Kelly's World

I expected today to be the hardest day of them all. I would be jogging home from work, and would also be visiting a friend who just got a brand new iphone 3gs. True enough, when I realised I would be jogging home without my iphone, I began stressing about a replacement music player. My 80gb ipod classic wasn’t ideal to go jogging with (at the risk of killing it), and there was no way I wanted to jog without music. Diving through my desk drawers I hoped there was a chance I still had the nokia handsfree kit (the nokia has the ability to play fm stations). I didn’t find the headset, but instead found a small 1gb Telstra Velocity mp3 player I had received while working at the UDIA Congress in Brisbane a few months earlier (thanks @JonoH). I almost wet myself with excitement when I realised I had music. That moment was the first time I’d truly felt the pressure of going without my iphone.

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Every year I make a list of things to accomplish during the year. It’s not resolutions as such, like the usual “eat healthy, lose weight, get a new job” blah blah. It’s a list of things that I’m going to challenge myself to try, to make sure that each year I feel like I’ve actually achieved something. Given that we’re now almost at the end of the 7th month of the year I’m well overdue in an update to my 2009 resolutions.

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After the initial rush of getting the iPhone ready for a week with Mat, the challenge started at 9pm last night – only an hour after the original deadline. The reason for that is while I’m missing the iPhone for a week I want Mat to get the full experience, from receiving a nice clean phone to filling it with wonderful (and sometimes unnecessary) apps. Hopefully by the time next Monday night rolls around he will have seen for himself why I adore my phone so much and will want one for himself.

After I had handed over the phone I started playing with the replacement nokia. While I thought it was a brilliant phone when I had first gotten it (one of the first phones to have inbuilt GPS with maps and turn-by-turn navigation) it just couldn’t compare now. There was no twittering from this phone, no wifi, and no way of easily locating apps to download and install. Of the “apps” that were designed for the phone, 99% of them are games, and dodgy ones at that. I could tell already this phone was purely going to be “just a phone” over the next week.

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Firstly, thanks to @Agent_x and @Keija for providing me with a name & subtitle for the challenge. My idea of “no iPhone for a week” was just plain sucky. Thank god for twitter (and creative people able to make catchy names).

Ever since I announced the challenge I’ve had people tell me I’m nuts, that I’ll fail, and why the heck would I want to do such a thing. It’s simple really – I love to prove I can do things. I love making lists, and getting them all done. I love someone saying I can’t do something, and proving I can. That’s partially the reason behind my annual “things to do” lists (new year “tasks” rather than resolutions), and my crazy “give up chocolate for one month and be really stupid by doing it during the Easter period” task.

I don’t expect it to be easy. In fact, I expect that I will be whinging & bitching for most of the week about it, and there’s quite the possibility I could cry like a baby when my phone is returned. But It will be an interesting experiment to see just how much my life has changed since getting the iPhone, and seeing how truly dependent I am on it. For those who don’t have an iPhone (or blackberry or android phones) they just don’t understand why this challenge is such a big deal. I don’t know whether a week without my iPhone will cause a decrease in the quality of life I lead or whether it will be totally refreshing. I might come out on the other end and see that the iPhone truly is just another gadget that I want, not need.

I know there’s a few particular apps that I will missing in particular:

1. The calendar – I have a goldfish memory, plain and simple. Without the calendar I’m going to have to write myself paper reminders (the calendar on the nokia isn’t even worth contemplating) and stick them in my bag. It’s the old skool method my mum uses. I’ve already checked the week ahead and made sure there’s no appointments I’ll be forgetting about during the challenge.
2. Twitter – one of the best features about twitter is having it on your phone, and being able to use the GPS functionality to see what’s going on around you, not to mention be able to tweet things as they come to mind. Given I will be working 5 out of the 7 days of the challenge, I will still have twitter at my disposal via a computer, but it’s really not the same. When I’m out and about and have 5 minutes to spare, what am I going to do instead of reading everyone’s tweets?
3. Beejive – this is a combination of time wasting as well as laziness. I have a few friends that I constantly keep in touch with via instant messenger, and having the ability to use it on my phone means that if I’m at home I don’t have to sit at the computer to chat with them. I can sit on the couch and use my iPhone. That’s the laziness part. The time wasting is in conjuction with twitter. When I’m standing around somewhere and have 5 minutes to kill, I can’t log in online and hope there’s someone to chat to. I’ll have to *shudder* find something non-iPhone related to do!
4. ShapeUp – I’m currently trying to watch what I eat and lose weight. Part of that is doing the ol’ calorie counting, which is where ShapeUp comes in. Open the app, type in the food I just ate, it adds the calories and I see how much I have remaining for the day. I can also put in my exercise and see how it offsets my calories I’ve consumed. Not having the app with me for a week means that I’m going to have to keep a notepad with me, and consult a weight watchers points guide. There’s no way I could work out calories based on the nutritional panels on food by myself. Missing this app is really going to hurt
5. C25K - this app is used in conjunction with the “Couch to 5k” running program. The app basically counts down the time remaining in the work out, and tells you when to warm up, run, walk or cool down. Makes it only one hundred times easier for me, since I can focus on the work out and not the clock. Also going to be greatly annoying missing this app.
6. Safari – before I fall asleep I usually spend about 15 – 20mins using safari to browse my google reader feeds. I expect for this week I’ll go to bed and twiddle my thumbs on what to do. Perhaps I’ll have to pay some attention to Mat instead *shock horror*

Of course there are other smaller reasons I’ll miss it – not being able to google search on the fly, not playing some games when sitting around bored etc. Missing the majority of the apps above  means a  lifestyle change for which I have to anticipate for the changes and ensure I’m prepared in advance.

I haven’t even started the challenge yet, and already I’m amazed by just how much the iPhone has truly changed my life. I hope this week goes fast.