One of my biggest pet peeves is when people cannot put their phones down.  Typing or talking away at all times—give it a rest already!  I always blamed this behavior on the BlackBerry (ahem, CrackBerry) phenomenon, allowing way too much information to be way too accessible at any given time thanks to a mini keyboard and a few bars of service.

Recently, I crossed over to the dark side and became worse than one of the aforementioned people when I traded in my simpleton mobile for a 3G iPhone.  It’s like a CrackBerry on steroids and then some.

I hemmed and hawed a bit before caving, but as a friend phrased it, “It’s basically the best 200 bucks you can spend.”  It’s easy to navigate, has an easy to use touch screen with cool graphics, internet and email access, iTunes and iPod capabilities are incorporated, a pretty good camera (albeit no flash and slow shutter time), and built-in GPS. 

Anddd, then there are the Apps.

Some of the applications come standard with the phone… the calendar, photos, maps, weather, iPod, calculator, contacts, stocks (so you can keep an eye on the plunging market and your 401K☺), YouTube, clock, etc.  Apple also includes an App Store application which allows you to install Apps from providers other than Apple.  This decision was extremely wise on Apple’s part because many of these free or low cost Apps are what sets the iPhone apart and above its competition.

Being a young (un)professional, I have been installing primarily the free Apps.

Some must-haves pertinent to living in Jackson:

We Ski: Offers up-to-date snow and mountain reports for all US resorts.  Scroll through the alphabetical lists of states (or skip them and go straight to Wyoming all the way at the bottom) and check out the conditions at your favorite ski hills.  Once you select a state you can choose to browse resorts either alphabetically (boring!), by those that are open, or by those with the most snow (yeah!).  Upon selecting a resort, you’ll get a detailed report that includes current conditions, base depth, snowfall in the past 24 hours, number of trails open, percent of trails open, number of lifts open, and number of acres open.  Pretty dang handy.

RunKeeper: This application incorporates the iPhone’s built-in GPS to track distance and times, and store your adventure stats be it running, biking, hiking, walking or skiing.  During workout, you can view your total time and distance and pace.  After you log a session you can look at your workout history.  Here, your workout is broken down by the minute into bars so you can see an overview of how you were performing at each segment of your workout.  Highlight a bar and you can view your speed and pace for that portion of your session.  This can help highlight your weaknesses and help track your improvements over time.  If you’re already a superstar athlete, you can use RunKeeper to back up your boasting.

Tides: For the surfer, boogie/body boarder or fisherman,  Tides provides you with tide (as the name would suggest) and current predictions across the globe.  Handy if you’re traveling or visiting the coast and want to scope out when would be the ideal time to surf or fish.

A few general must-haves:

Pandora Radio: Most of you are familiar with this already, but with Pandora on your iPhone, you can listen to your favorite artists and radio stations when you’re on the go.

Shazam: Until about two weeks ago, the last time I heard this catchphrase was from Gomer Pyle on the Andy Griffith Show.  These days, Shazam has got a whole new meaning for me.
Ever hear a song and totally love it and need to know what/who it is?  Well, Shazam does the Sherlock Holmes-ing for you.  Simply hold your iPhone within hearing distance of the tune and tap the “Tag It” tab.  In less than a minute, Shazam will provide you with the song title, artist and album.  Shazam to that!

Google Mobile: Here, Google gets bad-ass.  With this application, you can speak your question into your phone and it will Google them as if they were typed.  It also uses the GPS, so if you’re searching for a restaurant or business in the neighborhood, the Google Mobile App automatically takes your location into account.  It’s great if you’re in the car or just a lousy multi-tasker.

A few fun randoms:

Open Table: Already a popular website for foodies, the iPhone App uses the built-in GPS function so that you can find the open table closest to you even more quickly.

UrbanSpoon: If you’re a gambler and a gourmand, this application is for you.  Take a gamble and shake your iPhone and the Urbanspoon slot machine function will pick a local restaurant for you.  You can then filter out selections based on your priorities like price, food type or neighborhood.

Flixter: Allows you to access movie times and watch movie trailers on your phone.  Go ahead, impress your date.

5,800+ Drink & Cocktail Recipes: Perfect for your inner (or outer) lush.

Lightsaber Unleashed:  We’ve all seen that Arrested Development episode where George Michael practices his Jedi skills in the Bluth family garage swinging a fake saber around and recording the whole event on the family camcorder.  If George Michael had had an iPhone and Lightsaber Unleashed, maybe the video would have been more bad-ass and less humiliating.  May the force be with you, swisssssssssssssh.

The same friend mentioned above left me with a parting text, “Remember, it’s not an addiction—it’s a religion.”  The iRevolution is here.