iPhones, large animals, and why I might hate you
I can’t decide whether I have iPhone envy or am just so sick of hearing about them so often that if the “what I hear” part of my brain were a tag cloud, “iPhone” would be THE BIGGEST (I’d like to note that right now, Monday, December 14 at 12:45 a.m., is when I’ve officially started thinking in Internet).
This might just be at Mizzou, a quaint Midwestern college where seemingly everyone and their drug, sorry, adderall dealer has an iPhone. This is not a joke, people. If I’m in a classroom with 30 people and ask everyone to take out their cell phone, 15 will take out an iPhone. In a journalism class, that number increases to 28 out of 30.
I get it. You have an iPhone. Which are cool. Therefore, by the transitive property app (yes, there’s an app for that), you are uber-cool (and hip, cutting-edge, tech savvy, going to Heaven, etc). You have conversations with random people on the bus about the coolest app that measures your BAC. The professor asks a question in class, and you whip out your iPhone in it’s bedazzled pink case to furiously find the answer. If a moose farts in Canada, you know.
All of this pent-up iPhone hatred built up for years. If I wanted my parents to keep paying for most of my cell phone bill, I had to stay with Sprint (thanks for nothing, 3M). FINALLY, Sprint came out with the Palm Pre. I saved up money in my piggy bank, proudly marched into the Sprint Store when the Pre was released (by proudly marched I mean camped outside like the desperate tech-geek I am), and purchased my smartphone. Now I would know when a moose farts in Canada too, iPhone pricks. Eat your hearts out.
Guess what. A few months later, I STILL hate hearing about the iPhone every. single. freaking. day. It’s like an instruction in the iPhone manual is, “you must loudly talk about this product in a very populated location at least once per day, or you will no longer get moose fart notifications” (done with the moose farts, promise).
Don’t get me wrong, the Pre is pretty awesome. As are the Droid, and some of the Blackberry line. I’d love them all, but they just don’t exude coolness like an iPhone.
That’s why iPhone wins.
This smartphone competition isn’t about technology. It’s about brand positioning- and Apple is positioned as the premier moose fart notifier (I lied. “Moose fart” is really fun to type).
Am I being to cynical in this? Are you a non-iPhone, annoyed by these iPhone pricks thinking they’re better than us? Are you an iPhone, reading this post thinking, “omfg, I need to download the moose fart app!!!”?
photo credit: torres21
This reminds me of Maddox’s post about the iPhone when it first came out: http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=iphone
Haha I think you’ll enjoy that piece.
Ha! That’s awesome. Thanks for sharing.
I hear ya, bud! It’s frustrating! :/
At least you have a smartphone though! I totally have a “dumbphone” or, as I like to call it, “the poor-man’s blackberry” – a QWERTY phone with limited internet capabilities and NO apps.
Awesome. haha
It is interesting how we think that our phones make us cooler (or in my case, less cool) though!
Whoa. Dark ages. Your hatred probably runs deeper than mine, eh?
you have nooooo idea!
To this day, I have never understood why owning an apple product automatically makes you cool and tech savvy …is that part of the price on your receipt or something? I have friends who know nothing of the tech world,except for owning an iphone and swear they are kevin rose or steve jobs with their tech knowledge, when all they really know about is having 903258 apps for useless things- that doesn’t really count.
Last night, I went to the apple store at a local mall to buy my mom an ipod nano for christmas (from my dad, not from me- i’m not rollin’ that deep, haha) and everyone in the store as always, was crowding around everything in the store…while thinking they are cool by being there or something…I don’t get it. I’ve been a apple use for a few years now and sure , i love my macbook or ipod touch but i don’t see a reason to boast about them like some people do,haha. Now about the iphone, i don’t have one, i’m a happy verizon user, their service is fantastic, i’ve heard too many horror stories about at&t to switch, sorry iphone, but i won’t be a user anytime soon.
I seem to suffer from a debilitating case of iPhone envy. It probably stems from my insatiable desire to belong to some exclusive group. One where I can walk into a bar, see another iPhoner, and we can nod to each other because we know the earth shattering possibilities of the Beer Counter app. As we feverishly tap our intoxication counters we can huddle up -it doesn’t matter if don’t know each other, we’re iPhoners- and call upon the Amp Energy app to instruct us as to the best way of picking up the “artsy” girls at the table over. While all this prepping for our ground assault takes place, we can all liven the mood with melodies courtesy of the iFart app. It sounds so magical that Disney should buy the rights, throw a princess in it, and send it straight to DVD.
