The last time I wrote about the subject I gave you ten reasons not to buy an iPhone. Well I’ve been using an iPhone since the day it was released, and I now have ten reasons for you to go out and by one. Please note that I bought my iPhone with my own money, it belongs to me not to Ziff Davis.

If you want a detailed analysis of the product, read PCMag.com’s iPhone review. I should mention, however, that I strongly disagree with PC Magazine’s take on the iPhone’s abilities as a phone and messaging system. My iPhone works great as a phone and messaging system, I’ve actually gotten rid of my Vonage land line and now I use my iPhone as my only phone. I suspect Sascha and Tim just were used to other kinds of phones and probably had difficulty adjusting to how the iPhone did things. But to each his own, I guess.

The Tale of My iPhone Purchase
Before I get into the ten reasons why you should buy an iPhone, let me begin with my own purchasing story. Remember how everybody was going crazy the day the iPhone was released? Well I was right there with them. Yes, I was out and about with the masses at the mall. I had what I thought was an absolutely fool-proof and ingenious plan to get my iPhone…I went to an AT&T store instead of an Apple store. This later proved to be quite stupid, more on that later.

When I got to the mall, I headed to the AT&T store. I saw a cop standing outside the door. I’m thinking “he’s blocking the damn door, how dare he come between me and my iPhone!” So I attempt to squeeze by the cop to get into the store, and he stops me. I said in a snarling tone “I’m here to get an iPhone!” and he replied in a bemused fashion “So are they…” As soon as he said that I turned my head to my left and saw a large crowd standing in line. Feeling like an absolute fool I said “Oh, I see” and then went to get in line.

So I’m standing in line and I started chatting with some of the other folks. To my utter and everlasting horror, I discovered that I’d run into an Apple Cultist. Yep the guy two people ahead of me was a true Apple Cultist and worse yet…he was a know-it-all-Apple Cultist! Ugh! Somebody save me! He kept babbling on and on about how great Apple is and how much he knew about this product or that product. He especially kept babbling on about the iPhone, touting this feature or that feature. Like I didn’t already know about all of it from all the hype beforehand? I needed this self-important dingbat to regurgitate all of it again? After about ten minutes of it I’m standing there thinking “SHUT UP! DAMN YOU! FOR THE LOVE OF GOD JUST SHUT YOUR FREAKING MOUTH! IT’S JUST A DAMN PHONE!!! SHUUUUUUUUUUUUUUT UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUP!!!!!” Mercifully, other people intervened and actually said something so that the know-it-all would not bore us all too much longer.

Well the time came and went and then a terrible thing happened, the store manager came out and said that they only had so many iPhones left. We all started freaking out! OMG! What if I can’t get my iPhone? Noooooooooooooooo! The Apple store is probably sold out by now too! Terrible news!

So then we find out the next terrible announcement: They are out of 8GB phones! OMG! No! Do I take a 4GB and settle for it? Or try my luck at the Apple store? Stupidly, I decided to buy a 4G phone. I got one of the last ones and headed back to my car with my prize, smug with satisfaction that I’d gotten the best of the masses. Or did I?

After I got my iPhone home, I unpacked it and hooked it up to my computer and all that. Well it wasn’t long before I realized I’d made a terrible mistake! 4GB wasn’t nearly enough storage space! I easily filled that up with videos, music and photos. I’d seriously goofed.

So I did what any self-respecting geek would do, I took it back to the AT&T store and then drove to the Apple store and bought an 8GB instead. And now I’m a happy camper indeed!

Now that you know the tale of my purchase, here’s why you should go out and grab an iPhone for your very own:

10. Navigation—Have you ever used a mobile phone or PDA with a crappy menu system? I sure have, I used to own a Verizon phone and had various PDAs including Compaq iPaqs. None of them were ever easy to navigate around in. The iPhone is very different. I can easily get to the functions I need and whenever I want to get back to the main screen, I just push the button at the bottom. You’re probably thinking “oh brother, Jim, give me a break! How hard is it to navigate a cell phone? Sheesh!” Well it’s not really about difficulty so much as it is about comfort. The iPhone is supremely comfortable to use when it comes to moving around within its software. Don’t underestimate that until you’ve had a chance to really use it.

9. Pictures and iPhoto—Video wasn’t the only thing that I liked a lot on my new iPhone. I really liked the camera (though I understand it’s not as powerful as some stand-alone cameras but it works well for my needs) and I particularly liked that all of my photos in iPhoto could easily be synced to my iPhone. I had all of my photos with me, wherever I was. Convenient, and particularly nice to me personally when I wanted to see photos of my pet parrot that recently passed away from cancer. It was just really great to be able to pull up photos of him and me together on my iPhone whenever I wanted to and remember the fun times we spent together. The iPhone/iPhoto combination really does add value to the iPhone though people don’t talk about it too much.

8. Safari—Okay, I was wrong. I admit it. I bashed Safari like crazy in my last column and I’ve changed my mind since I bought an iPhone. It is just amazing to use Safari and get the real web on my iPhone. It’s so different from the “mobile web.” While Safari is not perfect (as I pointed out in my last column) it is still right now arguably the best browser on any phone (though Opera may challenge it at some point). Before I used Safari on my iPhone, I thought the web on a phone was just stupid. Now it actually works (no, there’s no flash support yet but there will be) and, since you can zoom in and out, it works really well and comfortably for your eyes. I give Safari a big thumbs up at this point.

7. Multi-Touch—Here’s another thing I was very skeptical about. I really thought that a hardware keyboard was a necessity, but I’ve realized how wrong I was about it. The touch screen on the iPhone works great for typing email as well as browsing web pages, zooming in and out of photos, and so on. It only takes a few minutes to get used to the basics of using the touch screen and not much longer to get used to the keyboard.

