BoomTown is not proud of the problem.

Not at all.

But, after hearing the same situation described over and over again from many other parents like me, I am also not alone.

As it turns out, our almost-seven-year-old son, Louie, has morphed into an iJacker.

That would be of my iPhone, which I switched solely to recently after a longtime attachment to my BlackBerry.

That RIM (RIMM) mobile phone never turned into a CrackBerry for him, as Louie did not care much for its lovely keys for emailing that so captivated me.

But now he wants to grab my iPhone from my holster all the time, having become entranced by apps–lots and lots and lots of apps–that now litter the digital pages of my Apple (AAPL) device.

DizzyBeeFree and Super Monkey Ball. Touch Hockey and Paper Football. Finger Sprint and MoodPhone. Bounce On and Crazy Penguin Catapult. Lie Detector and Crazy Snowboard. Tic Tac Toe and Hangman. And iChess, iCheckers, iBowl.

Of course, there are also the bubble poppers and light sabers and more cowbells.

And, good lord, how did a “Race to Witch Mountain” app get on there?

So, I don’t need any stats to tell me that the iPhone, and the iPod touch too, have turned into gaming devices of great impact.

But there are stats, like yesterday’s from comScore (SCOR), showing that 12 out of the top 25 all-time iPhone apps are games. (See the chart below; click to make it larger.)

It’s easy to understand why. The ease of use, the small form factor, the great graphics in this mobile phone that is actually a powerful computer.

In fact, Louie hardly has any interest in the desktop computer anymore, or even a laptop. Although we limited his access to it, it’s moot, since he hardly ever uses it now that the iPhone is around.

Why? It is clear, most of all, that Louie loves the movement and the touch features, which turn the experience into a visceral one.

And, uh-oh–according to a post last week on the blog Blorge.com, “The industry patent watch reveals that Apple has filed patent applications that seek to patent certain user interface ideas for the iPhone, including the use of movement, vibration, and pleasure.”

Oh, this is not going to go well when Louie is a teenager.

Thus, aside from switching to a Microsoft (MSFT) Zune, what are our parenting tactics to stave off that day from coming sooner?

Well, obviously, as much as he might beg–and he does beg and wheedle and plead–Louie gets to use the iPhone sparingly, on short car trips mostly.

And he has to play not only the sillier games, but use ones like iChess or word games that require some brain power.

Lastly, Louie must be analog more than digital and playing inside and outside more than any of it.

There should be more rules, I know, but for now he seems just as riveted to baseball and kickball too, so I am not quite in the panic stage.

More the do-not-leave-the-iPhone-on-the-counter-if-I-ever-hope-to-see-it-again phase.

Louie’s almost-four-year-old brother, Alex, is less interested in games on the iPhone, as it turns out.

Instead, for him, the iPhone is a magical music video device on which I bring him old musical numbers.

Last night, it was “I Like to Be in America” from “West Side Story” and the night before, “Oh, What a Beautiful Morning” from “Oklahoma!”

He was as delighted and mesmerized, as I was when I first saw those classics on the television when I was a kid.

And, even seeing them on an iPhone, of that, I am proud.

But, to give you the full picture of the situation, here is a video interview I did of Louie in action with my hijacked iPhone (it is not pretty):

Hello, my name is BoomTown and I am a reformed CrackBerryaholic.

How bad was it? Here’s the worst story: I was holding my BlackBerry in my hand, inadvertently for once, when I gave birth to my son in 2002.

Long story short: I was emailing away throughout labor, suddenly had to have emergency surgery, was quickly drugged into paralysis and forgot it was gripped in my hand–all until the anesthesiologist looked at me like I was a freak.

I should have been embarrassed by that. I was not. Hence, that makes me a full-fledged Blackberry addict.

Actually, I was one.

Because over the weekend, while casting about for a good New Year’s resolution (Work less? Nope! Exercise more? Double nope!!), I impulsively decided to dump what is pathetically one of my more satisfying and reliable relationships ever for a questionable new one.

That’s right, I have finally abandoned the BlackBerry for the iPhone.

I have no idea what possessed me, but suddenly I had to change dramatically and change now. (I could blame the influence of fellow CrackBerry user President-Elect Barack Obama for that mood.)

So, I finally made the dreaded switcheroo from the devices made by the fine folks at Research In Motion (RIMM), which I have used since the first stubby little block of greyish plastic until the last stubby bigger block of reddish plastic.

To be honest, I have been flirting with the idea of leaving my longtime love for a while now.

Almost sneakily, I bought an iPhone from the get-go when it came out from Apple (AAPL) in June of 2007, because it was just too cool a device to pass up.

I was instantly delighted by the touchscreen swooshing and squinching, its breakthrough quality as a handheld media player, the Internet access that finally worked and the generally clever way of organizing contact and other information. I also liked the voicemail recording a lot.

Not so much the AT&T (T) cellular network, of course, but that was livable. What was not, as it was for a lot of people, was the poor email experience, specifically the virtual keyboard.

To say my entire life revolves around email and texting is to go overboard. But not by much. It is, in fact, the bane of my partner, who has learned to live with it grudgingly.

