Yea, back amongst the folds of the Apple faithful, just being carried along for the ride.
I didn’t really want an iPhone to begin with, being more interested in the new iPods – the Classic and the touch – after I sold my old MP3 player. While 20GB’s of storage and 40 hours of playback was impressive two years ago, the tiny tiny screen and barebones interface discouraged power usage, so I’d stop trying to get more music and video onto the player out of frustration. Not to mention for the same amount of money I can now get 80GB’s worth of MP3 player.
Apple products have this sheen, a bubble of hype whenever Mr. Steve Jobs takes the stage and announces the next great product, causing perfectly rational techies to lay their wallets out in submission. It’s hard to describe or sympathize without experiencing it yourself, but sadly, the instability of my thoughts when I saw the claims of the iPod Touch available 3 weeks before its official date convinced me to drive 20 minutes into the city and claim one of my own.
Being an early adopter usually doesn’t pay off. The limited on-board memory aside, touch owners soon found issues with the screen, and a long hard look at my own player confirmed my worst fears. And being a really early adopter is something else, when Apple store employees told me upon return two days later they had no stock since, well, the iPod touch wasn’t supposed to be released yet.
Remember the Apple hype bubble? It wears off in time, and upon dissipation the formerly enchanted regains the ability to perceive gadgets with clarity and objectivity. Amidst the shoppers in the ritzy Burlingame store (just radiating wealth), I realized the iPhone was a much better deal: same price, half the storage, but the package included a dock and an additional charger, plus the phone has a camera, bluetooth, and a lot more useful PDA-esque apps. Oh, and a screen which didn’t suck.
Of course, in my momentary desperation to replace the touch, I had forgotten the phone was completely unusable (1) until I signed a mandatory two-year contract with AT&T.
So upon arriving home, I was happily introduced to the world of iPhone hacks.
- really, the only thing you could do was make emergency calls (↩)