I did something this week that I swore on a stack of bibles would never happen: I got an iPhone.
Well, sort of. I got an iPhone thrust upon me by my well-meaning best friend. She herself has had Apple’s favorite child – sibling to the iPod – for eight months. Listening to her endless eager commercial on apps and productivity was a lot like hearing people talk about a great party that you didn’t get invited to. I sat on the periphery with a vague smile, pretending to be in on it, but still harboring a bit of resentment.
I’m a PC, and Bernadette’s a Mac. The line in the sand has been drawn, and although I do own an iPod (it’s 5 years old), that in no way forces me to join Apple’s fiercely loyal ranks. Seriously. Damn their shiny, gluttonous technology.
I also live in the Kingdom of BlackBerry. I don’t give a you-know-what through a rolling doughnut WHAT people say about their Droids or Envys or what have you: the BlackBerry is the Queen Mother of smart phones.
Or so I thought.
Bernadette ran out and obtained the much-trumpeted new iPhone 4, the only recent techie unveiling with enough oomph to dwarf the iPad. She insisted I take her old iPhone and upgrade myself; stop living in the dark ages! Of course I hemmed and hawed. How the hell was I going to get my entire life from my dependable, sturdy BlackBerry into this sleek, black Corvette of a phone?
Easy-peasy, she told me. I’ll talk you through it. How do I set it up and keep my phone number? I’ll talk you through it. Where do these apps come from and how do they get on there?! Relax. I’ll talk you through it.
She predicted that the second I started using the iPhone that I would fall so far in love that I would send that BlackBerry sailing off the back steps like a dead Easter chick. I’d be completely addicted, completely distracted (to the point of turning down really good sex with my husband to cruise the app store), and completely obsessed.
I hate it when she’s right.
I can’t put this stupid thing down! Everything is slippery-fast, the touch screen like digital ganja for visceral people like me. And the things it can do border on the ridiculous. Can’t sleep? There’s an app for that. Air traffic control in Japan? There’s an app for that. Want to find the cleanest public restrooms on Fifth Avenue in NYC? There’s an app for that. Need a laser leveler? Yep. There’s an app for that.
Even as I sit here writing this, the thing is blinging away with Facebook updates and emails. I can’t not check it. It’s in my left hand right now, a permanent appendage.
Of course, my husband is mad that he’s been effectively trumped by a phone. He’s offered Bernadette cash money to take it back, or else a divorce might be coming down the pike.
Hmmm. Maybe there’s an app for that.
