Todd Mundt

I got my first PCS phone in 1996. I can still remember walking into a store when the phone started vibrating in my pocket. I was mortified.

I couldn’t answer it. People would see me.

At the time, hardly anyone had digital cellphones and there was no way in hell I wanted to stand out. I let my friend (yes, it was you, Jason Parkin) leave a voicemail and I retrieved it later in private. That was actually the first call I ever received on a digital cellphone, and to this day, I wish I had answered it because it was such a thrill to receive.

Ah, the irony. Over time, I stopped carrying my phone most places and most of my calls went unanswered and had to be returned later.

Now, it’s 2007, and I find myself in a similar situation with my iPhone. I try to backpedal from my purchase by talking about how bad the network is. I regularly exaggerate the trouble I’ve had with it. Let me illustrate:

Person: So, you got an iPhone.

Me: Yes, I did.

Person: I’m waiting for… (other carriers, 3G, second generation, more cowbell, etc, etc, etc - just pick any two items to complete this sentence.)

Me: Well, the network is pretty bad. I get a lot of disconnects.

I want to be proud of my new phone. I use it more than I’ve used any other phone I’ve had in the past 11 years. It’s a constant companion for music, email, maps, sms, twitter, etc. Yes, EDGE is one dull blade, but it hasn’t reduced my enjoyment that much.

I guess that my inner midwesterner wants people to think that I accidentally walked into the Apple Store on June 29th. That, somehow, because of a horrible mistake, I ended up with an unwanted phone, and now I’ll just need to make the best of it. (History repeats; this same unfortunate sequence of events will happen when iPhone 2.0 arrives.)

Moving on… Gizmodo has what is probably the best and most thoughtful review of the iPhone so far. Plenty to praise… plenty to work on.

By the way, if you know my iPhone’s number, you’ll discover how often I answer my calls these days.