iPhone Envy

It has taken a great deal of soul-searching and courage for me to finally write blog entry number 2.  First of all, I feel like I set the expectation way to high with my first entry, and just couldn't come up with a 2nd blogworthy topic.  Then, once I decided what I needed to write about, I nearly chickened out, but I decided it's something I need to do...for my own cathartic value if nothing else.

Many of you know I'm kind of a gadget geek.  I don't really spend a lot of money on gadgets, but I really like to stay up on all the newest, coolest geek toys and have been known to obsess at times over a well designed gizmo.  I remember saving my lawn mowing money as a 15 year-old so I could buy my own Sony CD player (which I spliced into an old record player/amplifier that Aunt Calene gave me).  I remember getting very excited in college when I bought my first DVD player, not so I could watch DVDs, but because it was the first and only model at the time that could play MP3 files (before MP3s were cool).

My latest gadget and tech obsession is my totally awesome <a href="http://www.t-mobileg1.com/" target="_blank">HTC G1 (The Google Phone)</a> running the Android OS 1.5.  This phone can do anything.  It scans barcodes and looks things up for you on the web to make sure you're getting a good deal (Suz and I used this a lot while Christmas shopping in December).  It will search by voice command and give you directions to any place using gps and Google Maps and even has a sky map that you just hold up to the sky and since it knows where you are and what direction you're standing and everything, it will tell you what star/planet/constellation you're looking at.  It's incredible.  The only thing is, it's sort of the not-as-cool kid in class who knows everything and can answer any question, but wears sweaters with colorful abstract patterns on them.  You totally want to study with this kid and have him in your group when you're working on a group project, but he's not the kid you want to be seen with later at the football game.  That other cool kid is, of course, the iPhone.

Again, I totally love my phone and don't regret getting it, but that iPhone is just so shiny and sleek and smooth and flawless and...did I already say shiny?  And the apps that you see on TV and on others' iPhones are just so well built and handsome (yes...I did just use the word handsome to describe mobile phone software).  Now of course I can rattle off half a dozen things my phone can do that an iPhone can't (the list was a dozen before the release of the new iPhone 3G S this week) and yet I continue to have these regular episodes of iPhone envy, which brings me to the larger issue at hand here.

I'm just not sure I'm cool enough to be a Mac, iPhone person.  And this is where my deep-seated feelings toward Apple are rooted and why their cute "I'm a Mac, I'm a PC" ad campaign has totally backfired when it comes to consumers like me.  Sure, I could get one of these things, just like anybody else (I actually do own an iPod), but just owning one of them will not make me as cool as the guy in the Mac commercials.  I'm pretty sure I have more in common with the PC guy and would probably end up feeling like a total poser if I did get one.  So am I destined to always have the smart, sweater-kid phone?  Not necessarily.  It is entirely possible that as soon as my T-mobile contract is up that I will just give in and get one.  It wouldn't be the first time I've stepped outside of my own personal coolness boundaries (some of you may remember that whole post-mission long hair thing).  But I would prefer that, between now and then, somebody catch up with Apple in the slick design department and come out with that totally killer Android phone that I can really get excited about in all aspects, so that I can be confident enough to carry it around in my hand all day like those dang smug iPhone users do.