Welcome to the light. I hear your frustration; my 1st gen iPod had connectivity probs with my windows machine, but the bugs were eventually worked out. You’ll get there.

In defense of the Mac Mini, it was never really intended to be a full-service home computer. It was designed to be the Apple equivalent of an eMachine: affordable and low on frills, perfect for the dorm room but not much else. They marketed it terribly.

Personally, I don’t care for the iPhone. It’s a clunky brick that’s long on flash but short on substance. Sure, a bazillion apps are fun and I guess it’s kinda neat to store music and movies on the phone, but it’s freaking uncomfortable to use. The biggest drawback, however, isn’t the phone itself but rather Apple’s deal with AT&T. Previous gen iPhones weren’t slaved to a single carrier…you bought the thing and then signed up with whatever company you wanted. AT&T blows cattle in horrifying abundance.

As for having to have a computer to make the phone work…well, that’s Apple, wanting to provide the customer with an overall cultural experience, or some such nonsense. For what it’s worth, if I want to store media on my LG phone, I’d need a $45 software and cabling package that only runs on Windows. Since my last Windows machine is resting peacefully in the muck at the bottom of our lake, it’s decidedly impractical to use the phone for anything other than a phone/text device. All the other stuff is on my iPod Nano.

Oh, and this is neat: earlier today I installed and ran a virus check program on my MacBook (two years old) and iMac (one year old) and found a grand total of…bupkis. No virii, no malware, no trojans, no worms, no nothing. I’ve never had a blue screen of death and when I open my laptop, it boots and is ready to go in less than five seconds.

When I’m at the Apple store tomorrow (looking for a job), I’ll check if they have any windmill- or mule-powered phone chargers. Ya never know, they’re a kooky bunch…

Yes, I consider myself an old skool PC user; that’s what I grew up on, learned on and that’s what all my experience is on. I can make PCs do what I want them to do. I can take them apart and put them back together again. Does that make me a lemming? The term ‘fanboy’ was practically invented for Apple Uber Alles boosters, jeez. I’d say that reads more ‘lemming’ to me.

I’m amused by the argument that disliking Apple product is considered posturing as an iconoclast when Apple have placed themselves in that position squarely (remember the ‘1984′ commercial? It doesn’t get more iconoclastic than that.) Oh and ‘Think Different” while you’re at it.

I don’t like Macs simply because for me, they don’t work the way I want them to. Maybe if I had never used a personal computer before, I might like them better. I find their oft lauded ‘intuitive user interface’ to be clunky and anything but intuitive. But, again, that’s probably due to my long experience with PCs. Good? Bad? Whatever. For me, personally, they don’t work.

I never said I was ‘distressed’ by the stores and the employees; slightly amused perhaps, I used ‘weirded out’ because, well, I find the experience… weird. It’s like they pump nitrous into the place and load all their geniuses up with Zoloft.

And I’ve read plenty of reviews, pro and con, I looked at the smart phones that they (AT&T) had to offer and went with the iPhone. A big part of that was user/support base; it’s a popular gadget – therefore, most issues are probably known and either fixed or there are work arounds.

Video is no big deal to me, but it seems odd that a feature that most 2nd Gen phones have, isn’t part of the iPhone feature set… or here’s another one that blew me away (and yeah it’s my fault for not researching it before hand) no Bluetooth file transfer function? So they go to the trouble of adding Bluetooth, but only to use an earpiece or for gaming? Hell my old RAZR could do OBX file transfers via Bluetooth and my laptop. Is that a deal breaker? Of course not, just seems like a gaping whole in the functionality. I mean come on! It’s called the Jesus phone! I presumed that it could do all that AND make phone calls… and make waffles. I *love* waffles.

And, no it never ever occurred to me that I’d have to have ANY kind of interface to use the iPhone. Why would it? It, at the bottom of it all, is a phone. What phone needs proprietary software to achieve full functionality? Like I posted, I have an iPod and I can use secondary software to manage it just fine; why lock down the iPhone to iTunes?

Yes after a little searching, I did find out how to synch Google Calendar, so that point is no longer valid.

I stand by my opinion; it’s a neat shiny gadget that does a number of things well, but also has some truck sized holes in it’s feature set, plus it requires loading proprietary software to get everything out of it. And that sucks and blows.

EDIT: Hey I just thought of something… what if you want an iPhone, but don’t even have a personal computer of any flavor? How does that work? Is Apple prejudiced against Amish that want shiny gadgets? (Yes, I am aware of the internal paradox there, but pardon my flow.)

And yet, despite all this, you went ahead and bought the phone. You took the time to Google “iPhone douchebag,” but you didn’t research the camera quality or read any reviews? If having a telephone that records video is important to you, did you think to actually research this function or ask the Apple salesperson before buying? Did it never occur to you that an Apple product might require an Apple interface like iTunes? Seriously, your fiancee has had the phone for half a year and you had no clue whatsoever about iTunes? One can’t help but question the validity of your belly-achin’.

http://www.google.com/mobile/apple/sync.html

As to your PC use? I’m right there with you. I bought an Apple Mini which lasted 3 or 4 months on my desk before I told the dorkus to built me a new PC, so yeah. I always liked Ovaltine better than Kool-aid anyway.