simpler times: where's the camera button on this thing?
i’ve been an iphone user since late 2007, and i’ll tell you straight up, i love it. i’m never the first guy to run right out and buy the latest cell phone technology because, quite frankly, i’ve always been content with whatever i can get for the cheapest price on my at&t contract. all the bells and whistles don’t really add much value because i use a cell phone to…well…make phone calls. at least i used to, anyway. in the iphone, however, i recognized a truly revolutionary device that could add hours to my day. i mean, capt. kirk may have had a communicator and a tri-corder, but next to the iphone, those gadgets look like stone axes.
if i get stuck in traffic i can check e-mail, or if the traffic jam is really bad, watch a five minute photography software tutorial. there’ve been countless times in airports, planes, and trains where i used it to look at photographs, listen to music, or even read a novel. heck…i’ve even taken pictures with it! in fact i am actually using one of the 167,000 available applications to dictate this blog entry into my iphone right now. i never regretted paying full price for it and, especially since i got hurt, i’ve gotten great value out of this bit of sci-fi tech. there’s no doubt its touchscreen enabled me to communicate with the outside world much sooner than a traditional cell phone would have. hearing the “ding” of an incoming text message from carol’s iphone, which i bought for her only a few months after purchasing my own, made long days at craig hospital go a lot better. and, just to be clear, we are both still using the original phones we bought. neither one of us has felt the need to upgrade to the newer ones. again with those bells and whistles, but also because at&t makes it so expensive for existing customers to do so.
okay, so the iphone is pretty cool, but it’s not like it can actually beam me up, scotty. why the cheerleading, then? a couple of reasons, but the first thing i was thinking was that it was a good tie-in for this image, which i made in scotland earlier this year. these iconic phone booths are still scattered all over the united kingdom, and often still in use. every time i saw one i couldn’t help but think that it really hasn’t been that long since we were all dependent on land lines. working on the photo really made me reflect on our relationship with gee-whiz gizmos. the truth is we’re pretty spoiled by a lot of great technology, and it’s easy to feel like it’s always been there at our beck and call. i don’t know about you, but when i think the battery is about to die for good on my two-and-a-half year-old iphone, i break into a cold sweat.
carol and i don’t even have a land line, and i’m only about halfway through one of the half-dozen novels stored on my cell, thanks to kindle.. oh, and don’t even get me started on all of the text messages and e-mails… the truth is i’m just as addicted to technology as everybody else is, but i’m also pretty grateful that we have it. in my case, having to walk down the street to make a phone call would be a pretty serious hassle….
by will
1 comment