With a modest wave of his hand, Steve Jobs ended the current mobile phone wars by unveiling the iPhone.
Mobile phone, wide screen video iPod with touch-screen controls, mobile Internet, 2.0 megapixel camera, you have to admit that it’s pretty damn cool. Its unquestionable dominance in the world of really expensive toys aside, there are a few problems with Job’s latest alteration to pop culture that I would like to address here.
I’ll leave the technical and functionality issues (5-hour battery life, only 4 or 8 gig models) alone and discuss the social and ideological issues instead. Now I am not na’ve enough to believe that this will be the last fancy phone to hit the market that makes techies and trendsetters alike drool with desire but the iPhone is absolutely the first of its kind.
It brings the true all-in-one device out of the socially awkward, heavily-breathing heads of concept artists and into reality. The problems I see with this will be fully realized the first time you get buggy reception or run out of battery in the middle of downloading porn videos from the Internet, listening to Sufjan Stevens, and talking to your mom at the same time. Like I said, I’m not attacking the tech level of the first generation runs of the iPhone’s – 5-hour battery life is respectable for everything that it does. What I’m attacking here is the existence of the iPhone at all. Whenever you bring fantasy to reality, it leaves you disappointed.
You actually land a date with the girl you’ve been dreaming about for years just to find out that she loves the Backstreet Boys, is the proud owner of some deep-seeded emotional problems, and thinks that the vice president of our country is Bill Gates. You get the genie of the lamp and it really is Robin Williams and he won’t shut up long enough for you to make wishes.
The coolest (and only) phone/mp3 player/palmtop computer to ever come out and it’s slightly too big to fit comfortably in your pocket but you keep it there anyway because it was so expensive you never want it more than three inches from your body.
You can’t text all of your friends for free anymore because you had to switch service providers to get it. The touch screen controls magically keep calling your friends so that you leave them 17-minute long messages of the ambient noises from your pocket. It’s great, and the best phone you’ve ever owned. And you’ll say that when asked because you really don’t want to look stupid for buying it.
So way to go Mr. Jobs, you’ve killed a dream the surest way possible: realizing it.