I have Succumbed to the Mania

I thought I could hold out, but no, not after the announcements a few days ago. My last remaining obstacles were removed on Thursday with the announcement of the iPhone SDK and the VC funding.

Today I bought a 16GB iPhone. I love it, at least so far. We’ll see how the next week shapes up, but I’m cautiously optimistic. I’d been looking to buy a new phone for personal use. I haven’t exactly had a personal cell phone for the last couple of years. I had a number, but it was forwarded to my work cell. Since I spend about 120 minutes on the phone each month, nearly all of which is mobile to mobile, I just carried one phone and forwarded the calls.

Lately, however, I’d been getting a desire to have a personal phone separate from the workhorse AT&T 8525. The iPhone intrigued me – I love the browsing interface – but with no support for Exchange and limited 3rd party apps, I was very hesitant. Steve Jobs changed that on Thursday, so I could justify getting one now. (Or is that rationalize…)  I’m not a Mac person. This was the first time I ever went in a Mac store. As a long time Windows advocate and programmer, Macs were the “Dark Side”. Even after Apple embraced the Intel processors, I still hesitated.

But I reluctantly think that Warner may be right. Apple has a fantastic product in the iPhone and it is poised to dominate the market. Intel’s best hope for MIDs is to get the Atom into the second gen iPhone.