A few days ago, in the early evening of June 29th, he calls me with the news. A friend of his was 32nd in line at the Apple store. After a series of text messages, he jokingly throws out: "Get me one." And that was that. Without having to wait in line for hours and hours, without even having to deal with going outside, he had an iPhone in his possession.

I gotta say I've never quite seen him like this. In fact, it's the bitter taste of my own medicine. When I first got my Wii, I think I spent an entire day just playing it, making little schoolgirl giggles, glassy eyed and the shine of spittle across my lips. The night he got his iPhone, I don't think he went to sleep. Coming home from work, he showed me everything his new toy could do, and he kept going and going until I could barely keep my eyes open and dozed off in bed. When I awoke the next morning, he was hunched over in the corner, pinching and pushing the phone's glassy surface, deep circles in the shape of apples surrounding his bloodshot eyes.

To be honest, I don't really blame him. The iPhone most assuredly met with both our expectations. Control is fluid and intuitive. Traversing from screen to screen, organizing your address book and flipping through photos and music (apart from minor slowdown once or twice so far) is as easy and pretty as it looks in the commercials. The speaker on the little handheld is quite impressive, sounding just as good, if not a little better, than my recently purchased MacBook. Most importantly, the quality of the connection when you're actually using it as a phone is quite noticeable.

Looking over his shoulder, it's been full of little surprises. Having trouble using the qwerty keypad the first day was one of the bf's initial complaints. The second day into it, the magical little box was already picking up his common word choices in the best predictive text I've seen on any phone. Wrong letter connection also seems to be less often with each day that he uses it... either that, or he's just quickly getting used to how to use it. Something impressive he discovered just today is that with a .mac account, his phone can easily pick up the info I put on my iCal, so when he checks his calender on his iPhone, it provides him with his scheduling information as well as mine if he allows it. Which frightens me a little... guess I won't be keeping track of my weekly trysts in the park with Pokémon Trainers.

Video looks great on the phone's big screen, and with very little trouble you can add your bittorrents to the iPhone's memory (of course he got the 8 gig). It quickly will adjust a TV image into widescreen but cutting off a little of the top and bottom with an imperceptible difference, or you can watch in the original format, albeit a little smaller.

Google maps looks great on it, quickly picking up the data quickly even in satellite mode. The EDGE network, while we expected to be pretty slow, has not been disappointing, although our network's wifi is a little quicker. And for that matter, I've been most impressed by the Safari browser. Searching on the web is so much easier than on my Samsung D807, it's not even funny. The ability to see the entire page without any deforming of the original format, seeing full images load up painlessly, and being able to zoom in and out with ease really makes a world of difference. This is the real revolution, in my opinion. No longer will you save internet phone usage for quick scans of your email without any responding or arrangement due to impracticality. On the iPhone, it's as easy as on your computer, just with a different and smaller keyboard.

Sure, he has his complaints. No games, which is a bummer that must surely be fixed. Even more troublesome is the lack of ability to send multimedia messages (which means the end of quick and dirty photo exchanges--a true loss) and being able to adjust the contrast on the otherwise great 2 megapixel camera feature. But these issues really do seem like nitpicking compared all the things it can do that say, my phone, can not.

So yeah, ranting and raving about the thing is really the only thing I can do to keep my sanity. Being stricken with insane envy isn't exactly the most charming state to be in. Looking at my current phone now appears to be a cruel joke, and watching him slip and slide his way across a whole new world of mobile usage has almost been a little insulting and taunting.

Last night my dreams were filled with images of fingerprinted (it even cleans easily!) liquid crystal displays surrounding me. Waking up in a cold sweat and trying to think happy thoughts of Blue Dragon and Persona 3, I remembered my boyfriend's cruel dream-laughter as he stood atop the largest one looking down on me and my little Samsung cohort:

"Oh, you still have one of those?!"

So yeah, my boyfriend bought an iPhone and is adorable in his obsession with it. Woop de freakin' doo.