New iPhone is out. Me want.
Reasons:
1. Oooh new shiny gimme gimme!
2. Contains a new operating system that has a number higher than the last one and hence will make me better than people who have the last one.
3. Has HD movie capability, meaning sharp, highly detailed movies of the inside of my pocket because I forgot to turn it off.
4. Three weeks ago Steve Jobs, anticipating the release of the new phone, asked his engineers to increase the gravitational field of the Earth by .0006 percent, and send out a special signal that weakened the iPhone's structural integrity by 17 percent, which is why my phone fell out of my pocket and shattered the glass. Twice.
It still works, but sliding your finger across the glass occasionally draws blood -- good for calling up Satan and striking deals, but otherwise no. Typing through a lattice of cracks is impossible, so my texts and tweets look like a dog threw up a bunch of Scrabble tiles. I'm not alone: a friend had his phone start auto-dialing people at random, and periodically he would hear his mother shout HELLO? HELLO? from his pants. With the new phone on the horizon, old phones just died out of shame and humiliation, and the new one was actually necessary.
I didn't think cell phones were necessary until my daughter was born. Then it was needed in case of emergency, like kidnapping. That was my assumption every time it rang, really: Well, here's the ransom demand. Cell phones have come so far since then; now you have Google Maps, which makes finding the spot where you're supposed to drop off the money so much easier.
It wasn't until the iPhone that I understood the appeal, and the handy little pocket computer became a necessary part of my life. Finally! Something that combines phone, camera and iPod! Of course the iPod drained the battery, so I still carried one, and the photos looked like you were shooting through a Vaseline storm, so I kept a camera, but still! Cool! So beautiful, so sleek -- until the next version came out, and then my sad old phone was ugly ugly ugly. I hate it. No, the new phone couldn't use Flash, but it was faster, and could fail to display Flash content twice as fast.
And so the phone became a part of my life, and I grew used to prying it out of my hand at the end of the day and bending back my fingers. (There is not an app for that.) I needed the new one. I missed the pre-order -- they were swamped with new orders and ran out of phones. Clerks said they might have a few for sale, if I came early. The store opened at 7. Uh huh. Like I'm going to get up at 6 a.m. to drive to the Uptown store and stand outside in line. Better make it 5 a.m., then.
As it turned out, I had to get up anyway to get my kid off to camp. Not saying I was distracted and thinking of the phone, but while she said goodbye and an adult came up with a question, I pressed my daughter's nose to put her on hold while I took the other conversation. When the bus departed I sped to Uptown and drove past the store: The line went down the block. I drove to Southdale, thinking it might be better. Turns out the line in Uptown was the end of the line for Southdale. I can see waiting in a long line like this if there's a chance at catching the last helicopter that leaves the embassy roof, but otherwise, no. A strange feeling came over me: There is a brand new Apple toy available today, yet I can wait. I really can.
Ordered online; it won't ship for three weeks. "I can wait," I told my wife, who stared at me for a while, then asked to know what I had done with her husband. I didn't want to say kidnapped, because she has the really old phone without GPS, and the map function is sloppy. Throw the money out the window, you could be half a mile off.
jlileks@startribune.com • 612-673-7858 More daily at www.startribune.com/blogs/lileks
