Recently, a friend of mine who produces the Dennis Miller Radio Show told me that he and his crew would be attending the CES electronics trade show in Las Vegas this year. As part of a sponsored publicity stunt with Apple, he told me that they would record, shoot, and edit all of their audio and video interviews using only the iPhone 3Gs. Even though we all know that the iPhone 3Gs’ camera, microphone, and editing apps cannot measure up to professional-grade equipment, the sheer boldness of this promotion only further proves that the iPhone 3Gs is the Swiss Army Knife of the 21st century.
For my part, it took me a while to come around to the usefulness of the iPhone 3Gs and the iPod Touch. At first, the notion of having an onboard .mp3 player on my mobile phone didn’t really impress or appeal to me. After all, I had grown up in the Sony Walkman generation, and for me, the .mp3 player was nothing more than the continuation of an otherwise arcane technology. When I was a kid, it was a great thing to be able to listen to music via headphones on the school bus, while riding my skateboard, or whatever else I was doing. But nowadays I mainly listen to music in the car or on my computer at home. Why would I need an iPhone? Isn’t it just a glorified .mp3 player?
While the apps that you see in the Apple commercials seem fun and novel, it is often the simple, inexpensive accessories for the iPhone and iPod that really transform them from being a quirky gadget into a useful device that can improve your job or school performance, shrink your DVD collection, or make listening to music in the car a snap.
Continue reading ‘The Working iPhone: Inexpensive Accessories That Make Your Apple Gadgets Useful’
