The Fickle Parrot

I purchased my iPhone on release day which was roughly 2 months ago. It exceeded my expectations in every way, and continues to prove itself a worthwhile purchase. The phone has received plenty of press talking about how great it is, but I don’t think I’ve heard anyone talk about one of my favorite features. The pinch zoom is neat and all, but it is not nearly as useful as iPhone Safari’s double tap zoom.

The double tap zoom intelligently zooms in on the block level element that is tapped. With the column format of many websites this works brilliantly. Double tap on the block level element again, and it zooms back out. Double tap on another block level element and it re-zooms to focus on that one. It is fantastic, and part of what makes Safari on iPhone such a viable web browser. I love this feature so much that I really miss it when I browse the web on a PC. This is a feature that can and should be added to traditional browsers.

Another feature of the phone that caught me off guard was the surprisingly adequate built in camera. It has served me very well in situations where I needed to snap a photo of something interesting. At 1600×1200 the photos it takes far exceed the throw away photos I’ve taken with every other phone I’ve owned.

Here is a random photo I took with my iPhone:

I used to love wearing watches. They were functional, and I liked the look. The problem is that now that I carry a mobile phone at all times they no longer provide me with anything I need. A mobile phone keeps accurate time, knows what day and month it is, and automatically adjusts for things like local time zone and day light savings time. A standard watch on the other hand requires manual intervention to provide any of those features.

I find that it is becoming increasingly rare that I actually wear a watch. It’s sad. I miss having a need for you watch collection.

When I first heard it, I hated the word blog. I refused to acknowledge it. I laughed at those who used it, and especially those who called themselves bloggers. I don’t know when exactally I changed my mind about the word, but at some point it just stopped seeming stupid to me.

The idea of blogging is something I’ve been familiar with since before it had a word, and I’ve never been particularly opposed to the idea. I guess giving it a word is appropriate, but in the future it would be better if some care was taken to create words that didn’t sound so inane. That said, the concept has a word now and it is pointless to struggle against it.

I’ve given in, and admited my self-indulgent posts about topics and ideas that matter to no one but myself comprise what is obviously a blog. I’ve been doing this longer than the word existed, but it is hard to deny that what I’ve been doing is blogging.