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My Affair with Technology: Technophile Lust and the iPhone |
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Posted on Wednesday, 10 October 2007 by Danimal
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Last week Negin referenced the story of how I almost skipped my best
friend's wedding in order to buy the iPhone. This sounds like a joke
but it's actually embarrassingly true:
I think this is a question every young man faces at least once in his
life: Should I skip my best friend's wedding in order to wait in line
for an expensive piece of consumer electronics?
I have answered variations on this question in the past: Do I skip my
first love's wedding to go to a free Death Cab show? Yes. Do I skip
holidays with family in an attempt to bone exes and convince "friends
with boyfriends" to become "friends with benefits?" Every Thanksgiving
since I moved to New York. Do I feel guilty about it? Sorta kinda.
When faced with a moral quandary, I have almost always done the wrong
(i.e. socially unacceptable) thing.
It all started Monday June 11th 2007. All the neophiles, gadget freaks
and Mac obsessives are frothing at the mouth. It's the Apple World Wide
Developers Conference and the question on everyone's mind is "When are
we getting our iPhones?"
The keynote speech by Steve Jobs (the closest thing to an address from
the Pope for the Mac faithful) is slow and uneventful. We get One More
Thing. Apple's browser is now available for the PC. We snore. And then
we get One Last Thing: The iPhone will be available June 29th at 6pm.
The other iPhone news (lack of flash, lack of java, confirmation that
3rd generation wireless web will NOT be here) is disappointing and
underwhelming but we have finally gotten the date this we will get this
sexy little expected disappointment in our hot little hands.
I sit and ponder this after having skipped lunch to watch live blog
coverage of the event. As I am dutifully downloading Safari for my work
computer, it occurs to me that I will be on an island off the coast of
Seattle at my friend's rehearsal dinner when the iPhone launches .
There isn't cell phone reception there, much less cell phone stores.
I immediately IM a close friend about my predicament. What should I do?
Should I arrive late, missing the dinner but securing the phone? Or
should I finally stand up for a friend and deny my intense, burning
technophile lust?
My friend points out that I have spent the last hour and a half
complaining about how Apple has become more of marketing machine than a
tech company, the way the Intel transition has made obvious how
painfully slow their development is, and the many failings of the phone
outlined above. I type "But come on, it's the iPHONE!!!"
I proceed to IM another friend who usually supports me in my desire to
purchase the newest and shiniest electronics. He says "Could your
wedding date wait in line and buy one for you? " The thought has
occurred to me, but I feel like it would be wrong to ask my date to
take a ferry to the wedding late in order to be the first to have a toy
I don't need and can't afford.
As the last two weeks passed more and more (mostly bad) details
appeared. Then we learned the battery life and screen were better than
originally announced. Some reports surface that the onscreen keyboard
sucks and you can't use songs as ringtones. Than we learn the data
plans were incredibly cheap.
Somewhere in the middle of this, I decided I just didn't care. My Treo
is genius. I can write blog entries on it, check my email, and take
phone calls. I've dropped it a thousand times and it keeps on ticking.
And most of all, it doesn't make me feel guilty for being a bad friend.
The second the wedding's over though, I was going to skip out on the
reception and find an internet connection, even if I had to swim to the
mainland. How else would I read the first user reviews that are rolling
in?
My resolve to not buy it lasted a whole two weeks. I'm like a junky and
Apple was more than happy to give me my unhealthy fix... and my
unhealthy fix of www.nerdcorerising.com, 24 hours a day. With it, I can
request the greatest geek jerk-off documentary of all time while
hanging out in any zip code, just by putting in my zip code... come on,
I'm on team Nerdcore Rising! If I'm not plugging the film I'm not doing
my duty.
Tags: iPhone
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A Negin Farsad Film/A Vaguely Qualified Production
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