One of the big selling points of the iPhone 3GS is that it comes with a compass style navigation system that you can use to find directions. When I was at the Apple store buying my iPhone and wondering whether I was wasting my money on a smartphone, the compass feature of the 3GS really made me consider buying the more expensive phone.

I know that the S is better and faster, but now that I own a 3G, I can see that the compass feature was not really something I need… the reason? I can turn my phone around to match the direction I’m facing. Doing that, I haven’t had any problem using the iPhone’s Maps application to get where I’m going. To use it in the car, it helps if you have a friend in the shotgun seat navigating, but it does the job I need it to do. The little blue pin moves as I move, and the navigator in the car just needs to be sure they have their bearings right.

Before I realized how convenient this application was, I was thinking about buying a navigation system for my car. Buying the navigation system was supposted to save me money by saving me time and gas… now the iPhone helped me save even more by not even needing a navigation in the first place.

• Money saved? $100 or so I would have spent on an inexpensive car navigation system. (And another $100 I might have spent on the 3GS just for the Compass feature)

• The effort or trouble? Whoever is using the iPhone has to try and stay aware of the direction the car is headed, which is not too hard considering the little blue pin will move along the map as the car moves along the roads. When there is no navigator, you can just print something out from mapquest or google maps before heading out and do your best. Also, the estimated travel time is always off in certain areas around me. I know it’s not going to take me 3 hours to go 10 miles so it’s OK, but it gave me a little pause the first few times.

It may be

• Annoyances or trouble? To be honest, the time to get from one place to another is always off in certain areas. It’s overestimated by hours, however the distance is correct. It doesn’t take a lot to realize that it’s not going to take me 3 hours to travel 10 miles.

I have to say I expect more from National Geographic. Comparing all of Islam with Catholicism, the generalizations made in the quote from the Vatican’s Monsignor Vittorio Formenti. The article comes from the Vatican newspaper via Associated Press, but I have to wonder who decided this would be appropriate. I enjoy National Geographic, and really expect a lot more objectivity and truth. Have Sunni Islam grown to surpass Catholicism? That would be a more fair comparison. If you look at denominations, it’s probably safe to say that Catholicism is still the largest religious denomination in the world. Are we going to compare all Buddhists as just one group as well?

Article:  Muslims “Overtake” Catholics, Become Largest Religion

So after reading this review of the iphone in the wall street journal, I’ve found a few… very few places where the ipod has an advantage over my toshiba w52t cell phone.

• the display is a little larger – mine is 3 inches compared with the iphone’s 3.5
• the touch pad style – if this is easier to use, it could be an advantage, but my phone allows you to create the kind of start page you want, so you can chose the features you often use to be easily accessible from the main screen
• The bigger internal memory – like I said in the previous post, the phone I had before had a 4GB hard drive (bought it 2 years ago), but my current one only has 1GB. With the use of the micro SD cards, I find that I don’t really need 4 GB

Some places that my phone is better (that I didn’t know about until reading the WSJ article):

• I can buy music through AU (my phone service provider) using cell phone OR computer, I can also use music bought through itunes in the phone.
• It was much cheaper… I bought this phone for about $100, and no special service plans or obligations
• Video Recording – which the iphone does not have
• Much better camera resolution
• Monthly plan is much much cheaper starting at about $20
• Of course being able to connect the phone to a projector and show power point presentations, videos, pictures, excel documents, etc kind of kicks some assssss

Check out my phone… it’s got bluetooth which I can use to speak hands-free through my car’s navigation, it has a 1GB of internal memory and takes micro SD Cards up to 1GB so I can store files and pictures and MUSIC (!) to listen to with headphones. I can also connect to a computer by USB and upload or download files, pictures, music, anything I want. I can look at any homepage and search the internet (google is the default search engine) so I’m not limited to mobile phone homepages.

It can show all kinds of microsoft files, including powerpoint… can also display homepages and pdf files as they’d be seen on a computer. There is a cord sold separately that would allow me to connect directly into a projector.

Here’s the phone on Toshiba’s homepage.

The camera is 324 megapixels. It takes long videos, and has a 3 inch VGA screen for watching them… of course because of the built in “one-seg” tv tuner, I can also watch tv anytime I want.

Free news updates, GPS navigation and maps, calculator, calendar, FM tuner, voice memo recording (which I can transfer to the computer by USB)… it also has an IC Chip as well as a built in system that allows me to pay for things at most convenience stores by swiping my cell phone. ( I haven’t tried that last one yet.)

Thanks to the IC chip I can use it in the US as well (though calls are expensive).

There’s probably more I just haven’t figured out how to use yet.

I just looked at the Toshiba homepage and saw that I have access to a free “My Page” which will allow me to store up to 100 megabytes of files and data that I can access anytime.

My monthly plan is only about 30 dollars and there is no special limitation on when I can change phones. I heard that the iphone requires a 2 year contract and plans are like 60 dollars a month (please correct me if I’m wrong).

Crazy stuff… man I love this phone!

So if people with cool phones over here in Japan seem to be ho-humming about the iphone, now you know why. The iphone doesn’t really do anything that phones over here haven’t been doing for years. In fact, the phone I had before this one had a 4GB hard drive!

iphone, call me about 3 years ago.

• Defined by the American Heritage Dictionary as

n. Coolness and composure, especially in trying circumstances.
[French : sang, blood (from Old French, from Latin sanguis) + froid, cold (from Old French, from Vulgar Latin *frigidus, alteration of Latin fr?gidus)]