The iPhone in hyper drive
Tomorrow is the long-awaited release day for iPhones. I'm a bit interested myself although I'm not sure yet how I get out of my existing contract, but then again I'm a gadget freak. How many gadget freaks could there possibly be? 10,000 maybe across the country? So who is doing all of the hyping? Why would most people care about a phone?
After all, there is no feature on the iPhone that will fundamentally change a person's lifestyle, like getting a first Tivo, a Palm Pilot or an mp3 player would have. You would have to dig pretty deeply into the Maslovian hierarchy of needs to find out which itch the iPhone yen is scratching.
Does the iPhone cure cancer, attract women (or men) or provide a mobile bubble of peace and goodwill to mankind? Nope. It plays music and has a cool touch screen. The only way that an iPhone could get a geek laid would be for him to trade it to a knowledgeable hooker for services rendered.
This reminds me of the lunatic hypes surrounding pre-Vista Windows releases. Remember Windows 98 and how Microsoft had a big party across the country with people sleeping in the street in line so that they could get an early copy? What was that all about? I might do that for Led Zeppelin reunion tickets, but nothing less.
The iPhone will not add one day onto your life span, make your children into better people, increase the size of your body parts or get you onto American Idol. It is a gadget. In five years time, it will look as antiquated as five year old shoe-box-sized cell phones look now.
IT'S A PHONE, PEOPLE. GET A LIFE!
I'll buy one, of course.
Posted on June 28, 2007