Deadly sin alert

My brother just got an iPhone. That bitch.

He and everyone who has basked in its warm glow so far, including Mrs. Johann, say it’s da shit. Even Mrs. My Brother, who is about as interested in technology as I am in her hobby of keeping current on celebrities and their foibles and who they’re screwing and who they’ve screwed over and what they wore to the Award Show of the Week, etc., is impressed with it. (No offense, Mrs. M.B., I occasionally look at People magazine as well- I just don’t actually read it! ) I admit, I am chomping at the bit to play around with the iPhone and see what it does and how well it does it. If it’s anywhere as tits as I hear it is, I’m sure I will have a hard time controlling my drooling. I hope I don’t short it out- my brother’s only had it over the weekend.

My only thing, though: is it really worth the $500 friggin’ bucks?

I mean, I know it plays your iTunes music at will, and I imagine you can assign full-length iTunes songs as individual ringtones (if not, then what’s the point of the iTunes interface?!). I know you can read and send email. I know you can send text messages and IMs using an actual QWERTY touch keyboard, as opposed to the tap-tap-tap phone keypad method my prehistoric “piece of shit” RAZR uses. I know you can surf the web ad nauseum. I imagine that will be useful to locate a nearby eye doctor after you’ve gone blind from trying to read websites on a 3.5-inch screen. I think you can even use it as a telephone.

I know, I know. That’s just what I’ve heard.

Only thing is, now that it’s been released, it’s already about 3-1/2 months away from total obsolescence. Technology improves so fast nowadays that it’s almost exhausting (and certainly expensive) trying to stay “current”. The next batch of iPhones will probably have GPS, voice recognition so only you (or someone who does a dead-on impersonation of you) can use it; hell, soon there will probably be special VR glasses that display the screen “off in the distance” so you can just sit and surf in a pool of your own feces for the life of the battery. But even now, with Bluetooth technology, we’re quickly becoming a society of zombies wandering around talking to themselves.

SIDE RANT: I hate those freakin’ Bluetooth headsets. People wander around offices, grocery stores, malls, wherever, “talking to themselves”. You almost want to call the local constable in fear until you finally spy that little gizmo embedded in their skull. At least in the “old days” (about a year and a half ago), you could usually at least see the cord running down to their shirt pocket or their belt. Now you don’t know whether they’re tech-yuppies or sociopaths. I mean, if you encounter one of these people and have the unmitigated gall to say “excuse me?” because you think they might, heaven forbid, be talking to you, then you’re the dick for popping the bubble in which they exist. Bottom line, either put the call on speaker and let everyone hear your entire conversation or else hold the damn phone to your ear, so people know you’re just rude instead of psychotic.

Anyway, back to the iPhone specifically. My other big problem with it is that I’ve dropped my RAZR several times. I’m clumsy. But at least it’s somewhat durable- it still works, knock on particle board. The iPhone is an expensive little box of software. Drop it once and I have the feeling you’ve just bought a $500 paperweight.

Once I finally get to play with the iPhone and am allowed to sport a full-on chubby for all it does, I’m sure I’ll “want” one. But I just don’t see myself dropping half a grand or more for one. Hell, I’m still waiting for PlayStation 3’s to drop from their anal-probing initial price. If they don’t, then I guess I’ll be playing my same PSX and PS2 games until they go the way of the Intellivision and the Commodore 64. Same as with the iPhone- if they don’t come down to a more reasonable price (or at least a price that I’d be willing to pay for a cell phone, anyway), I’ll just have to make do with my lame-ass RAZR, unless my entire family wants to chip in and buy me one for Christmas or my birthday. Not that that was a hint or anything.

In the mean time, my dear brother, I still want to come over and play with yours and wallow in my envy, very thinly veiled as “I don’t need one”.