But in reality iPhone service is drastically overpriced. As a Sprinter (holy crap I thought I was the only one) I pay next to nothing for service on my ancient, mid 2007 camera-less Berry. To upgrade to my Disney fantasy would be an EXTRA $720 a year. For that price I can make almost any fantasy happen… in Vegas… twice. iPhone/ATT, I will pass. For now.
if there really is a moose fart app with push notifications i will die
there truly is an app for everything now
off to find the mythical moose fart app….
iPhones rule!
I read this from my iPhone….
7 new moose farts!
Ever since the first iPhone came out, I have been looking for the iPhone killer. I waited and waited for the right time to jump on the smart phone that was “like an iPhone”, but not the iPhone. I REFUSED to assimilate and become an iBorg. 2 years after the iPhone came out, Sprint (who was my carrier) brought the Samsung Instinct to compete directly with the first-gen iPhone. I fell in love with it right way, and I counted down the days for the phone to be released and stocked down at the Sprint store. But about a week or so before it came out, I discovered the LG-Vu, another iPhone alternative that seemed to be even cooler than the Instinct! Well, I thought I had hit paydirt with my “like an iPhone” LG-Vu. I would finally have a phone that was unique, way cool, and smart, but NOT an iPhone. You see, I’m a big PC guy. I built computers as a side business for 12 years, so I’m all about Microslop Winblows products. Wellanyhow, I got my LG-Vu and quickly discovered that it was crap. It had one good feature… the CV thing (cellular TV, where you can watch all this cool television footage from all the major networks and cable channels). Other than that, this phone SUCKED. It was a cheap, “plasticy” fake smart phone with NO applications or functionality. I was really mad. I couldn’t believe I made the switch from Sprint to AT&T for THIS! Well, I decided to keep this small slice of turd for one year, then upgrade to something. I didn’t know what, but it could have been anything. By the time my upgrade anniversary came out, the iPhone 3GS was released. They finally had put the few things on the iPhone that would have motivated me to buy it before… video, MMS, and the compass. I grew sick of trying to find iPhone killers, so on August 15th, 2009, I assimilated. I became an iBorg. Had the Droid come out at that time, I may have bought it. But it wasn’t even rumored to come out at that point. Since buying my iPhone, I have not had one single minute of regret. I hate to say it, but the applications are outstanding, the podcasts that are available are tremendously amazing, and I find some new way to use the phone to make my life easier every single day. I’m actually more excited about this device right now than the day I first got my hands on it. Now that there are a ton of other alternatives out there, you would think I would have second thoughts. But I don’t. There are so many nice handsets out there, but there just not an iPhone. These Apple commies have brainwashed me good and darned well. I don’t go anywhere without this thing. It’s my crack. And I refuse to go to rehab.
Wow. You’ve had quite the journey. I agree that if the Droid were released with the iPhone, it would have stiffer competition. At this point, I think that the only way for a phone to take down the iPhone is if it combines awesome apps with amazing sync with Google and the social sphere (with flawless user interface, of course). So, about the rumored Google phone, Nexus One…
I got an iPhone, Jill’s got one, I think MJ has one too come to think of it. I hate it. Apple is the opposite of everything I stand for in my tech, but there was no better alternative. I’m guesing Droid will only get better because well…Google pwn’s Apple IMHO. And I don’t see Windows ever creating a mobile OS worth more than a turd in a chili bowl. So hopefully there will be a solid alternative next upgrade.
MJ’s 1st birthday gift from you is going to be an iPhone and a Twitter account.
I’m assuming (I don’t know much about American cell providers) that in America you have many cell providers and different choices of phones, and that must be nice. Here, not so much. There’s only one provider with service in the rural parts of Canada where I spend a bit too much time, and therefore am stuck with the provider that will actually work there. That provider, in November, was finally able to sell the iPhone, right after I signed my three year contract for my blackberry pearl.
I don’t really care about the apps or whatever. I don’t need the urban spoon to find a good restaurant. However, there are a lot of things you just cannot do without one. Like getting internet service wherever you get cell service on your iPhone, plugging it into your laptop and being able to have internet service in the middle of nowhere. I just can’t do that with my blackberry, so as soon as these three years are up, or I can get out of it without having to pay some sort of penalty, I’m going to jump on that bandwagon, because as much as I hate the mass of communications students at my university ranting and raving about how wonderful their iPhone is, it does do the things I need a phone to do.
Why does it have to be a Canadian moose? A Swedish reindeer would be so much more impressive.
I’m Minnesotan. We just have a thing for mooses from Canada. Hell, we drive there to take pictures of them (or shoot them).