After a couple of weeks of parenting in the books, one thing is clear to me: The iPhone is the most useful device computer inanimate object in my life. A few reasons why:

  • Taking, editing, and sharing impossibly-good-for-a-phone photos with Camera+
  • Posting photos online to share with friends and family in other states
  • Shooting HD video and posting straight to YouTube
  • Tracking questions for my pediatrician in Simplenote
  • Scanning and retrieving insurance and other reference information in Dropbox and Evernote
  • Keeping up with “parenting projects,” grocery lists, and errands in OmniFocus
  • Referencing books in my Kindle library
  • Playing Angry Birds at 3:30 am as a last resort to keep myself from falling asleep with a baby in my arms1
  • Recording key milestones and baby stats in Baby Connect2
  • Recording thoughts and doing light writing when being near a full keyboard for more than 10 minutes is impossible
  • Sharing photos straight from my iPhone to an Apple TV in a room full of people3
  • A battery that can handle everything I throw at it in a day

What? Seriously? People had kids before iPhones? Nah. Really? How?

  1. Am I the first to go on record with a practical use of Angry Birds? ↩

  2. If you’re the parent of a newborn and you own an iPhone, drop what you’re doing (not your baby) and go get this app right now. ↩

  3. iPhone + Apple TV is truly the 21st-century’s rendition of the coffee table photo album. Technology is truly getting out of the way. Thank you, Apple. ↩