I Have a Love/Hate Relationship with My iPhone.

When the iPhone first came out, I scoffed at the whole thing.  The lines, the outrageous price tag, the low capacity, the having everything in one device, everything.  Majority got one when they first came out and Unsvelt Girl Who Runs went on and on about how cool they were (but she didn’t get one).  I already had a 60G iPod that I’d gotten a year earlier and a cell phone that was old and worn out and needed to be replaced but didn’t have to cost $500.00 to do so.  I just didn’t think it made sense to buy an iPhone.

And then HE came in.  He is beautiful.  Must be nearly seven feet tall, but might as well be 20.  Slim, rugged good looks, soothing soft spoken voice and noticeably lacking in the abject pretension that I’ve grown accustomed to dealing with in my company.  Also, he’s black, so if the stereotype holds…  Perhaps I’d never go back.  And again, he has children, (I assume a wife) and he’s probably straight as a rule– well, a yard stick.  None the less, the day get’s a little brighter when he walks in the door.  He works for our in-house construction “company” and is, therefor, someone I deal with regularly. (Sidebar:  Hmmm.  Fantastical Engineers, Adorable Little Contractors and Beautiful Construction Workers!  I seem to like the rugged ones don’t I?  Don’t know what that’s about…  Anyway!)

The first conversation I ever remember having with him was about his iPhone.  He had an iPod Nano attached to his shirt, and an iPhone in his pocket.  We discussed the fact that he doesn’t put his music on his iPhone.  “Then what’s the point,” I wondered.  He told me how he’d dropped his first iPhone down an elevator shaft, and though he had paid so much money for it, and though they don’t offer replacement plans for them he “had” to have another one.  And then he let me play with it.

Nice as it might be, there was no double entendre there. I played with his iPhone for a few minutes.  After that, I was hooked.  That very day I ran out, with my “new cell phone fund” and bought my very own 16G iPhone.  I couldn’t wait to get it home and activate it and load it up and have my new functioning iPhone.  Activation was a piece of cake.  I had my phone service switched to the new phone in less than 10 minutes.  I love my iPhone.  The music on the other hand was a nightmare. I hate my iPhone.

I started to sync my music and it was dragging.  Taking several seconds for each song.  It loaded about 300 songs (I have over 3000) and it errored out.  I hate my iPhone.  I restarted it and it picked up where it left off.  This time it ws going faster (I love my iPhone) but it still was taking hours.  When I finally gave up to go to bed, I found that it still had about 800 songs to go.  I left it to finish and I went to bed. I hate my iPhone.

Out of my 300+ albums, my iTunes has located album art for all but about 12-15 of them.  I was looking forward to listening to my new iPhone, and enjoying the larger view of the album art and the “cover flow” feature.  Imagine my dismay when I picked up my phone the next morning and found that only the first 300 songs had album art and all the rest of the albums had the “no art” graphic of the music notes. I love my iPhone.  I hate my iPhone.

I had no time to deal with it, I had to go to work.  I would try again that evening.  That evening the exact same thing happened.  This time I was determined to babysit it!  I was awake until after 2:00 in the morning, only to find that the exact same scenario played out again.  I hate my iPhone.  So I did what any one would do.  I called in sick to work so I could fix it.  🙂 Any excuse not to go to work.  I love my iPhone!

I ended up having to uncheck all the music in my library and then recheck them a group at a time (I did alphabetically) and sync it and then resync it and then re-resync it, over and over again until I had all the music on my iPhone with the album art.  I hate my iPhone.  It took a lot of jumping through hoops to do it but once it was set up it was great and I loved my new iPhone. I was even rational enough to know that I was dealing with an Apple product and it was only a matter of time before something bigger and better (and cheaper) came out.  This was in April.  I didn’t know then about the 3G model, but I knew it was only a matter of time…

So it came as no surprise when I heard about the “twice as fast for half the price” 16G iPhone 3G.  And then I found out about the 2.0 version of the software for my archaic iPhone.  It’s new and exciting! Of course I had to load it up!

I did not know that this new software would wipe my iPhone clean and then take hours to load.  This was yet another overnight endeavor.  I hate my iPhone.  But when it was done all my music was there, and I had the Apps store!  I lay in bed for three hours that Saturday morning, surfing the apps store, and loading every free application I thought I might even be sort of interested in, I could always delete them later if I wanted to.  I love my iPhone.  Downloading software version 2.0 was the worst thing I’ve ever done with my iPhone.  It’s just been one problem after another!  I hate my iPhone!

A month or two ago, there was an update to the software.  Version 2.0.2.  I went ahead and downloaded that because it must only be an improvement, right?  Now my updates won’t download.  The Apps store tells me there are updates and right now I have this lovely little red circle with a white 5 in it hovering over the corner of my Apps Store button.  But if I try to install the updates it tells me that I’ve already “purchased” this application and that if I’m having trouble downloading the App, I should select “check for purchases” in iTunes.  I hate my iPhone.  When I follow these instructions I get an error message from iTunes telling me that some of my Applications couldn’t load because there was an “unknown error”.  I’ve gotten this message before, and the number of applications not loading properly is growing.  I hate my iPhone.

So last night, for the third or fourth time, I connected my iPhone to my computer to try and resolve this issue with iTunes.  For the second time, iTunes reflected the 10+G of music I have as “other”.  I disconnected my iPhone from my computer and went into the iPod function.  “You have not loaded any music.” it says. (I’m sure I’m paraphrasing.)  Bullshit I didn’t load any music.  I don’t have 12G of “other” on here.  So I had to restore my iPhone.  I hate my iPhone. I have had to “restore” my iPhone on three separate occasions, and the only good thing I can say is that the first two times my music reloaded with no issues.  (I love my iPhone?)

I started the restore process on my iPhone last night at around 5:30 p.m.  iTunes loaded about 300 songs and errored out.  I looked in iPod and the music was there but with no album art.  I restarted the sync and it picked up where it left off.  I hate my iPhone.  I went to bed at 12:30 a.m. and it was still syncing.  I hate my iPhone.  I got up at 7:00 this morning and looked at my computer.  No longer syncing.  I wasn’t sure if it was done or not so I restarted the sync and it started loading music again.  It had over 800 of my over 3000 songs to load.  I walked away and started my morning routine.  When I left for work at 8:20 it had only loaded about 120 songs.  I had to manually stop it so I could leave.  I hate my iPhone.

Ironically, all the music it loaded in my second attempt last night, and my third attempt this morning does have album art.  I love my iPhone a little bit.  The first three hundred songs however, have no album art.  I’ll have to uncheck those albums resync my phone, let it delete those albums and sync the last 700+ songs and then recheck those albums and resync it again!  If all goes well, it’ll load all the remaining music and all the album art that goes with it.  If all does not go well, I may pull a Russell Crowe and throw my iPhone at the head of one of the “Geniuses”.  I hate my iPhone.

For those of you keeping score at home, there are far more hates than there are loves.  But at $500.00, I better love the hell out of my iPhone.

The truth is, I love my iPhone.  I really love the concept of my iPhone.  And if and when they get all these bugs worked out, I will petition the state of California for a marriage license for me and my iPhone.  But until that happens, my iPhone is my bitch!  It complicates my life.  It’s uncooperative.  It points and laughs at me.  And it tells me that I’ll never be truely happy.

Come to think of it, I think I am my iPhone’s bitch.