UXD: User Experience Design

iPhone and Air Travel

Alice Toth, Friday, September 21, 2007 @ 12:10 am

I just might need an iPhone. Let me back up a bit. When the iPhone debuted, our CEO purchased one for the office so we could take turns using it, playing with all the features, admiring the GUI and generally looking cool at the local neighborhood hangout. I loved it but not enough to buy for various reasons (couldn’t use one hand to hold and type, didn’t fit in jeans pocket, too nice to just throw in the bottom of my purse, no iChat). So, I looked cool for a weekend and then turned back into regular me come Monday.

Well, the other week I was 'lucky' enough to once again experience early 21st century air travel which, as you know if you’ve traveled lately, means delays, delays, delays. The plane is late, the crew didn’t show up, the gate changed, the gate changed again, it’s sunny outside, it’s the third Tuesday after the fourth week following the geese flying south, etc, etc.

Luckily I was traveling with my CEO who had the foresight to bring the iPhone. Which led to my iPhone epiphany: when you’re stuck on the tarmac hoping that #49th in line isn’t really as bad as it sounds, surfing the web is a much better distraction than counting the planes as they’re taking off. And surfing the web on a cool device just adds to the sweetness.

Thanks to the iPhone and EDGE network (as slow pokey as it is), even when sans wifi I can still waste a considerable amount of time checking email (personal not work), checking faa.gov (for further delays), catching up on some reading (love Safari Books), using the widget to check random cities forecasts (because I can) and generally doing most anything to avoid pulling out my laptop and doing meaningful work. Beautiful! If I continue to travel (which really means sitting on tarmacs bored to tears), I just might have to pull out the old credit card and contribute to Apple’s bottom line.

For an actual review of the iPhone, check out what my colleague had to say.

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user experience design User Experience Design

Comments: 2 so far

  1. It’s a more expensive way to keep yourself busy though :) Since data traffic costs money (at least where I live in all subscriptions)

    Comment by David Cumps, Saturday, September 29, 2007 @ 8:51 am

  2. Normally it would be, but at&t’s plan has unlimited data download. So while you’re forced to use the iPhone with one provider, at least they have this feature.

    Comment by Alice Toth, Tuesday, October 2, 2007 @ 6:41 pm

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