Markasaurus

Wow. What a difficult title.

After completing the second of nine Architecture Registration Exams today (Lateral Forces, if you’re interested) I wandered over the the Apple Store in downtown San Francisco to catch a glimpse of the new iPhone. After hearing so many people in the media discussing it in terms usually reserved for the discovery of a cure for a terminal illness, I thought I should see it for myself. Considering I haven’t even purchased an iPod (but I did win a free iPod Nano) I’m not a very likely customer.

I had to wait a minute to get to the table where people were eagerly fondling the phones, but I finally got my chance. The screen is gorgeous, as has been mentioned elsewhere. My reverence for the device pretty much stops there. It is cool how when you turn the phone sideways the screen automatically flips to a horizontal orientation, and it is also nice that they have worked in a fairly intuitive way to zoom in on web pages (it shows them in their original format, so everything is tiny). Other than that, I found it pretty hard to use. My thumbs could not accurately type on the on-screen keyboard- it is nowhere as easy to compose emails etc. on as something like a Blackberry. I checked out this website, but it took several tries to type in “markasaurus” correctly as I kept ended up with a “z” in the middle.

I think I’ll hold on to that $600 and spend it elsewhere. Unless you have an overwhelming need to look at kiddie porn on the bus or update your myspace profile while driving, this device hardly seems necessary.

In other news, check out this fascinating story from the NY Times about how cats domesticated themselves. No wonder they think they are better than dogs (you might want to skip out on this link if you think Noah brought dinosaurs on the Ark because it will seriously conflict with the notion that the world is 3,000-4,000 years old).