My Shame is Being So Late to the Future

Last week I received a graduation gift from Melissa that is quickly turning into the most obscenely incredible thing ever. A friggin' iPhone. I feel like a caveman for not having purchased one sooner.

Let me tell you about my iPhone, specifically, the apps. I have an app called Mint. This app synchs all of my checking account, credit card and brokerage account information into a simple program. With the single touch of a button I can see my checking account balance, current credit card balances, and balance in my brokerage account. With a second button press I can see all recent expenses and deposits from these accounts. Most amazing, the program is sophisticated enough to detect what I am spending money on, based on the point of sale information from each credit / debit card transaction. It sent me an alert to inform me that I have spent 20% more on groceries this month than I normally do.... I mean, really. Next it told me that Skynet was online and I had to go with it if I wanted to live. (witty Terminator reference)

In addition, I have an MLB app that gives me up to date scores and video recaps of baseball action, another app that tracks stocks I am following, an app that compresses my favorite online message board into a simple touch-interface friendly format, an app that condenses the NY Times top stories, an app that organizes the top 20 Digg stories, an Ebay app, and a Paypal app.

Don't even get me started on the video podcasts. You can basically watch most television shows via either iTunes or Hulu, which once again is all so simply presented that it requires minimal amount of button presses and navigation to actually get to the content you are looking for.

The games apps are even more remarkable. There are countless games, many are quite good, and most are just disgustingly cheap. Geo-Defense is an excellent Tower Defense game, and it cost $3.99. I bought a fun WW2 fighter jet arcade shooter for 99 cents. There is a game in which you navigate a marble around a cute cardboard city and pick up "passengers" in your marble shaped taxi, and earn fare money by quickly and safely rolling them to their location. The game then synchs your high score with global online leaderboards and friend lists. Did I mention this game only cost $2?

And if there was any truer sign of the apocalypse, the app Twitterific allows you to follow Twitter feeds and make posts all in a very simple and clean interface. It was upon discovering this that I knew the iPhone had gone too far; anything that can take Twitter, the most over-exposed piece of Web 2.0 wankery ever produced, and turn it into something not only useful and fun, but also compelling, is an accomplishment beyond words.