I hear it from all sides. I feel it myself. Pride, and a feeling of belonging.
A friend sends me a picture of himself holding his new iPhone. "I just got it a few days ago. I can’t keep my hands off it."
Another makes this comment: "The fact that I can’t get an iPhone hurts my soul."
Me? I held out as long as I could. Finally I justified it by telling myself it will be like carrying around a phone, an iPod, a PDA, a camera and an alarm clock in one neat little package. And it is — it’s handier than a Star Trek Tricorder. It does everything but shoot laser beams and open my beer.
Here’s the thing: it does MORE than I thought it could. Way more. It’s even handier than I’d thought in my wildest dreams.
Also, I’ve bought more software in the past month than I have in my entire life. More music, too. And I’ll tell you why — it’s insidious — the software is priced low enough for impulse buying, and it’s always at your fingertips. You don’t have to sit at the computer studying what would be the best for the money, and you don’t have to drive to the nearest software store.
During idle minutes at the doctor’s office, for instance, I realized I had a really good signal, and sat there browsing the App store for new things … and there’s always new things. I spent twenty dollars without even thinking about it.
I write blogs on it (not this one, it’s too long and I’d go nuts trying to type all this on the little thumb keyboard). I keep up with friends on MySpace and Facebook. Every twenty minutes I compulsively check my email.
It’s my alarm clock in the morning. Its my meeting reminders. It’s my source for weather and news. It’s my full blown English dictionary, and a Wikipedia portal. It’s my life’s soundtrack stereo.
I balance my checking account on it. Keep my todo lists. My shopping list.
I use it as a map. I’M NEVER LOST.
Keep up with my Netflix queue.
Convert units of measurement. Network through LinkedIn.
I even have a program that tells me how far away the last lightning strike was.
The one thing I hardly ever do with it, it turns out, is make a phone call.
Other people who have them, they whisper to me in conspiratorial tones. What games do I have? Movies? And always the question, "What is the coolest new app?"
Before I got mine, I used to be annoyed when I’d get an email where at the bottom it said, "Sent from my iPhone." For the first few days, I took it off mine, so it didn’t say that. Then … I have to admit this … I put it back on.
I couldn’t help myself. It’s like saying, "Ha ha! Look! I have the coolest toy, and I want to brag, brag, brag!" Now when I get email from others that feature that bragging line down at the bottom I feel kindred to them. We’re brothers and sisters.
We belong to the same cult.
The cult of the iPhone.
And don’t say that it isn’t. Look at it in the press. Watch them yakking on and on about it on blogs like Lifehacker. Or even, er … here. Yes.
It’s a cult alright.
And I haven’t been in love with a piece of hardware like this since my very first computer, way back in the early 80’s.
The iPhone is beyond a groovy gizmo. It’s life changing. If they ever come out with a keyboard for it, it would replace my laptop.
I mean, after all, a laptop is no where near this cool.
I’m testing out Google’s new browser, which is now in open beta (available 