Strangely enough, I’ve found myself reaching for the on-screen controls occasionally when using my iMac or Macbook Pro. It just feels so natural after using my iPhone for a while that it seems like every screen should be able to be touched. I was listening to the audiobook God is Not Great by Christoper Hitchens while laying on my couch. It was playing on my iMac and I wanted to rewind back a bit and I reached for the screen instead of the mouse. Then I realized that it wasn’t my iPhone. Trust me, once you get used to a touch-screen, you’ll probably end up doing the same thing.

6. Power—When I first got my iPhone, I was skeptical about how long it would last if I watched video or listened to music or whatever. Here are the stats from Apple’s web site:

•   Talk time: Up to 8 hours

•   Standby time: Up to 250 hours

•   Internet use: Up to 6 hours

•   Video playback: Up to 7 hours

•   Audio playback: Up to 24 hours

I’ve found that my iPhone pretty much adheres to what Apple has said. I haven’t even come close to running out of power, and I put it in the charger once per day and let it get juiced up. So it seems to be making the most out of its battery charge, I just can’t complain about it even when watching video on it for a while.

5. Edge—Now I know that I and others have been very critical of AT&T’s Edge network. All people have been screaming about is “why is there no 3G on the iPhone?” Blah, blah, blah. Give it a rest. 3G just isn’t available in enough places in the U.S. right now. Not all of us live in the inner city where 3G is prevalent in the United States. Some of us live well outside of those areas and, for us, Edge is where it’s at right now and for the foreseeable future.

I’ve used Edge in quite a lot of places, from car dealerships to supermarkets to the mall to shooting ranges. And you know what? It works pretty darn well. It’s definitely slower than Wi-Fi, but it suffices quite well for my browsing needs when I’m out and about. Edge has not really gotten a fair shake in the press; it’s been viewed with contempt and derision by many people who wrote reviews of the iPhone. But how many of these people have done what I’ve done and actually lived with Edge and the iPhone for a while? Probably not many.

Is Jim schizophrenic? Read his 10 Reasons You Shouldn’t Buy an iPhone.

Edge is an advantage for the iPhone, not a liability. It expands internet access to iPhone users far beyond what 3G can currently offer and it doesn’t suck up as much battery life. The transfer speeds are quite useable for most normal mobile browsing needs.

4. Music and Audiobooks—As with video, the iPhone makes a superb iPod. In fact, it’s the best iPod ever (wait, where have I heard that before? Hmmmm…). I keep a few different playlists on my iPhone. Some if it is hard rock type workout kind of music and other stuff is more mellow. The fact that it’s so darned easy to keep my iTunes music synched and ready on my iPhone makes things much easier for me. It all works together, including my audiobooks. I’ve become a big listener of audiobooks. I like to lay in bed or on the couch and listen to the author or narrator read to me. I find it’s very relaxing, and my iPhone makes it super-easy for me to do it when I’m not at my computer. Do audiobooks help me talk on the phone? No but they sure are nice when I want to be entertained.

3. Google Maps—Okay, here’s one that I really did not think a whole lot of until I used it. I find it tremendously helpful when I’m out and about and need directions to get somewhere. You see, I’m one of those people who gets lost very easily. And whenever I’m driving around, I can just stop and pull directions up with Google Maps on my iPhone. Is it as slick as a fancy GPS? No, at least not yet it’s not. But it’s very useable and it gets the job done for me. Google Maps is one of my favorite applications on my iPhone. It’s a pity that Google decided to go down the road of evil by screwing over their movie customers but, hey, that’s a topic for a different column.

2. Email and Visual Voicemail—Another thing I found myself using a lot on my iPhone is email. I can check my Google mail whenever and wherever I want. It’s so convenient and very well done on the iPhone. It’s comfortable to read and easy to type replies via the on-screen keyboard. It didn’t take me long to get to the point where I can type pretty darn fast on it and I never thought I’d be able to do that when I first got it. For me email is like the icing on the cake along with all the other great stuff my iPhone can do. I didn’t buy it for email but I’m sure as heck using it pretty often when I’m out and about with my iPhone.

Visual voicemail is great! I love being able to pick and choose visually which message I want to listen to. This is the way voicemail should always have been done. It’s one of those funny things that you notice about the iPhone that makes you think “yeah, why don’t all phones do it this way?” I’ll never go back to the awful voice mail system I had with Verizon again. Ugh.

1. Amazing Video—When I first got my phone I was really not particularly interested in video on it. Boy, was I wrong! After I got it home and synched it up with iTunes on my MacBook Pro, I found myself appreciating what video looks like on it. It is the first phone I ever liked watching video on. I put Apocalypto on it, along with a few movies I ripped off of DVD, as well as some music videos by Robert Plant. I particularly liked Plant’s 29 Palms and Darkness, Darkness videos. Darkness, Darkness looks really great on it (although I’m still not sure what the video is supposed to be about but, hey, that’s just art for you).

I’ve also been putting various podcasts on it as well as TV shows like Hercules and another one from National Geographic about Lions versus Hyenas (the commentary is a melodramatic but they have some amazing footage of lions and hyenas fighting). Once you get used to seeing video on the iPhone’s gorgeous 3.5 inch screen, you won’t want to use an inferior phone ever again.

For the naysayers out there who say “I don’t care about video on my phone” I say: you will. At some point you’ll be stuck somewhere and you’ll then be able to pull out your trusty iPhone and start watching your favorite program(s) while you wait.

So there you go, ten reasons why you should head out and grab an iPhone. So far my iPhone has worked great as a phone but also as a media player and an email client. Why settle for other phones that can do so little when you can have an iPhone that can do so much more? Why indeed…