Norbert Haupt

I don’t use many apps. I use one to navigate (in a car). I tried a “map my hike” app. I take pictures. I text. I check my email (although seldom will I compose an email, too hard with the little keyboard and the large fingers), I check the market, and I look stuff up that I want to know (Google). I also read Kindle books while I am waiting for lunch, for the plane, for people. Its camera app is better than my point-and-shoot camera. And – yes – it’s a phone.

I was reluctant to jump on the Apple wagon a couple of months ago when I bought the iPhone, switching from a Droid. I have not regretted it. The iPhone rocks for me.

Like the carriage turns into a pumpkin at midnight, the iPhone in the wilderness turns into a camera and that’s pretty much all.

Navigation apps don’t work without broadband. Beware about relying on online maps to get OUT OF the wilderness. You can find your way in pretty well, but I have gotten lost getting out – without maps and directions of any kind with me. Bring a hardcopy map. The phone, of course, does not work. You can’t look stuff up. The Kindle still works if I remembered to sync my current book before I went out. And of course, if you’re out longer than the battery life, even the camera vanishes. I can bring in a spare battery for my point-and-shoot camera, but I can’t swap the one in my iPhone.

The iPhone in the wilderness is 4.9 ounces of dead weight.