Plaidophile

So, I tried installing the iPhone 3.0 OS today. The activation server failed to work, but I'd read you could get around that by disconnecting from the network, getting the OS installed, and then letting it retry activation until it could get through. So I tried that.

So iTunes tried installing OS 3.0, and before it even completed and tried to activate for reals, it complained that "an unknown error occurred (1611)" and had to restore from the backup. Which also failed with the same error. So I tried 'restore iPhone' which apparently could ONLY restore to the latest (3.0) software, which of course continues to fail, and so basically my iPhone is now a brick.

Maybe when I get home where all my backup images are I'll get a working iPhone again, but in the meantime I'm borrowing a coworker's spare G2 (which he got at Google I/O) and I have to say I'm liking Android already:

• Cloud sync of contacts and calendars
• A corrective on-screen keyboard which actually gives you multiple choices to choose from (and which seems to have about the same prediction accuracy as the iPhone)
• Configuration dialogs which don't try to obfuscate everything away

Also the device is a bit lighter and smaller than the iPhone.

On the minus side, it has that silly USB-mini port with the proprietary headphone adapter, but on the plus side it supports Bluetooth A2DP (which was the only reason I was trying to update my iPhone to 3.0 anyway, and something my previous not-at-all-smart phone supported too).

I have a feeling that when I get home I'll make a token effort to restore my iPhone and will probably end up switching back to the W580 (which, frankly, did most of what I use the iPhone for, and a few things it actually did better) for a while and then biding my time until I get an Android phone. And also ditching AT&T because damn if they haven't been pissing me off lately anyway.