Friday, July 6, 2007

iCrazy

I am so happy that somebody said that aloud: see BBC article about the iPhone phenomenon.
With all my love for Apple and Apple products I am still deeply convinced that the vast majority of people who bought iPhone within the very few first days that it is on the market have serious psychological problems. They bought fancy toy to compensate for the lack of love from the side of their parents, draw more attention from friends or even strangers, and in a few days they will be surprised to find out that iPhone is not Prozac and in long term it will not help them solve their life problems. Guys, grow up. Or seek medical help.

Background info for friends in Europe not aware of the iPhone phenomenon in the US:
iPhone is a fancy phone that also has integrated iPod and camera (but as you know vast majority of all other phones on the market can also take photos and play music). The special thing about iPhone is that it is beautiful and elegant (as all Apple products are) and it makes browsing the internet easy - it actually has Safari that works in exactly the same way as on your computer (that is great of course!)
The problem is that you have to buy it for 500-600$ and you can use it only in one network (AT&T), which actually has the worse performance of all networks that you can have in the US. Moreover, you have to sign up for a 2 year contract and during this time pay monthly few of at least 60$...
And to buy this thing people actually queued in front of Apple and AT&T shops. Some of them queued for more than a day! Can you imagine? And all that without ever personally seeing the phone or keeping it in their hands. How insane is that?
When iPhone went on sale I was in Santa Monica and I just happened to pass next to the Apple shop. I was surprised to see around 1000 people queuing there, several TV-cameras, people taking pictures of other people who just bought their iPhone and clapping their hands and cheering for them... Before I realized that it was Apple store, I actually thought that there must be somebody famous there (it was LA in the end...). And yes, there were, the first iPhone owners enjoying their 5 minutes of fame...