GPS

So, it's been a week since I picked up my iPhone and it was right about this time 7 days ago when I received that first text and realized that, somehow, despite iTunes having all kinds of issues activating the phone, that I was now live. So, what's been the impression so far? Is it just a toy, or is it a productivity aid? While there are certainly some toy features, there have been a number of other things that move beyond the toy and into the realm of productive. For example:

SMS - I text a lot. For both my ministry and personal life, this is my most common method of communication. The iPhone, with the exception of pictures sent via text, is awesome, simply because it keeps a running conversation that I can easily scroll through ... which is especially nice if I happen to have some time where I can't text and then need to step back into a conversation.

email - Most of the email I get demands about 30 seconds of response time. With the iPhone, I can take any free moment here or there, and clear out the inbox, leaving only stuff that takes longer to deal with. This has greatly reduced my email time on my lap and desktops.

GPS - This feature rocks. Tell the iPhone to find where you are, tell it where you want to go, and it guides you step-by-step, even allowing you to watch yourself as you move on down the road.

Internet - It's not built for huge amounts of surfing, but when you need to find something quickly and in a setting where you don't have email, you can't beat having the whole web at your fingertips.

OmniFocus - My to-do list is always with me, ready to either add new items or check off old ones ... hard to beat the productivity of that.

On the not as productive but still very helpful front, here's a couple free apps:

Shazam - This is one of the coolest apps out there. If you like listening to the radio, but hate that you don't know who plays that song you love, Shazam is the answer. Just hold your iPhone up to the speakers, let it record a bit, and within seconds you'll have the artist, title, album, YouTube links, and connections to buy the song in iTunes. I tested it out on really old David Crowder and it didn't work, but it worked on just the intro for a song on the new album.

Pandora - The Pandora app rocks as it allows me to play a wide variety of commercial free music that's based on the musical style rather than any one particular artist. Very cool!

So, what's the next piece of life enhancing technology that I'm going to go for? I'm thinking this video that Anita sent provides the answer (assuming they develop a version that works for bottles):

A year ago I was jazzed about the iPhone, but decided to wait for two things before buying one ... GPS and 3G. Well, as of this past Monday, those desires were answered so, on July 11, you'll be able to find me in line at the Cherry Creek mall waiting to get myself a new phone.

Sure there are some things that the iPhone is still lacking, the primary one being the ability to cut and paste text, but, the beauty of the iPhone is that most of it's functionality is driven by software, not hardware, and the two main hardware upgrades I was wanting are now part of the phone (although an upgraded camera and iSight would have been nice) ... all the other stuff, well, that's just downloading an update.

This whole hardware and software thing got me thinking about the key question I bring up in the "wind" section of the elemental life. The idea behind "wind" is, in light of "earth", "water", and "fire", how do we now live out our faith. My proposal is that, rather than asking, "Where does God want me?" that we ask, "Where does God have me?" Part of the "have me" question, especially as we think about things like gender and family could be phrased as, "What's my hardware?"

You see, hardware is that stuff you have whether you like it or not (and let's be honest, at different times and in different ways, there are plenty of things about the hardware that we don't like). Moreover, I'd say our hardware should be more like an iPhone than a desktop tower in that it's not designed to be "upgradeable" (change the gender, ditch the family, etc).

The challenge then comes in with what we do with the hardware that we have. It's our thoughts, feelings, and other pieces that drive our actions. These things, which are changeable and upgradable (or down-gradable ... is going back to XP from Vista an upgrade or a downgrade?) are the software.

So, legit analogy, or am I completely off my rocker?