iPhone – Something for Everyone
iPhone for everyone
The Apple iPhone is amazing as a piece of technology but what is even more amazing is the way it has captured the public imagination. Despite its relatively high pricepoint, it has been surprisingly popular among the lower income groups. This has been a major contribution to the more than 13 million units that have been sold already.
The iPhone comes with a whole bunch of neat features, although it is not without it’s detractors. People point to its low resolution camera and lack of video capture and MMS messaging. But it has enough going for it to sell like gangbusters. And you don’t have to live with it as it comes ‘out of the box’.
Download heaven
There are an almost limitless number of ways to expand your enjoyment of your iPhone. And not just the music, videos and ringtones available from iTunes. Perhaps more remarkable than the success of the phone itself, is the Apple AppStore. Within a few short months it has become the biggest single download site in the world. And like the ringtone kings of the past, iPhone App developers are already on their way to becoming millionaires.
Your virtual life
Perhaps Apple are ahead of the game here. Have they hit on what we didn’t know we were searching for? Web 2.0 sites like Facebook and YouTube show no sign of losing their popularity. Most of us have some kind of virtual presence. The iPhone 3g has taken internet access on a phone to a whole new level. But where it really scores, with the help of the AppStore, is to let keep in touch with our online communities wherever we are.
The killer apps, the real big sellers, are the ones that make it easy to tweet on Twitter, make a date with your friends on Facebook or post to your blog, all while you are on the move. Your online community is wherever your iPhone is.
Cell Phone Etiquette
In the eighties when cell phones arrived, they were at first, just status symbols for thrusting entrepreneurs. The Gordon Gecko, ‘greed is good’ generation. Now, they have become common through all levels of society. I wonder where the etiquette for using them originated. Somewhere along the way, what is consider polite behaviour seems to have changed.
It seems to me now that the cell phone is king. If you are in a face to face conversation and your phone rings, you must answer it immediately. There is no need to apologize to the person you are with. Whoever is on the end of the phone must be more important. And having taken the call, there are two ways to go.
One is to totally ignore your flesh and blood companion until you have finished the call. The second, possibly worse, is to try to include them in the conversation with strange mimes and facial contortions to convey what is going on. When the call is over, you don’t tell them who it was or what it was about. They might not even know the caller. It’s as if this performance makes it OK to have blanked them in the first place.
The opposite applies too. In the past, if you went to talk to someone and saw that they were on the phone, you would wait until they had finished or come back later. But the cell phone generation seems to think that it is OK to walk up and just start talking. The availability of instant, always on communication means that nobody wants to wait anymore.
One example of this is driving. Although, in the UK, it is now illegal to use a handset while driving, it is still a very common sight. It has been proven to be a major distraction and a cause of accidents. What gives these people the right to put the lives of others in danger? It’s not as if the calls are important most of the time.
There doesn’t seem to be any filtering process anymore. One cell phone company even used this in their advertising. The message was, if you think it, text it. Whatever little thought passes through your head, put it out there. You bought a hot dog. Let everybody know! Communication is a good thing, but is this communication?