Top 10 Reasons To Own A T-Mobile G1

In other words, ten reasons I don’t own an iPhone (or the G1 is just as good).  And in no particular order, here they are:

10. It’s not AT&T.  Honestly, I don’t have a terrible grudge against them, but several people I am close to do.  My service provider happens to be T-Mobile as well.  Call me a shill.  Meh.

9. It has a physical keyboard.  I had a Blackberry as my last data phone.  Definitely spoiled by full qwerty access and the tactile response.

8. Applications that I write can easily be put on the phone, for free.  Last I checked, you have to pay out $99 USD and own a Mac.  Neither of which I had after buying the phone itself.  I still would like to own a Mac though.

7. My fairly content relationship with Google.  I enjoy most of the services that Google provides and having a device that is built to play well with my internet love affair is just dandy. (Yes, I refuse to capitalize the internet…take that!)

6. 3G.  Okay, my city doesn’t have it yet, but the end of the year is going to level the playing ground in most major US cities with our competitor.

5. Cross-platform development kit.  Maybe a little unfair to fill the list with dev arguments, but the fact is, you can develop for this phone on your choice of three major operating systems.  Thanks Java.

4. ShopSavvy.  I was a little pessimistic about this app after some bad luck with its lacking database, but it has grown tremendously since opening day.  I’m going to retire my other barcode scanning apps now.

3. Standardized USB communications port.  It looks a little wonky, but it works fine with a Mini-USB connector.  I know iPhones use that connector similar to the iPod, which I own, but I own far more Mini-USB cables, and I like being able to switch between all my other devices without carying a bunch of different cables.

2. ConnectBot.  It’s an SSH app that rocks the block.

1. I can find Uranus any time thanks to this stellar app called “SkyMap”

There are still several improvements that could be made to the G1, and maybe I’ll gird my loins up to write a top ten to counter this list.  I do admit that, as of today, I would buy maybe an iPod touch so that I could have that MachDice, die rolling, app currently available on the iPhone/iPod touch.