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An iPhone diary: From first day to first scratch

He waited to be first in line at the Apple Store. Was it worth it?

By JAY CRIDLIN, Times Staff Writer
Published August 1, 2007

Technology blogger Nick Starr go this iPhone on June 29. On July 11, he looked longingly at his Blackberry -- if only for a moment.
	[Special to the Times]

Now that all the hype has died down, it seems fair to ask: Is the iPhone honeymoon over?

To find out, we asked the ultimate early adopter: St. Petersburg tech blogger Nick Starr, the first person in line to buy an iPhone at Tampa's Apple Store on June 29.

Conveniently, Starr also happens to be an active user of the mini-blog program Twitter, which allows him to post text-message-sized updates about the daily minutia of his life, from where he's eating to what he's watching. As a result, Starr already has a detailed record of his first month of iPhone use. (Read it at twitter.com/nickstarr.) After a month of using the iPhone every day, Starr, 26, sat down to chat about how the device has changed his life, using his Twitter posts as a guide.

June 29, 6:43 p.m.: OMG I LOVE THE IPHONE!!! IT WAS A MEDIA CIRCUS WITH ME GETTING THE FIRST ONE ... ALREADY ACTIVATED IT ... IT'S AWESOME.

Fortunately, I already had an AT&T account, so I was activated immediately. I was literally shaking. I was just trying to sit there and do as many cool things as possible, and the Apple employees were telling me, "Go to the photos, take a picture, do the pinching thing ... "

July 6, 1:31 p.m.: There are just too many features on the iPhone that it turns into a 20 minute discussion when someone asks to see it.

July 7, 7:02 p.m.: Watching Die Hard 4 (on my iPhone). I downloaded it on my computer and used iSquint to convert it to the iPod video format. The screen size is significantly bigger. It really makes a difference. It's big enough so you can sit there in the gym and watch it.

July 10, 11:31 a.m.: Wow using a real iPod after using the iPhone for over a week feels strange ... the iPhone really is the best iPod Apple's ever made.

July 11, 2:54 p.m.: I keep looking at my beautiful BlackBerry Curve and wishing the iPhone had such great Google integration. Sigh ...

July 14, 11:46 p.m.: Amazed that my iPhone typing skills are that good after this much beer. I guess the keyboard is THAT intuitive. ... It's a full QWERTY keyboard, just like a BlackBerry. If you fat-finger it, it picks it up -- like if you type in "O-I-Z-Z-A," it knows you typed "pizza." There's no tactile feedback, but if you're already a BlackBerry user, using the keyboard's going to be a piece of cake.

July 26, 11:20 a.m.: There is a scratch on my iPhone screen. Time to figure out how to return it. I try to make sure all my stuff has high resale value. Once the iPhone 2.0 comes out, this thing will be on eBay.

[Last modified August 1, 2007, 02:44:44]