Last week, I got a new toy… um, I mean, vital piece of equipment. An iPhone. More specifically, the iPhone 4 for Verizon. I spent that day personalizing it and finding as many free (or nearly-free) apps that could be of use.

First, I got a calendar that color-coded and would show me my schedule for both the day and the week: miCal, “the missing calendar”. So far, it’s been incredibly useful, easy to use, and nice on the eyes. It was totally worth the $1.99 to be able to see my whole week with color.

miCal

Next, I got something to log miles driven to, from, and between students. It took a lot of reading-up on apps before I found the one for me. Trip Cubby was a little expensive, but it does a lot. It saves frequent trips for ease of input, links trips to contacts, categorizes trips, I don’t have to input all data, I can put in miles or the odometer reading, and new trips start with the odometer reading from the previous trip. It’s easy and fast and I find myself actually willing to take the time to do it. Plus, it shows the sum of the “reimbursement,” which adds up fast at 50¢ per mile when over 80% of my students are in the Bethesda/Silver Spring/Potomac area, over 20 miles away.

Trip Cubby

I also found a 99¢ graphing calculator that looks a lot like the TI-83+, the graphing calculator most students and schools use. It’s called the RK-83 Scientific Graphing Calculator. It’s certainly a great alternative in case I have an emergency need for a graphing calculator, a last-minute student and I’m for some reason without my pink TI-84+ SI, or it runs out of batteries.

RK-83 Scientific Graphing Calculator

There’s a really cool free app called Graphbook that shows beautiful recolor-able mathematical pictures of fractals, such as the Julia set, topological items, such as a trefoil knots and shells, and other 2D and 3D graphical items.

Graphbook

I also picked up the free app Genius Scan, which turns pictures of documents into scans in .jpg or .pdf format. It even corrects for perspective. This will be very useful for student work and worksheets on the go, as well as borrowing the occasional recipe from a friend.

Genius Scan

But I also have to look like a professional math geek. The right wallpapers (background) and ringtones will go a long way towards that. The free Retina Wallpapers HD app had a wonderful filter that helped me find a chalkboard-type background for the home screen and a blue-and-yellow Mandelbrot set (fractal) for the lock screen.

wallpapers

The free Ringtone Maker app let me take up to 30 seconds of my favorite mathy songs from online downloads of Sesame Street and Maththeatre. Most of my notification tones for e-mail, Facebook, and texts are marimba-type sounds. They’re professional, with warm tones, yet they’re staccato and have a range of sounds, and I was a percussionist once-upon-a-time. But, right now, my ringtone is the end of Maththeatre‘s “L’Hopital,” from their extremely enjoyable debut album “Calculus: The Musical!” and is to the tune of Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart”:

“Once upon a time I had trouble with math,
but now they all think that I am smart.
There’s nothing I can’t do,
I have Calculus in the heart.

“Once upon a time I was crying all night
but now I do my math in the dark.
There’s nothing I can say,
I have Calculus in the heart.”

I have to say, I love Matheatre!

Because of the size and the amount of space I’m using for audiobooks, I’m not using either the Kindle or iBooks app yet, but I have downloaded the Kindle app. We’ll see what happens over time. I also download the free apps for Amazon.com (to look up books), Audible.com (to download audio books), Facebook (to stay in contact with friends and family while staying up on some students’ lives, in case something might affect their mood for learning), and WeightWatchers (for the “well-rounded” tutor on the go).

other apps

Did I say “new toy”? I meant new phone. For business. Boring, boring, boring…

Okay, that’s the longest I can pretend disinterest. I’m getting a new techie-toy to carry around with me everywhere and use all the time! It’ll be AWESOME!

Today is the first day Verizon will let me get a new phone for the reduced renewed-contract price. But I had a dilemma: iPhone or Android? And which?

The most important constraint is time: I can’t wait 4-5 months to get a new phone. My BlackBerry is failing me every day – store reps and BlackBerry aficionados are amazed it lasted 19 months before it started to go wonky.

So, if I were to get an iPhone, it would be the Verizon iPhone 4. If I were to get an Android phone, it would be the HTC Thunderbolt, which is Verizon’s first 4G LTE phone (and I live and work in a 4G zone).

HTC ThunderBolt 4G-LTE and Apple iPhone 4

Since the iPhone is so very easily-used-by-the-common-person, frighteningly not unlike the iMac, it didn’t seem like the thing for a true geek to have. So I obsessed about whether to get the Thunderbolt over other models and then agonized over the ever-changing arrival date.

Then my iPod died. I have a purple iPod nano I use for the gym and travel and by my bed, but my lovely, large, iPod classic from 2005  stays in my car, recharging off the battery as I drive, playing lovely music and road-rage-deflating audiobooks. Every time I use my nano in my car, it somehow gets lost between my living room and my car. Last time, I found it in a winter boot. A new iPod classic is $249. Can’t afford that right now. Can’t even rationalize paying $125 for a refurbished, outdated iPod classic. <Sigh> But a cell phone, I’ll keep my hand on.

So I checked out the specs and comparisons of the iPhone 4 vs. HTC Thunderbolt, such as this graphic from skattertech:

Infographic: Droid Bionic vs. iPhone 4 vs. HTC Thunderbolt

I was still conflicted, so then I talked to my baby brother. My brilliant, techie, 24-year-old, baby brother who lives in LA, a software engineer in charge of the physics engine for a very popular war-type video game. In other words, the baby brother that is as authentic a techie as anybody could be. He has an iPhone. So I asked him and sent him the specs. His opinion was:

“I vote iPhone, especially if you want a music player and you want quick and easy. Processor speed doesn’t matter much because iOS is a lot faster than Android and more responsive. Removable battery doesn’t really matter either. You’ll get rid of the phone before then. iPhone app store spanks android as well”

Well, I didn’t expect that. Somehow I feel weird, passing myself as a lover of technology, but getting the same phone as The Masses. A Droid will at least make me seem like I get the latest trends when I can and don’t fear customizability but embrace its open-source richness. My husbands loves his Droid X and has no desire for a phone more like his much-loved iPad.

Then again, I want versatility and the ability to tinker in my computer. In my phone, I want it to work efficiently and reliably as a phone, text-messager, e-mailer, and PDA. Apps and customizability should be optional and easy, and will certainly be used only in a limited manner.

And there you have it. I was turned to the iPhone. And I’m picking it up today. Let’s hope I can still maintain my Geek Cred.