My 18 hours without an iPhone

The 18 hours I spent without my iPhone over the weekend were some of the most annoying in my Gen Y life.

My dear TARDIS (named after the method of transport used by The Doctor) iPhone 3GS dropped to the ground on a quiet street in Stanmore on Saturday, and refused to turn back on. I was on my way to a friend's house and my first instinct was to text or tweet him that I would be delayed. No can do.

After grieving for a moment and resolving that phone wasn't going to work for me, I went to my friend's house. Later that night when I went to catch a train, I thought I'd check the train times. But no TripView app. How would I know how long I would have to wait unless I wandered over to the station?

I decided to get a cab, before remembering that I didn't know how much money I had in my account. Normally I would check by logging into my online banking account through my bank's app but that was a no go and there was no ATM nearby, so I took a chance. Thankfully I was alright.

Back in front of my computer at home, and with an internet connection, the first way I let most of my friends and family know that I was utterly phoneless was through social media. I announced the death of TARDIS on Twitter and Facebook and encouraged people to get in contact with me that way. Considering I have no home phone, getting in touch with me would have been difficult otherwise.

There was no alarm to wake me up the next day for my trip to the gym. I normally book my gym classes through the Virgin Active app, I couldn't do that either.

Despite these hurdles, by mid-morning I was almost used to not having the phone. The disconnect from having mobile broadband at my fingertips everywhere I went was almost a calming experience. Until I had to visit a friend.

For the first time in a year, I had to write an address down because I didn't have Google Maps on hand to check whether I was going to the right place. That was the point I realised my dependency on the device was far greater than I could cope with.

Thankfully said friend loaned me his old iPhone 3GS, so the experience was relatively short lived, and thanks to backing up my iPhone in iTunes, TARDIS is reborn — sort of.

I now have a 10 to 12 business day wait until Optus' insurance company can let me know if they can resurrect TARDIS or if it will be replaced with a shiny new iPhone 4.

I'm aware this would all fall under the hashtag of "firstworldproblems" on Twitter but considering I've only been a smartphone user for just over 12 months, my dependency on this technology is relatively frightening to me. Telstra CTO Dr Hugh Bradlow is right, smartphones will eventually replace my keys and wallet, I just hope future smartphones are more resilient to being dropped by their clumsy owners.