If you have been living under the largest rock on the planet, you may have missed the big PR machine that is the iphone campaign. Now, back in January, I was a giddy little school-girl over this thing. But that was back when I still spent unhealthy amounts of time in airports and having all that portability in one unit seemed like a good idea.
Well it's been a few months. My days of constant moving around are behind me, the prospect of plunking down 600 quid for a phone isn't so neat, and the hype is getting a little...umm...retarded?
Look I get it, you've combined all sorts of gadgetry into a "single sleek unit" that provides all sorts of solutions to problems I didn't know I had. Yeah, I was really hard up for a unit that let me watch full length movies and sync up with my email. I had a Treo for awhile, and never got into half the features of that thing any-damn-ways. The big iphone proponents (which are typically the people who think everything apple does is the greatest) are saying this unit's intuitive interface makes everything so much more accessible than units that may have required the user to dig in. That is essentially what made the ipod such a success.
Well what may be right for some may not be right for me. I know for a fact at least 5 of my friends will be lined up @ the Apple store on Friday because the geekfactor in my clique is quite high (although it bears mentioning many of them couldn't give a flying fuck about this or anything apple is pedaling...I'm looking at you Roly).
The other big factor for me on this is that the preliminary reports are already saying this thing has issues with the screen. Either its too sensitive or not sensitive enough depending on who's reviewing it. Then when they do use it, the video playback on the web browser is woefully inadequate to get any real stream out of it. Those all scream to me to be bugs that will get fixed when the next gen comes out. So I think I'll actually consider buying this when the initial testers (see: uber-nerds) get done finding new and unique ways to install World of Warcraft and Second Life on it, or whatever the fuck people with the disposable income to buy such a thing do with it. And even that purchase decision will require me to actually require the needs for such a device. I went through a phase where I lost 6 cell phones in under year (yes, they cancelled the insurance on me) and the screen on my digital camera cracked. The prospect of buying a device that is capable of both of those things happening in "one portable sleek unit" isn't all that appealing.
You gotta hand it to Apple though, they've cornered the market on being "edgy and cool" by basically taking pre-existing technology and making it retard-proof (cos you know, who else besides a borderline retard can't get by unless they have visual voicemail). Boy, that says somethin about the edgy and cool Apple gang doesn't it?
EDIT: Shit, I got so wrapped up in what annoys me about the iphone I forgot the point to this rant.
PREDICTION: Apple will sell a shitload of these out of the gate to geeks who have 600 bucks to blow because this thing is absolutely useless to business l33t (people like my dad who travel around the world and need international connectivity, not that AT&T monopoly bullshit). Then Apple will either scramble to release a next gen or dramatically drop prices. To summarize, Friday isn't a good time to buy if you have 600 dollars burning a hole in your pocket.