’t par­tic­u­larly excited by any of them. I’d owned Sam­sung phones before that were quite good – better than any Nokia or Moto phone I’d ever seen. But it was basi­cally just a phone.

The iPhone has changed the way I com­mu­ni­cate. Thinking back over the past few years, here are the biggest changes that I’ve experienced:

Email

My iPhone is the only device that allows me to track all of my email addresses at once. I cannot do this with any other appli­ca­tion that I know of. Sure, I could have my web browser open with a tab for each of my 4 accounts, but why would I do that when I can turn on my phone and see on the screen an indi­cator of how many new mes­sages are waiting. I now read email more often on my phone than on any other com­puter. It makes it easy to keep track of what’s going on at work and keep up with my friends. The iPhone’s mail app is simple and easy to use. It’s the first mail app I open each busi­ness day. And since it’s on my phone, I’m able to track my email and respond to clients and coworkers much more quickly. I cannot empha­size how huge this is. I use my phone more for mail than I do for any­thing else – and that include phone calls.

Chi­nese

Until the most recent update to the Mac­Book Pro line, the iPhone had the best inter­face for entering Chi­nese char­ac­ters. You can just draw them with your finger on the screen, and the phone will figure out what you’re writing. For someone who is learning the lan­guage, this is an amazing advan­tage. If I see a char­acter, I can open up my handy Chi­nese dic­tio­nary (I have two of them on my phone), draw the char­acter, and get a trans­la­tion. I took my phone with me to Taiwan (even though I couldn’t make any calls) and used it to learn new words.

Google Maps

Shortly after I pur­chased my iPhone, my girl­friend and I took a road trip up through Ver­mont and New Hamp­shire into Maine. We had a couple of maps, but we mostly just used my iPhone. On the whole trip we were only lost twice. Once was when the bat­tery on my iPhone died, and the other time was when we were in the middle of nowhere and I couldn’t get signal. These days, with the updates to Google Maps, it’s super easy to locate public trans­porta­tion in a city like New York or Wash­ington DC, and I can always instantly see where I am and what’s around me. This is very handy when I’m looking for a cup of coffee or a WiFi hotspot. Unless I’m researching some­thing on my laptop, I almost always use my phone to find my way point A to point B.

Social Media

Recently, I’ve gotten involved in Face­book and Twitter. My girl­friend uses Plurk, which is pop­ular in Asia. These are just more ways to com­mu­ni­cate with people you know, and the iPhone makes it easy to take that ability with me at all times. I don’t find it par­tic­u­larly useful for keeping track of people who live near me, but it’s the only way I reg­u­larly con­nect with friends in far-away places.

It’s strange. When the iPhone first came out, I was ecstatic. I thought Apple had finally made a device that the iPod always should have been. How­ever, the iPod capa­bil­i­ties of the iPhone are the ones I use the least. Sure, I listen to music now and then or the occa­sional pod­cast. How­ever, I’m usu­ally near a com­puter or tele­vi­sion. I can listen to music or watch video much more com­fort­ably on some other device. What I do make use of are all the ways in which the iPhone helps me con­nect with others. Sure, other phones do this as well, but no other phone makes it so easy and user friendly. No other phone comes close – not even after two and a half years.