Man but the hype for Apple’s new iPhone is getting feverish. There’s the obligatory package of articles in today’s L.A. Times, one examining how the costly device — if successful — might alter the course of history rivers time communications cellphones and the other giving tips on how to get your hands on one when they go on sale Friday.
My biking buddy Michael is my one real-world connection to the obsession. Last week he told me he’s been hoping and looking and praying to the technology gawds for this type of combo device for years and in true early-adopter fashion will most definitively and proudly be in the looooooong line at one of the area Apple stores with high designs for paying the $500-$600 required to secure version one point zero.
A fine and mostly sane fellow he’s well aware that barring its catastrophic failure in eight or nine months or so, the iPhone’s second incarnation will debut with greater storage and a lesser price, but he’s waited far too long to wait anymore. Besides, he can afford not to.
Even if I had the money burning an iHole in my pocket (or the lack of conscience that would allow me to pay via plastic), I won’t do it. I doubt if I’ll go there even when v2.0 drops. Maybe, just maaaaaybe, I’ll order one of the second generation that’s been deeply discounted just as the third are being released.
That’s how I’ve rolled in the past. I’m one of those let-’em-work-the-kinks-out bastards Apple is forced to begrudgingly accept but you know behind closed doors up in Cupertino Steve Jobs thinks I’m part of the muzzafuzzin’ problem, not the solution. Practically every Mac item I’ve ever bought has been done so with patience. My current Mac desktop I bought a little more than a year ago just as the new ones with the Intel chips came out and only then because my five-year-old eMac started sad-Mac’ing me with far too much regularity. My first iPod was a price-slashed first-gen model. In fact, the only Apple item I bought fresh off the assembly line was my current iPod shuffle in large part because I could readily stomach the undie-hundie pricetag.
But even more than the money required for the iPhone, the main reason I’d abstain is that unlike Michael I haven’t been waiting for years for such a device. My cell usage is pretty much relegated to a random text message to Twitter, uploading the rare phonecam snapshot to Flickr, the occasional “where you at” call to/from a biking buddy, or perhaps an inbound contact from a prospective employer. That is correct: I have no life. And I think even if I did have one I wouldn’t even begin to exploit the iPhone’s capabilities. Let’s put it this way; whenever I see ads for mobile devices that tout their capabilites as MP3 players (silly “Music Hunter” anyone?) my thoughts run along the lines of “Why the hell would I want to drain my phone’s power down playing the new [insert stupid band name here] song.
Having said all that, whenever it is the next time I see Michael with his new iPhone I will have to keep my mouth shut as he shows it off so as to best prevent myself from drooling all over it.