Happy Birthday, iPhone!

Todd wanted to write today's blog post to share some very exciting news in his life....

 

I’ve done a pretty good job of staying out of the social media scene for the past few years but I’ve decided that this was a big enough event that I thought I should share the big news with all of you. Yes, my iPhone is turning 5 today and I thought that you should all get a glimpse into its history. As Jenny told me, I apparently wasn’t cool enough to get the iPhone when it came out in the summer of ‘07 and waited until the winter of ‘08 to make my purchase. This was when a newer model came out that had more memory so the price of my 8 gig phone dropped.

I decided to upgrade my Nokia because some college friends and I decided to take a cross country motorcycle trip from LA back to C-Bus. I wanted a phone where I could keep track of our daily progress and get directions if we got lost. On the first day of the trip, we met up with one of the other friend’s uncle in LA on his bike. The phone saved the day when we got ready to leave and the uncle’s bike wouldn’t start and we had to find a bike shop and call a tow truck.

The phone was used to its fullest extent during those 10 days. I used it to write notes of our daily adventures, snap photos, and use the mapping feature when we got lost. It served me well over that trip and has lived up to the claimed Apple quality. Today the battery lasts about 5 days without a recharge and I’ve never had any issue that a reboot couldn’t fix. This might be due to the fact that I’ve haven’t been able to update the operating system for about 2 year (iOS3) and it is rare that I can find an app that I can download any more.

*Edit from Jenny: I should add, Todd now uses my iPhone to download apps which has been....well, interesting*

I’ve been tempted many times to upgrade over the past few years. It is a little slower than some newer phones (don’t even have 3G) and the camera doesn’t have a flash. People ask why I haven’t upgraded and I can say that I don’t really have a need to. The phone works and it’s $10/month cheaper since I don’t have 3G. I really wanted a new phone that would support 1080p and 4G and now the new iPhone supports both. When I decided to go to get one, I second guessed myself because of a bad blu-ray player we owned. I had a lot of movie watching to do over Christmas break and Jenny asked what would annoy me more, an old phone or a bad player and I decided I could easily live with my old phone a little longer.

Three weekends ago, I almost lost my phone. Jenny was in Texas visiting family and I was at home in the family room playing with my phone. All of the sudden the phone just rebooted. I thought that I must have just forgotten to charge it so I plugged it in. But it wouldn’t charge over 20%. This was the end of the phone, or so I thought. Over the course of the next couple days I couldn’t use it for more than a couple hours. Then one night, I turned it off and charged it up and the next morning it was back to full charge. Thank you sweet, sweet baby Jesus!!!

The long life of my phone might be short lived but it is a part of me and part of my life. The funny thing is that I’ve actually had my phone longer than I’ve known my wife (I do love Jenny more…most of the time). I know that it won’t last forever but maybe just a bit longer...like another 5 years or so.