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The utility of any tool may at once be determined during a spark of enlightenment, as a mere idea drifts itself into a reality  in order to make its creator’s life more simpler.  But, the true beauty of a tool is revealed when countless others discover that the same object is capable of shaping their lives in ways never originally imagined.

Until January 2008, the last mobile phone I had was the summer of 2004 and that one slipped out of my hands as I was disembarking from a friends sailboat. I’m infamous for losing them. I didn’t bother getting a new one. I had just moved to Montreal and all my friends were elsewhere. Even in 2004 you avoided long distance like the plague… especially with TELUS.

iPhone steps up to plate

I first got my mitts on an iPhone in January 2007, when a friend returned from the US with one. Although I only handled it for a minute, that was all I needed because that was enough time to test drive Safari. A couple weeks later I helped out on a site and the client gave me an iPhone as payment.

To be clear, I didn’t fall in love with the iPhone, I fell in love with it’s browser. Suddenly, I could meet a client or friend at Laika and leave my humongous Dell XPS M2010 at home.

Two years and three iPhones later, I am writing this post on, yep, you guessed it, my iPhone. Thanks to the huge community of developers and of course, Apple’s ever growing base of loyal customers, the iPhone has matured and is truly entering it’s prime. My current 3G model has fallen completely into water 2 times, (both times the bathtub at the hospital the night Leeluu was born, and yes… I was using Safari)

So how has my life improved because of Apple’s little gem? It really  feels, more efficient and organized. Most of my activities and time with the iPhone occupy that time in normally spent in limbo, such as commuting or other forms of waiting. I also find it is a nice way to wind down without catching flack for being on the computer all the time from you know who.

I spend a minimum of 130 minutes a day using the iPhone is such ways as scanning articles, poring over RSS subscriptions, checking my email, visiting my favourite sites (such as alistapart.com and of course, cbc.ca/ns), testing  sites I am working on, following/trading stocks on the go, playing monospace, checking out podcasts, taking photos, mixing music (mobilee app), making beats (beatmaker), recording random sounds of the ocean  or people talking, keeping track of friends on facebook, tweeting, scheduling oil changes for the Volvo, checking longterm weather forecasts, watching Elmo videos with my littlest one, and if it wasn’t for Google Maps I would have been lost a long time ago. This doesn’t even include using it as a phone or letting my 13 year old daughter use it (which is an entire post in itself). And guess what, it looks like I just added blogging to it and I am sure thats just the beginning.