By Brian Lee
I don’t usually hype products in this column but I’m going to make an exception for the iPhone. If you don’t know what an iPhone is, it’s a flat rectangular cell phone with a full screen of tempered glass. Unlike a regular phone, there are no buttons, just a highly sensitive touch screen that offers brilliant resolution.
I could go on about the sensitivity and practical ease of the touch screen technology but it’s the applications for the device that have me all worked up.
Apple Inc. sold 14.1 million iPhones in their last quarter ending Sept. 25 and posted a record revenue of $20.34 billion. That explains why I had to sit on a waiting list for those same three months to get one — but not why I would.
I’m usually cynical when it comes to over-hyped gadgets but last spring a friend was showing off her iPhone and its collection of BC coast marine charts. What stunned me was that the phone’s built in GPS gave her position on the chart, essentially duplicating a modern chart plotter in a handheld. You can buy a GPS device that does that too, but why? The iPhone consolidates your phone, road map, book, laptop, flashlight, video camera, TV, radio, photo album, e-mail and alarm clock with an iPod that holds up to 8,000 songs.
But all that’s old hat now.
The staggering potential of the iPhone is revealed in the seemingly infinite variety of applications available to personalize the device. In addition to a vast array of games, there’s an app offering instant access to BC Ferries parking lot cameras or your own security video surveillance system.
There’s a myriad of conversion calculators, simple carpentry tools like a bubble level and protractor or, if you’re curious about sound levels, a decibel reader.
I noodle on guitar so instantly I downloaded the guitar tuner app that automatically detects pitch while offering up a variety of fancy tunings with a finger tap. Another application allows you to learn new songs by literally strumming chords across digital strings that replicate the instrument amazingly well. Another lets you simply hold the phone up to the radio, and it will identify the name and artist of the song playing on it. Broken down on the side of the highway? Just YouTube a tutorial on "roadside replacement of blown head gasket" and you’re off.
But it’s the business applications that provide the greatest testament to the future of these devices. A 99-cent app lets you scan bar codes for instant product information or the lowest price online. One quickly understands how companies will — and are — applying tools like this to inventory managment or to offer salesmen in the field instant access to supply data.
The new iPhones allow you to communicate face to face with crystal clear video in real time. Think about a parent on a business trip connecting with their newborn or imagine a contractor instantly relaying visual site information to an architect.
Or don’t bother. Pretty soon we won’t need to think about it — there’ll be an app for that.
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