If you want on or off the Mac Ping List, Freepmail me.
Posted on 07/13/2007 12:59:32 PM PDT by Swordmaker
Now that the initial deluge of iPhone press coverage has slowed to a trickle, I feel compelled to irritate all of you by adding my own opinion to the mix. The two most important selling points for the iPhone have been totally left out of every story I've yet to come across.
First of all, it's a babe magnet. That alone makes it the best $600 I've ever wasted on a totally unnecessary discretionary purchase. I'm sure it has the same effect on men that it has on women, but I haven't been devoting much attention to what my new gadget does to dudes. Anyone who's seen the Cramer/Mason Chronicles, my series of videos with Jim Cramer (who, not so coincidentally, is my uncle -- a fact I disclose every time I write anything) about financial advice for people in their 20s, knows that hell will freeze over before I'm considered a ladies man. I look ridiculous, and my charm is, shall we say, subtle. That no longer matters now that I have an iPhone (as the friendly folks at DealBreaker pointed out after watching my latest video).
I could tell you all about how adequate AT&T's (T - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr - Rating) Edge network is for Internet connectivity, or what a joy the virtual keyboard is to use, but if you've read this far you'd probably prefer to read about what happened when I pulled out my iPhone in the J. Crew near my apartment last week.
Picture this: I'm just standing in line, answering some email, when the fetching cashier who's ringing me up begs to "see" my iPhone and then asks me half a dozen questions about how I like it.
As soon as she gets her hands on the thing, the cashier next to her catches sight of it and flashes me a look of what I can only describe as sheer ecstasy before asking if she, too, can take a look. When the two women on either side of me and the one in line behind me realized there was an iPhone owner in their midst, they reacted like I was one of the Beatles, circa 1964.
Maybe I'm embellishing a bit, but not much. It is true that within that five-minute period, more women tried to make more small talk with me than at any time in the last four or five years. Sure, that's not saying a whole lot, but I did have a guitar and play in a band in college (saying that I played guitar in a band would depend on a very liberal interpretation of the word "play"), and that worked pretty well, but it's small stuff compared to the iPhone.
I had a similar experience when I went to BLT Burger, which I cannot recommend too highly, and my waitress couldn't take her eyes off of it. Sadly, my girlfriend was with me, so I couldn't empirically test the full extent of the iPhone's magnetic capabilities.
People compare the price of the iPhone to the much lower price of a BlackBerry or a Treo and conclude that the $600 price tag is way too expensive. They're using the wrong comparison. We should be comparing the iPhone with plastic surgery. What's $600 compared to the $6,000 you might pay for a tummy tuck, or the $8,000 many will pay for a face-lift? As a cosmetic enhancement, only wrinkle treatments like Allergan's (AGN - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr) Botox, or Restylane from Medicis (MRX - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr) are cheaper.
How does the iPhone stack up when compared to other smartphones? I've had a BlackBerry for 13 months, and not once has a member of the opposite sex ever asked to see it. And it's not like I haven't tried to put myself out there. I spent months with the BlackBerry fastened to my belt for the entire world to see. All it ever brought me was grief in the form of unsolicited email from work.
No one ever stared at my BlackBerry and salivated, which is the standard response when I whip out my iPhone. Instead, my friends told me I looked like a tool until I finally stopped wearing the thing. Once, someone said it was slimming, but I think he was being sarcastic. I've yet to test a Treo, but I'm sure the results would be just as disappointing.
On a more serious note, the BlackBerry was also difficult to use. I could never make it connect to the Internet, although that may have been because my corporate masters didn't feel like paying for the service. With my iPhone, I don't even need to be literate, a definite plus given the massive number of my readers who have accused me of flirting with illiteracy.
I said there were two great reasons to waste your money on an iPhone (obviously, don't finance the thing with credit card debt). The first reason is romance. The second reason: Once you own one you'll no longer feel compelled to read every single excruciating, repetitive story about the iPhone that contains no new information -- like this column -- ever again.
If you want on or off the Mac Ping List, Freepmail me.
Right. I really want a woman who’s attraction is basd upon the latest pop gizmo.
Anyone who buys a phone to pick up babes is a loser.
Guys want girls to be interested in their tools, not their devices...
I've seen the look of sheer ecstasy in a woman's eyes and I doubt if the look he witnessed was it.
A sucker is born every moment.
While I love new technology, I am not foolish enough to be a guinea pig for any company.
I am sure that within a few years there will be many cell phones that will do all and more then an I Phone.
By the way, cell phones, known everywhere else in the world as mobiles, have always been way ahead of the US cellular phones.
I was a cellphone agent in the US before I came to Slovakia.
In some countries here, the number of mobile phones outnumber the population.
Only if house broke......
I always figure that if you're on the cutting edge, you're going to bleed.
Besides, I'm cheap.
Hey baby, got a iPhone, a quad core workstation with 16 Gig of ram and fiber broadband to my apartment (parents basement). Wanna come back with me and ‘feel the power’?
No? WTF? I’ve been misled!
I said there were two great reasons to waste your money on an iPhone (obviously, don't finance the thing with credit card debt). The first reason is romance. The second reason: Once you own one you'll no longer feel compelled to read every single excruciating, repetitive story about the iPhone that contains no new information -- like this column -- ever again.
see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihpxJI4hRjQ
Works for me.
Hardly a guinea pig, why wait a few years for all phones to do what an iphone does now?
The iphone is NOT overpriced at all. It is an ipod that holds and plays my music, it is a photo viewer that I easily downloaded hundreds of photos to. Photos that I can show people, zoom in and out with my fingers, display in widescreen or standard. Play home movies or movies and tv shows. It is also a mini computer that surfs the internet, on mostly text sites like freerepublic it moves pretty quick too.
It has a neat text message application, a really neat keyboard, a dynamite email server and a bunch of other really neat features that you keep finding. One that is neat that for your phone contacts you can load a picture of the person and when they call you see their picture in full screen. Another I like is that you can be listening to music and when you get a phone call, the music fades out and the phone rings.
There’s so many subtle and not so subtle things going on in the phone, least of all the dynamite aesthetics.
Speaking of aesthetics I’m typing this on a white macbook I got last night. Thanks to craigslist I got the latest macbook 2.16 core 2 duo with 1g memory (soon to be 3g) and 120 hard drive for -—— 825 cash!!!! new in box!! I registered it with apple today.
So now I have a white intel 20 inch imac, a white macbook, a white 80gig with video ipod and an iphone. I’m apple addicted, sorry you’re missing out.
Wait, this is cool—I used a firewire to sync my imac to my macbook, it transferred all of my information, everything including software I paid for! I told apple tech support that my iwork programs showed up on my dock and asked if I had to pay for them again. He said no, so now I have my iwork on my macbook without having to spend the 80 dollars that I planned on. I haven’t even loaded my microsoft office mac on either computer yet, so it looks like I’ll save another 150 there. We set up a network for the 2 computers but not sure if it’s right yet.
LOL - I completely understand your addiction (as I type from my new black MacBook)....
I just checked in and saw your post, (I’m on the imac now!) I’m calibrating the battery on the new macbook, (if you don’t know how, ask me).
I’m going to order the red speck hard case, it looks pretty bad ass! If I had the black macbook like yours I would probably order the clear case to protect it and keep the fingerprints off the black matte surface.
All I need now is apple tv, but I may wind up using a mac mini or a macbook as an entertainment hub instead of the apple device. If I keep my eye open on craigslist maybe I’ll steal another apple product!
Aaaaaaa, keeping that all balled up inside is bad. Let’er rip!
"It wouldn't be the CASH by any chance, would it honey?"
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
