we were at Bible study last night and our hosts’ son had a new iphone… it is VERY cool, but… too much money and too costly each month for me! Besides, when i am in the moutnains, I like the odea of being away from everything… what ever happened to peace and rest?

MAN! How many “posts of the week” are you allowed to have?
I’m glad you’re not the final arbiter of who’s the baseball MVP or the President of the USA or something important like that!
Seriously, I’m honored to be one of them!

Scot, after all your years of harping on me you know last year I became a mac-man. I had private confession and absolution with you over my years of exile and sin in the PC world. so I had to make my apple conversion complete. Yes, yesterday on the release day of the iphone I did indeed make a purchase. And it is all as advertised, absolutely gorgeous, with apple user intuition built in

Subversive Influence » Blog Archive » Random Acts of Linkage #16

[...] Update: The last post I linked (#24 Below) is one of mine, improved upon by the discussion following — Scot McKnight put it in the running for “post of the week” in his own Weekly Meanderings. [...]

I am definitely drooling on the sidelines over this iPhone. I want to contribute to the iphone discussion. After reading Mike Metzger’s words on this, it brought me down to earth. He is a fellow from the Clapham Institute.
I posted them here:
“What might the iPhone undo?”
http://provocativechurch.blogspot.com/2007/06/what-iphone-may-undo.html
I wish I had written this, it is so tight!

If we can make laws that permit us to keep telemarketers from calling us, can we not also make laws that keep spammers from loading up our e-mailboxes?
It’s been suggested. If I recall correctly, the bill died when everyone realized it would be largely unenforceable — because it is too easy to change email addresses, even IPs if necessary, and because so much spam is international.

Ron (or any other iPhone users):
Tell us abut how you like the iPhone. The one criticism I have read is that it is slow using the Web. Do you think that is true?
Kris

Bill,
I read your piece and I like your Neil Postman-like approach to technology. However, is the iPhone putting into the phone anything not found elsewhere, or is it just making the same technology a little easier to use?
Some phones have had internet access for a couple of years.
I really like your comment about less “presence.” When I coached basketball at a high school, the first thing I observed when I began riding a bus (after two decades or so of not being on a bus with a team) was that kids were listening to their music with CD players. I thought it destroyed the chance of bonding. The kids thought I was Scrooge.

Scot,
Thanks for the shared top spot! Something that you said in one of your “Missional Jesus” posts has stuck with me and is still making me look at Jesus concerning the role of power in the gospel. Your statement was that his “behavior indicates [his] vision.” If true, that alone would make it impossible to leave power out of our ministry and still call it ‘Christ-like.’
Thanks for the encouragement.

Kris/Scot,
Have you seen this parody commercial about the iPhone? Very funny.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=1xXNoB3t8vM

Ah, c’mon Scot, why take the shot at LA fans? I was at the Dodgers game last night and the stadium was over 80% full at the end (11 pm). We get a bad rap.

Kris, I haven’t found the web slow at all. I know there has been big debate about the difference between the edge network and sprint’s speed. I think there is no doubt that sprint has the speed. But for crying out loud I don’t use my cell to download 3 meg photo files or Scot’s latest book that may be 2 megs. One of the main reasons I tapped the phone was full browser ability(html). You should see Jesuscreed.org on it. Wow. I admit being a blackberry addict and that the transition is less than seamless, and there are some things I will be sacrificing, like one button speed dialing (which I love) and IM capability, used mostly for connecting to my 13 year old daughter. But the elegance and look are tough to compete with and having mail, ipod (for podcasts and lectures as well as music) in addition to phone (which is great so far)… I have to say I am a fan.

If we can make laws that permit us to keep telemarketers from calling us, can we not also make laws that keep spammers from loading up our e-mailboxes?
We can make laws — in fact, at least one’s been submitted in the past — but they’re largely unenforceable, which is what the past one(s) died. The problem is that spammers, unlike telemarketers, can very easily be from the other side of the planet. It is also very easy to change email addresses — you can even change IPs if you really want to. So anti-spam laws are not going to be very effective.

Scot,
Thanks for highlighting “Santiago’s Cross” over at Jesus the Radical Pastor. Did you see that Lukas responded?

One small step to kill spam email.

Thanks Scot for the kind words and for the link to my blog. Over time, I have gained new blogging friends, many of which regularly come to your blog.

Kris,
As an Apple geek, and Cingular/ATT former employee (just resigned couple weeks ago) I would suggest waiting.
Couple reasons:
The internet is much slower. The device is not 3G. Breaking that down into real terms – the network that the phone uses to connect to the internet via cell network is outdated. You can get a phone for basically free that connects 3x faster (operating on UMTS rather than EDGE). If you’re going to spend $600 on a phone why would you want outdated technology?
I’ve been burned by 1st generation Apple products. I can almost guarantee that a new version will be launched by Christmas with a larger hard drive, faster internet, etc.
I love Apple products and will probably get an iPhone – combination video iPod, email, internet, phone – what more could you want? But, experience says wait.

I have a Motorola Q – a “Smartphone” that runs Microsoft Windows Mobile. The internet is very fast. It updates my emails all the time. It has a great screen. It has a very good qwerty keyboard.
When I saw the ads for the iPhone, I thought, “Hmmm. I just got this Q for free with my re-upping with Verizon. That iPhone costs $600. I don’t get it.”