Edible Apple

Dan Frommer writes for Silicon Alley Insider about the positive effects the iPhone has had on his life:

The biggest difference between the iPhone and previous mobile devices I’ve owned — Palm Treo, Dell Axim, Palm V, various Sony Ericsson and Nokia cellphones — is the sheer amount of time I spend using it: At least a few hours a day, Monday through Sunday.

And much of the time I spend using it is via third-party apps in Apple’s iPhone App Store. (Smart move on Apple’s part, that App Store.)

For example, I’m glued to Major League Baseball’s At Bat app, which has helped me keep up with the Chicago Cubs from hundreds of miles away, via live radio streams, real-time stats and highlight videos, and once in a while, live-game TV streams. Nothing short of amazing — and an early glimpse at an exciting part of the future of television.

My iPhone has also effectively killed my Nintendo Wii. I’d never been much of a gamer until the iPhone, which allows me to play inexpensive casual games — with good graphics — anywhere, without carrying a separate gaming device around. The only time I’ve turned my Wii on since I got my iPhone was to make sure it worked after I moved apartments. In the meantime, I’ve landed 12,700 tiny planes in a game called “Flight Control.” I’ve rediscovered childhood Mario-on-Game Boy joy via a game called “Rolando.” And I’ve even gotten pretty good at Gameloft’s soccer game.

And I’m reading more! Thanks to Amazon’s Kindle app, which has allowed me to read two long books in my rare spare time, something I would not have been able to do otherwise, and Instapaper Pro, an app that lets me save blog posts and magazine articles from my computer’s Web browser to read later on my iPhone.

You can check out the article in its entirety over here.