7:30AM: I open half an eye-lid, snooze the alarm and grab my iPhone. As I sit up in bed, my fingers are automatically unlocking the phone; searching for new mail…YES…my day has begun!!

I answer some email as I brush my teeth (pardon the typos in my early morning emails, please).

8:30AM: Listening to radio and catching up on news as I try to decide what to wear to work. (Casual dressing at work makes it harder, not easier, people!! Too much choice and there goes another 20 minutes. )

I make a few calls as I drive to work and if there is not much traffic I get to quickly play a hand or two of poker.

10:00AM: In a meeting, taking notes. This keypad is awesome, but I have to concede…I’m still not completely over using a pen and paper.

12:00PM: Text my lunch order, eat a slice of cheesecake as I wait for it to get delivered.

Cut to 7:00PM: Heading home, I have the phone pick me a nice restaurant to pick -up dinner first.

8:00PM: Hit the gym, my phone’s my iPod too.

10:00PM: Oh, nothing special, just checking time as my phone is my watch too.

12:00AM: Finish organizing to-do list for the next day, tuck in the phone and ready to sleep.

I guess you get the idea. I use my phone as a GPS, news/weather channel, camera, grocery list, music player, night light, calculator, Interaction Client and hand heater (yes, there is an app for that). I use it for work, for entertainment, for keeping in touch and for the times when I want to be left alone.

It can be my personal phone and my work phone and it really helps me be a lot more organized in both arenas. I am a “phony”. I can’t do without it.

I am waiting for the day when my phone will also be a credit card and a room freshener.

What about you? Are you like me and can’t live without your blackberry or iPhone or other multimedia phone? Have you ever patted your phone? Talked to it? Named it yet?

Or are you like some of my friends who think I’m going to soon die of brain cancer from too much phone usage, and who just use their phones to do what God meant it to do: make phone calls.

“Unified Communication” is not just for businesses, and it is not just a keyword for the VoIP world. It is a mantra that is gaining momentum in every walk of life and is revolutionizing the way we interact with the world we live in. The latest and greatest multimedia phones are proving that.

So when someone asks me: “If you were stranded on an island and you could just have one thing, what would it be?”, my answer is:

Brad Pitt, of course! But if I got to take a second thing, I’d take my iPhone with me.


Ritu Maheshwari.