I was an early adaptor of the iPhone. Yes, I was one of the strange people who waited in line for the phone on the day that it came out and now I have upgraded to the iPhone 3G. In the past I have own Windows Mobile devices and Blackberries, but the iPhone with the open development platform and tons of add-ons in the iPhone App Store make this device a powerful tool.

All of the recent phones I have used were intended to help with my work. The Windows Mobile device was nice in that it supported Remote Desktop and could maintain Windows servers in the case that I didn’t have access to a laptop, but was missing a good SSH client. My Blackberry had the best texting and email composition of any mobile device I have used and had a workable SSH client, but the Blackberry really lacked in the area of web browsing and Wifi.

In the past, I was a system administrator and a developer. I was most interested in having access to a shell and maybe VNC or Remote Desktop to maintain systems; today I do audio, video and lighting. Some of the same tools are used, along with some new applications. Over the next few posts, I plan to detail the application I use specifically for production as well some applications I would like to see.

The basic iPhone without the additional applications is a powerful tool to the tech producer by itself, but even more so if you are a existing mac user. The iPhone handles all of the basics you would expect for general organization and communication. It is easy to check email, text and review your calendar. Most of the common attachment types are viewable as well.

With the iPhone also being an iPod, you have access to play music at events. I keep a few playlists on the phone that fit a few types of background music needed for the standard events we do. I have found it best to put the iPhone into airplane mode if you want uninterrupted music playback during an event. Don’t forget that you can also keep podcasts on hand at all times to help you keep up with what is going on in tech. Don’t forget to include devotional and sermon podcasts to keep you spiritually fed.

The inclusion of Safari makes browsing documentation and research easy even if you are in the catwalk or on a lift. I also find the built-in camera handy for quick documentation without typing. I can take a picture of a label on a product to have easy access to a serial number or model for future research or documentation.

I do hope that Apple plans on adding “To Do” list functionality in the future that syncs with Mail and iCal, but there are a few third party applications that can be of use in this area until Apple decides to add this functionality. I used the phone without applications as a powerful tool for the first six months until the App store was released which just put it over the top.