The One True Phone

From Quanto a MMMiM

And on the 29th day of the sixth month, when the sun was at its lowest point in the sky, the Phones appeared, one after another, each in its tasteful white black box without any adornment whatsoever. And the People rejoiced, for they had been waiting a long time and could wait no longer. A great unboxing occurred across the land and many two-year service contracts were entered into.

The Opinion Changers had received no review product in advance and thus despaired and called the Phone a hype and said that the battery would never last and asked what all the fuss was about anyway. But they all wanted one, and only Mossberg of the Journal 4 reporters in the national media got one, and pronounced it “pretty good,” which for him worthy of the hype, which for them was a rave. And the other Opinion Changers were cast out of the Temple.

Next came the fan boys and the overweight and the incorrect wearers of patterned shirts and the others who were decried as social pariahs. To them, the faithful, the Phone was celebrated and hailed as no other Phone before it, nor any other kind of consumer electronic gear for that matter, except maybe the Tivo.  And the Phone made them cool for a while, which was a miracle. “Yea, the Phone has brought peace and happiness to our lives!” wrote Gizmodo, and a record of pageviews was logged.

Then a blogger who was known as a benchmarker without peer, left the Phone on for 10 days without recharge. And still the battery showed a trickle of life. “Huzzah!” cheered the fan boys who were very impressed at this other miracle.

But soon the People became dissatisfied and a remorse of buying came down upon them like a shroud and a hat. “What is this Phone that costs $500?” they cried the first time a call was dropped. “It is a Phone like any other!”

And then the Opinion Changers, angry that they had to part with their own money, bought Phones and were even more displeased. “When you drop it on the ground, does it not break? When it falls out of your pocket into the toilet, does it not drown?” they wrote. “This typing on a screen truly blows.”

Then did the first bug reports start to appear, and the People became even more agitated and dissatisfied.

To appease the People and take advantage of the Holiday Season, the Maker brought forth a newer, waterproof model. A clever keyboard that looked like baby’s teeth was upon it, and more memory, for the same price. The original model was steeply discounted and the faithful wept. “Why hast thou forsaken us?” they wailed, and rent their inappropriate garb. But their cries went unanswered.

And the Imitators began to appear from the East and from the Land of the Finns. And the People and the Opinion Changers called the Imitator Phones not bad for the money. For they were cheap. And the Maker said to them all: “There’s just one more thing.” And promised it was the coolest thing ever, but once again, only the faithful believed.

Comments

[B Williams]

Umm.. you forgot the reason why apple can command higher prices... because their products have the best user interface of anything out there. simple, easy to use and aesthetically pleasing. there are a million alternatives to the iPod, but it keeps on selling...

this is fabulous.

(should be to both iphone fanboys & haters alike)

well done!!

[iphone fanboy]

Neat!

[Norm Zinker]

But does it come with fries? Thanks...very funny!!

[Jesse]

This is funny, but misses much of the point of why the iPhone is interesting. It's the software not the device. It's the platform not this year's model. New iPhones won't displace old one's nearly as much as we've felt in years past, innovation of the software will be the real value improvements which match or exceed updates to the gadget's model and specifications. We just might find a phone that is useful and relevant for more years than we see on today's short lived phones which do suffer from new model envy...software is more flexible and offers greater improvement in value over time than does the march of hardware specs and costs. There are 'killer features' of the iPhone that have not yet been seen but will certainly increase the device value dramatically. We just saw a nice YouTube integration and we may soon see a Finder that can view and search anything on your home computer while you are on the road. There is much still to see and do in software.

[p-diddy]

*sigh* where is the "and the faithful wept and gnashed their brace'd teeth?"

Seriously - awesome job.

[Mike]

Why is it that some people have no sense of humor?

Very funny stuff, thanks!

[William Furr]

Fantastic parody. :)

@B Williams

"their products have the best user interface of anything out there. simple, easy to use and aesthetically pleasing."

It's very difficult to make a blanket statement like that and have it be true. Much of those criteria are nebulous, hard to evaluate, and vary from person to person. Speaking as a system administrator who dealt with Macs for years (even used one for about a year and a half as my primary workstation), any drivel about a "superior interface" is simply not true. At least, not to a professional.

The iPhone may have a "better" user interface than most cell phones, but I really doubt that anyone is going to trade in their BlackBerry for one, or be happy with it if they do.

[Chris]

I purchased a Nokia N800 "internet tablet" for $400 and later took it back to CompUSA because the interface was buggy, the OS crashed, it mutated websites, and the font was so tiny that - even with a fresh bifocal prescription - it gave me migraines.

So take the $600 for an 8GB iPhone and mentally subtract $400. Now we're down to $200.

But wait, the iPhone is also a kick @$$ iPod with large screen! Subtract another $150. Now we're down to $50 for my perceived "cost" of this iPhone.

And lo! My cell phone contract just ran out....how much would I have paid for a new RAZR phone or whatever? At least $100. So subtract again.

So it's kind of like getting paid $50 to own this new Apple iPhone! :)

[Patrick]

@ Mike:

That was pretty obnoxious. You were ... a system administrator? Geez, I actually design user interfaces for a living and even I wouldn't go around telling people that my professional experience makes it okay to dismiss users' opinions as "drivel." (Quite the opposite, in fact, if the goal is to make a decent UI.) But hey, what do I know.

Anyway, this post was hilarious. Good job!

[Chris E. Avis]

@ Everyone.....Didn't anyone simply take this posting as the humor piece that it is? There is certainly always some truth in jest but, man....let your hair down, get the panties out of your crack, and try smiling a little. It really does do the body good. Maybe even better than milk....

Chris

[unlock iphone 2.0]

Yeah thats right! I went out and brought a 16GB iPod Touch for that exact reason.

-Umm.. you forgot the reason why apple can command higher prices... because their products have the best user interface of anything out there. simple, easy to use and aesthetically pleasing. there are a million alternatives to the iPod, but it keeps on selling...