My obsession has even turned into mimicry by my other son, a three-year-old, who grabbed a small and rectangular block of wood recently and started tapping on it with his fingers, proudly declaring, “I’m Mama working!”

Oh dear. Like I said, I am pathetic in this regard (on the plus side, I don’t drink, do drugs or watch “Dancing with the Stars”).

But my issues with the dullish BlackBerry slowly mounted, from its too-small screen, to the substandard Internet experience to the limited ways to store emails to the overall clunkiness of it.

And when the apps came out for the iPhone, it got worse, since the ones on BlackBerry just are not as robust at all.

And with those apps, I now did not even have to really launch a browser and click away in frustration. Instead, I could largely rely on an increasingly interesting array of software that made my digital life a lot easier.

I am not including the iFart app in this group, of course, the kind of toddler programming that I had thought I had left behind when I started ignoring Facebook apps. Verdict: Eww.

In any case, my BlackBerry still had those lovely clickety-clack keys that have always been a joy to press and with which I could write a book in a very short time, I had become so adept at using them.

So, I had great hopes for the BlackBerry Storm, with a clicking-like virtual keyboard, as the solution to all my problems. Or so I thought.

When I first saw it, I knew this was not what I had been waiting for, which was underscored by Walt Mossberg’s review.

The weird push on the glass screen made me feel like it was going to break with every click. What I really wanted was the tactile feel of the keys and not the click feel.

The G1 smartphone from Google (GOOG), of course, offered a real keyboard and the big touchscreen. But it just looks and feels too much like–let’s be honest–a pair of clogs I once wore in seventh grade and have regretted ever since.

And, while there is a Palm device reportedly coming out this week with a touchscreen and a slip-down keyboard, I guess I have finally become tired of waiting for something that is perhaps not possible: A virtual keyboard that feels real.

Thus, I gave into the iPhone and learned to live with my all-thumbs typing.

And, as many have said, I am actually getting better at that. Not speedy, as I was with the BlackBerry, which–ironically–has caused me not to use the iPhone as obsessively and to put it down a lot more.

Except that, as soon as I do put it down, it is immediately picked up by my now six-year-old, the very person who had endured my incessant pregnant clicking.

As it turns out, he is obsessed with the many game apps I have downloaded for him onto the iPhone–currently “Crazy Penguin Catapult.” (Verdict: Unusually fun.)

So much so that he sneaked into my bedroom yesterday morning and spirited my iPhone away for a session while I slept late.

What can I say? Like mother, like son.

In this regard, let’s hope not.

[Photo credit: Cool, but creepy BlackBerry Baby image is from All Media.]

Or, as the old retail cliche goes: Stack them high and watch them fly.

The bid to bring the groundbreaking smartphone to the masses is a good thing, of course, in order to move its influence well beyond the early-adopter crowd and generally elite market that it has been most popular in.

I was one of those customers, of course, buying an iPhone almost as soon as it was available.

But, from reports, even though the 2.0 version is obviously better (although I have yet to see one), I will not be doing that again when the new iPhone 3G (pictured here) comes out in a few weeks.

Why not?

No, it is not because AT&T’s (T) network is so weak–as it has been for me–because I am already locked into a two-year contract anyway from my first iPhone.

No, it is not because I am cheap either–I will buy any gadget that shows up on my doorstep.

No, it is not because I don’t admire the iPhone for many of its qualities, such as its spectacular touchscreen, Web and multimedia experience (although a better camera would be nice).

It’s actually because of the same rap everyone has made on the first iPhone–the virtual keyboard that I still find irksome to use, which makes my email and texting experience completely frustrating.

Add to that the continued lack of a cut-and-paste function–it makes the decision not to upgrade an easy one.

On the other hand, I will be first in line to decide on which of the next versions of the RIM (RIMM) BlackBerry I will happily overpay for.

That would either be the BlackBerry Bold (pictured here), a tasty-looking upgrade to the traditional one with better everything (screen, multimedia, connection).

This is an easy yes for me, because I have been a fan of the BlackBerry from its block-of-soap format to now, largely due to its huge usefulness as a communications device.

True story of my obsession: I was clicking away and sending updates, right up until the drugs kicked in as I was wheeled into the delivery room when I was having my son.

I know, I know! I am a freak.

But the thing is exceedingly useful to me and has been, as I often joke, one of the most reliable relationships of my life.

That’s why I am a bit wary of the second possible BlackBerry choice–its iPhone-copycat called the Thunder.

Despite my so-so-experience with the iPhone, I do love its touchscreen technology, a feature I miss with my standard-issue BlackBerry.

So, that will obviously be the most attractive part of the Thunder to me.

My great hope, of course, will be that it will have more than a virtual keyboard, but one with real keys to click.

Because the lack of one is a nonstarter for me, which is exactly why my iPhone 1.0 has become a glorified and much more expensive iPod Touch for me.

(By the way, here’s a post on Walt Mossberg’s first impressions of the iPhone 3G and here’s a Voices piece by Dan Gillmor, who is also dubious about getting one.)