By John Dvorak - PC Magazine
This is the last week of Apple iPhone hype, hyperbole, and
hand-wringing. Oh wait, I mean the last week of pre-iPhone hype,
hyperbole, and hand-wringing -- we have a few more post-iPhone months
left on the calendar. I am sick of it. It's all anyone talks about. It
dominates the news. It dominates the podcasts and videocasts and
magazines.
Hitler got less coverage when he invaded Poland.
Exactly what new meditation sequence Steve Jobs learned recently that
could create such a flurry of fawning interest is beyond me. He should
become a guru and teach it to the likes of Chrysler Corp. executives.
Seriously, this whole thing is creepy in some mystical way.
I know at least two guys who are big fans of this unseen phone. It is
all they talk about no matter what the topic of conversation. Both
have glassy eyes and stare straight ahead.
You talk football and the conversation switches to the iPhone. You
talk baseball and the conversation switches to the iPhone. TV, movies,
stock market, community theater -- it all switches to the
iPhone. "Yes, what about them Raiders? Many players will buy the
iPhone, I bet. Yes. I think so. They will. They will have to, I
think."
I swear (though I have unsuccessfully tried taking pictures to prove
it), when you look at these people closely, there is a spinning disk
in each pupil that you can barely make out. It's like a spiral that
turns and turns toward infinity. And, I can assure you, a hard slap
won't help.
These pod people are everywhere, and I'm beginning to think some sort
of infection may be involved. Mass hysteria may also be a factor.
What's especially amusing is the pod peoples' cavalier attitude toward
the price of this phone. Yeah, I can't think of anything I'd rather do
than buy a $600 pocket phone to show off. I'm guessing that kind of
idiotic thinking will wear off after they've broken the screen more
than once.
Next: "It" Device"
The International Herald Tribune had a huge story this week about the
iPhone possibly becoming some sort of iconic "it" device. The author
goes on and on about how Braun became an "it" factor company with its
sleek designs, as I'm reading and thinking to myself, "What is this
guy talking about? Braun? Cripes." I can assure you he has the little
spinning disks in his pupils.
The Globe and Mail out of Toronto ran the screwy Associated Press
story titled, iPhone Buzz Building into a Frenzy. In that article
you'll find these screwball, spinning-disk paragraphs:
"Remember the television ads for the Motorola RAZR?
"The commercials showed off the sexy, thin profile of the clamshell
handset and seduced more than 50 million people from 2004 to 2006 to
buy it, making it the most popular cell phone ever sold.
"But people want more now. There are plenty of slim, ultrathin options
out there, but not many make finding photos, saving phone contacts,
picking up voice mail, and selecting ringtones insanely easy."
Is this an op-ed? What reporter describes the function of anything as
"insanely easy"? What does that even mean? "Holy crap! This is so easy
that I'm going insane!"
In a hotel room there is a button you push on the phone and you get
your voice mail. Is that insanely easy, too? Or not? Can something be
easier? Maybe the iPhone injects the voice mail into your brain from
a distance without you doing anything.
And "finding photos" is now insanely easy? I have close to 50,000
photos. I guess I can find them, but will the phone somehow help me
find the one photo I am looking for? With magic, maybe? To be honest,
unless I presort the pics, there will be nothing insanely easy about
any of it, ever. Besides, the phone won't hold all the photos, and I
doubt it will display any RAW pics, either. And anyway, is this a
phone or a photo frame?
And what's this about ringtones? I usually want to set one and be done
with it. I will admit that most phones make it an ordeal to find and
change ringtones, so maybe making it insanely easy would be useful. I
hope the phone switches to vibrate in some insanely easy way, since
that function tends to be painful on too many phones.
Anyway, I digress from my point, which is that this week is going to
be pathetic. Articles like the "insanely easy" analysis or the "it
factor" piece are going to be coming out daily. Wake me when it's
over. I've even told all my writers on the Dvorak blog that this topic
is dead and verboten until the friggin' phone actually comes out!
Sheesh.
Copyright 2007 Ziff Davis Inc.
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John Dvorak, PC Magazine (pcmag@telecom-digest.org)