Speaking of gadgets, after all that angst over what smartphone to get, I finally picked up an iPhone 4 in mid-September 2010 (Correction, late October). Despite dancing with the bleeding edge Android models, I got the JesusPhone (apropos Stross) mainly because I wanted to stay with AT&T.
That’s right, stay with AT&T. I’m not a huge voice user. Coverage in the DC area is pretty solid. And I wanted to fold my plan and my wife’s plan into a family plan. Prying her off off AT&T would have been more trouble than it’s worth. The choice has worked out well. Our combined plan totals about $90 a month, which isn’t a huge cost savings but now I have 2Gb of 3G connectivity a month and 200 text messages.
And the iPhone makes a great ubiquitously available, interstitial computing device. Each one uniquely kitted out with a passel of apps, they create their own pocket universes, the 3G connectivity making wormholes across space and time.
Now if they’d just get around to enabling a mobile hotspot feature, the dang thing would be perfect.