Today, plus or minus a couple of days, is my ninetieth day with the iPhone. How’s it going? Swimmingly. No, better than swimmingly – wonderfully. No, better than wonderfully – tremendously. No, better than tremendously – amazingly. No, better than amazingly – stupendously.

Can you tell I like it? Let me count the ways.

It’s rugged. I’ve held off buying a case for it, still looking for the right one. When I’m on the road at my “real job” (airline pilot), I generally carry it in an outer pocket of my laptop bag, or sometimes in my trouser pocket amidst small change (my airline pilot salary these days). The touch screen, made of glass, has remained unblemished. The back of the case, part anodized aluminum, part plastic, has a few tiny marks on it, but you have to look really hard to see them. The only area that appears to wear at all is the chrome bezel around the touch screen. A quick wipedown with my sleeve or shirttail and the glass touch screen is free of fingerprint smudges.

Coverage. My “real job”, as you can imagine, takes me from border to border and from sea to shining sea. I would rate the coverage, through AT&T, to be “very good”. I have encountered some local hills and dales where the signal has disappeared, but these same environs clobbered the Verizon signal on my old phone as well. AT&T’s “Edge” digital data network is basically everywhere, and is actually stronger and faster here in Mid-Coast Maine than in most big cities I’ve visited. Some have criticized Apple for using AT&T’s 2G network rather than a speedier 3G network. I’m happy with 2G, as 3G is not available yet in Maine, and would degrade the iPhone’s battery life considerably.

Plus, the iPhone loves WiFi. It’s always looking for it, and will tell you when there’s a signal it can use. If the WiFi is free, you can hop right on and surfing and email speeds jump dramatically.

Battery life. Excellent when using just the phone, or listening to music. However, battery life understandably decreases more rapidly when you’re watching movies or surfing the web on a WiFi connection. As I’ve only fully discharged my battery once, I have 199 more full discharges to go before the battery degrades to 80% capacity.

At one discharge every 90 days, my iPhone calculator tells me I have 17,910 days before that happens. Chances are I’ll have iPhone 2 by then.