I held out as long as I could. I promise. I fought it to the very end, but in the end, I caved – I bought an iPhone 3gs 32 GB. How could I, a rabid non-Mac-er do this? Well, it started when my Zune 120 GB started corrupting my audio books.
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Those that have glanced on my Zune already know that my Zune was 90% full of podcasts and audio books. It is why I have the device. Music was secondary. The Zune support for Audible has always been on shaky ground. It wasn’t until the Zune software hit version 3 that support for Audible was added. That support was second rate compared to the integration of Audible directly into iTunes. I would have to close the Zune software application in order to use the Audible Desktop Manager to sync my books with the device. If you have never seen Audible Desktop Manager, then you are seriously living a charmed life. That software is one of the worst pieces of consumer software I have ever used. It was painful to use, failed at nearly ergonomic test, and was an example of how not to build software for Windows. It just proves to me that Audible should stick to what they do best – sell audio books.
I digress. I would use this Frankenstein assortment of software and hardware to load up my books on my Zune, and spend a few hours every day listening to my books during my commute. I had reached an equilibrium and I was happy. Then on a Wednesday not too long ago, I 
{: .float_right }selected my current book and pressed play. The result was some form of squealing noise similar to listening to an acoustic modem or in more contemporary terms, a fax machine trying to connect. Thinking it was only that book, I selected another book. Same result. I then removed all the books and reloaded them. I even re-downloaded them from Audible. Same result. Strike one – no audio books.
Then Thursday rolls along, and I am commuting while not listening to anything on my now useless Zune. I was checking the email on my Blackberry Bold, and the screen goes dark. I tried to do a soft reset of the device – no joy. Having had Blackberry’s for a number of years, I go 
{: .float_left }to the age old standard – I pulled out the battery, counted to ten, and put it back in. With much happiness I watched it restart. A few hours pass, and it failed again. After that, another hour. Then twenty minutes. That was it – I had enough.
I strolled over to the AT&T store right across from my office, and an hour later I am the proud owner of a white Apple iPhone 3gs. By the next morning I had four pages of apps. A week later, six pages. While the 32 GBs is a bit constraining, I am learning to make do. A few weeks with the iPhone, while I still miss some of the features of the Zune software, I could not conceive of going back to carrying two devices. Even more telling, I could not go back to a pre-app life. I am thoroughly hooked on using my iPhone apps.
Hopefully I will even get a year or two with my new toy before the next best thing comes out.