I’ve been watching, only slightly enviously, as lots of my friends on the far side of the Atlantic Ocean get their Apple iPhones.
About two years ago I realised with something of a shock that my main requirement for a cellular telephone beyond the basic phonebook and call-making ability was that it fit comfortably in the breast pocket of my shirt. Up to that time I had incorrectly believed that it had something to do with advanced functionality and being a “smartphone”. Smartphones are large and unwieldy, over complicated, and full of compromises. They offer bad web browsing, poor tcp/ip performance, and have lousy user interfaces. In fact, they aren’t what I need.
I suppose that, over the years, I have experienced a fundamental shift in the way I perceive the importance of form vs function. In 1990 I would have claimed not to care about how something looked and felt – function was all. When it came to computers, the Unix command line was (and still is, a lot of the time) my natural home, and I went around with a sexy Psion Organiser II LZ 64 that was generally referred to as my “brain” (hello Jane, if you’re out there!). To complete the picture, you can imagine a bricklike cellphone attached to my belt somewhere in a bad imitation of Batman.
As time went by, and phones and PDAs allegedly converged, I tried to merge them but always ended up carrying two things around with me. In 2005, I gave up, abandoning smartphones for the smallest and cheapest phone model that matched my minimal functional requirements. I haven’t yet replaced the phone that I got on that occasion – it’s the longest I’ve ever had one.
So why do I suddenly want an iPhone?
As a geek, there’s a lot I like about Apple stuff. I like that OS X has Unix in it, I have loved both of the iPods I’ve ever had, and I like to feel that I am kicking back a little against the Microsoft hegemony. However, on consideration, I’d have to say that the main reason that I covet an iPhone is that I think they are just beautiful – both in terms of hardware and software. When I watched the video of Steve Jobs launching it at Macworld, I instantly wanted one.
I wonder what I’ll do if it fails the shirt pocket test.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
My neighbor in Austin has one, since the mic on my Treo 650 went last week I’ve been giving it serious consideration but have decided to go with a Blackberry Curve.
There are way too many restrictions with the iPhone and if you a hardcore phone user then within a year you’ll have to pay probably around £80 to send it back to have the battery replaced and when you get it back the contents will have been wiped, or more likely it will be your case, new/reconditioned/reprogrammed internals.
This along with the many other documented restrictions, such as no real keyboard and a desire to travel International and use more than one SIM, at least US and UK, rules it out for me.
There’s always a danger in buying something functional for aesthetic reasons. I have no doubt that actually having to part with the money will focus my mind somewhat, when they finally arrive in the UK.
Even if I don’t go ahead and buy one, I’ll still want one, though…