Cursed Tongue: iPhones: The Next Terror of the Freeway

Posted by CursedTongue on January 10, 2007

The media is positively atwitter about the most anticipated invention since fire. It’s the latest, greatest thing since that artery-clogging, soft-in-the-fridge buttery spread that I put on my sliced bread and no reporter has even held it, let alone tested it.

The iPhone plays music, takes pictures, surfs the web, synchs e-mail, movies, photos and music with other computers, and picks up dry cleaning. Some say that this mythical bundle of silicone and wires encased in plastic will even make phone calls. Measuring in at a sickening half-inch thick, this anorexic driver distraction does it all with a touch-screen.

Showing off the prowess of the iPhone during the Macworld Expo, CEO Steve Jobs found the closest Starbucks and then called it, ordered 4,000 lattes and subsequently was hung up on (I’m assuming). Crank calling people in the food service industry is nothing humans couldn’t do before.

In reality the iPhone is not offering anything new to consumers in terms of features. There are already phones that are Personal Digital Assistants, which amount to handheld computers. And some of them even have touch-screens.

The second rule of hi-tech devices is that a device that does more than one thing will not do any of them very well. (The first rule being that if there is an absolute worst moment for a device to go on the fritz, that is precisely when it will fail.) The printer/scanner/fax machine on my shelf couldn’t fax its way out of a paper bag. The cameras on phones tend to be good enough to conclusively prove the existence of Bigfoot with every grainy photo. And once iPhone users find a Wi-Fi hot spot I think it’s highly probably that they will have hours of fun attempting to connect, as with similar wireless devices.

I haven’t renewed my cell phone service, because I would probably be talked into getting a new phone. At the moment I have an old-fashioned cell phone that is only a phone. I don’t want a camera/music player/
know-it-all smarty-pants in my purse. I want a phone that is just a phone.

So on that fateful day when my phone goes through the washing machine/slips into the toilet/falls under a bus all I will have lost is my address book. I will not have lost my music that I’m not supposed to have backup copies of, my movies that are likewise copyright protected in a preemptive strike to foil my evil plot to destroy electronic devices and still be able to recover my data. But the saddest loss will be the loss of whatever brilliant, smartass comments I’ve chosen to store on said device, which I forgot to back up, of course.

You might ask, then what’s the big deal with the iPhone? Apparently, in today’s electronics market, a gadget just hasn’t been made until Apple makes it. People are excited about the promise of intuitive design. They’re exited by Apple’s minimalist, little-black-dress approach to consumer electronics. Other such devices are so convoluted, complicated and just plain ill-conceived that technologically gifted people everywhere spent the holidays fixing them for various relatives so they could be usable. Ah, for the days when one could take something out of a box, pitch the instructions in the trash and use it.

Apple has built a reputation for building devices that are better than user-friendly. Anthropomorphized by the Teenage Love Puppy from Dodgeball, Apple’s Mac computers are supposedly ready to go out of the box, have software that doesn’t make users want to take courses at the Community College, and are less prone to problems that require a 50 minute conversation with a new best friend in Bangalore.

Despite the heralding the iPhone by choirs of angels, there are issues with the iPhone already. The first of which is that the iPhone will be exclusive to the Cingular network. (I can tell you from personal experience that the least number of dropped calls doesn’t mean no dropped calls. In fact, it doesn’t even mean only 20 dropped calls.)

And the name iPhone happens to be patented by Cisco Systems, for their VoIP phone, which is completely dejected, pockmarked and unloved compared to the Apple iPhone. Lastly, it doesn’t come with a flashing warning light users can slap onto the roof of their cars, to warn the others that they’re not paying attention to the road.

Predictably, Cisco is suing Apple over the usage of the name iPhone. I think Apple should take advice from the Teenage Love Puppy and “Dodge, duck, dip, dive and dodge.” the legal hoopla and change the name. With its ability to consume endless hours of time more constructively spent I propose renaming it the SlackBerry. Which, granted, opens a whole new can of legal worms, but wouldn’t the humor value be worth it?

- Sarah Letnes

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Tags: gadgets, humor, technology

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