Friday, June 26, 2009

geeking out

When Mike and I first got married, we had a rotary phone. In fact, I still have it on my nightstand. I figure if someone sneaks into the room at night and Plan A (chunks of lead traveling at high speed) fails, I could always resort to Plan B - beating the intruder to death with all of its retro avocado green glory. I'm sure it wouldn't be first time "bludgeoned by rotary" was listed on a death certificate.

Since that time, we've moved into the 21st (okay, maybe just the 20th) century and gotten ourselves some cordless phones and even a pair of very basic pay-as-you-go cell phones. Even though I'm much more into techy gadgets than Mike is, I'm also pretty asocial - we never really called anyone but each other, so it worked out.

And then I met an iPhone. When I discovered what this small device could do - it was like a miracle to me. It can take photos and play videos and music and can instantly tell the weather and hold the entire works of Shakespeare and the United States Constitution (etc, etc, etc). Remarkable.

I've wanted one since that day - but the cost was always prohibitive, I figured it was a luxury I didn't really need. But technology advanced, as it always does, and Apple came out with a new improved version.

So I bought an old one. The entire internet, the whole world, in the palm of my hand.

18 comments:

Eric R. Shelton said...

Welcome to our cult! LOL.

Anonymous said...

Most definitely welcome to the cult! Enjoy it!

I think if I could go back in time and show my 12-year-old self an iPhone and all it can do, my head probably would have exploded with the coolness.

New Jovian Thunderbolt said...

You kids and your new fangled whiz bang gadgets

Alan said...

The iPhone is now the official phone of the Bredalucion.

Rob K said...

The iPhone is the fulfillment of all the science fiction stories that had ubiquitous personal portable computers. You can run a bash shell and you can ssh to other computers from it! I want one too, but I can't justify the expense of the service. I hardly use the cell phone I have!

Mike W. said...

She's got the whole world, in her hands she's got the whole wide world, in her hands...

I feel like an IPhone has too many needless gizmos for me. If they were cheap and all the cool services weren't extra I might buy one.

Rachel said...

I'm not so into the whole smartphone thing, partly because where I live data connections are very rare, and partly because of the expense, and partly because I haven't had the opportunity to use one and fall totally obsessively in love with it. Which I would, no doubt.

But that's not why I clicked Post A Comment. What I was going to say is that when I first started reading your post, I was SURE it was going to end with a link to this.

P.S. We still have an old-school rotary phone, but it's not plugged in. The oldest one we actually use is an old-school push-button one, with the loud jangly ring and everything. This is a telecommunication specialists' idea of irony, I think. Well, that and contrariness.

Rachel said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Rachel said...

GAH SPECIALIST'S. Changed my wording and didn't move my apostrophe. And now I am officially one of those annoying people who posts an additional comment to correct my own grammar. Better than correcting other people's...

Truthsayer said...

You know there's a shot timer app for the iPhone, right?

Old NFO said...

Ah, yes... the decline and fall of productivity has begun :-)

Alex said...

I SO thought you were going to tell us you had bought one of these: http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=287

I imagine they'd also work better as a weapon than an iPhone.

Anonymous said...

Bear in mind that an old corded phone will work when the power goes out and takes your cordless with it..

Jim

drjim said...

I bought my iPhone because I was tired of carrying both a cellphone AND a PDA around. I barely used either of them, but now I use my iPhone for 10x as much stuff as I used the other two devices.

JohnMXL said...

Reflectoscope beat me to it...I was going to tell you not to get rid of the rotary. Cordless phones are great but when the electricity fails so does the phone.

Besides...it also works well for Plan B, especially if it's Ma Bell-vintage. Say what you will about the phone company, but you can't say Ma Bell built lightweight phones!

Tirno said...

I've never been one to fall into the Mac cult.

But that iPhone is some good ju-ju, let me tell you.

I'm at the range last week, and a fellow member asks, "When are they going to set up the 600 yard range?" This is an important question, because they only do that a few times a year because it disables all the rest of the ranges.

So I whip out my iPhone, do a quick search, pull up the range web site and tell him, "That'll be next Sunday."

Right before that, I had pulled up the AeroWeather application, where I pulled up the TAF and METAR from the nearest airfield, which fortunately was an Air Force Base. From that present observation, I could tell that the rain deluge we were experiencing as I arrived at the range should be over in a few minutes. (Training as a USAF weather officer does help in that analysis. Your Mileage May Vary.) So I took my time setting up my target stands, and when I was done, the squall line had gone, and it was lovely shooting weather.

At work, my iPhone goes "boing" before my desktop mail client does, thanks to pairing the unit with the in-house Wi-Fi. That actually does help keep me on top of the work.

My wife and I picked up our units at the beginning of the year when our plans allowed for the upgrades. I haven't regretted it, much. I'll regret it less when an iPhone clone comes out, and drives the iPhone cost down through competition.

Let's call it what it is: a hand-sized PC with cell-phone capabilities. I'd go so far as to say that this kind of thing is the wave of the future: it'll replace wrist watches, cell phones, PDAs, rolodexes and business cards.

Well, it will, assuming that the economy doesn't crash down into 1970s level standards of living. Am I to be considered pessimistic that I foresee a standard of living for my children that dates from before I was borne?

Scooter said...

I was a skeptic, having been a long time Crackberry user. However, when I toyed with one at the ATT store I was amazed at how user friendly it was. Very handy.

At home though, I'm with John...I have a standard, push-button wired phone...'just in case.'

Borepatch said...

The new iPhone 3.0 software (in the latest iTunes) finally adds cut and paste. You'll be able to blog from it, too.

I don't think it easy to blog from, but now it's possible.