I learned a simple lesson last week at Macworld. Hypercapitalism equals hooked on gadgets. When my two nieces got an iPod stereo/alarm clock on this past Christmas, I didn’t notice. They also separately got a cellphone and a camera from Santa Claus. Mr. Claus would probably give junk to a junky if that’s what was the hot seller that holiday season. I still didn’t bother to pick up the addicted message.
But with the new Apple iPhone, I got hooked right along with the school of consumer fish. As Wednesday’s audience oh’d and ah’d at Macworld’s iPhone presentation, I drooled as well. My friend Antonio texted me while I was there, “bow down and prey(sic) to ur new god.” He had taken photos of people oogling at the encased iPhone, but afterwards still ran over to the Apple Store and bought his girlfriend an iPod.
The next day, Pod and I rode our bikes back to Moscone Center. I had to get a battery replaced in an iPod I found at Burning Man. And I wanted Pod to see the spectacle of techy-gadget-Apple-geekdom.
I was standing by an iPod skins accessory booth when he and Jef Stott walked up to me. I took them over to the myvu booth and told Pod how they contract with the Pentagon. Pod walked over and asked the man standing behind the counter wether or not that was true. He sort of said yes, but then hedged the question and got back to work.
We then ended up at the EFF booth on the slower side of Macworld. There, a film producer told me how he supported P2P controls because he created content that got stolen. I felt for the man, but know that the United States doesn’t properly fund the arts so the system isn’t fair anyway. So it sucks that artists have to rely on old-model sales to make profits while the government, and corporations, don’t properly fund artists anyway. I left that conversation with mixed emotions about a hard-line on P2P.
Pod brought it all home for me (and blogged about it). Between the two main stages, under a huge white Apple logo, Pod said that Apple is a bogus alt corporation. “To point out that on the scale of pushing the envelope of new directions, Apple registers nearly Nada on the richter-scale of social change.” We then both agreed that Microsoft was worse and many times larger a tech corporation than Apple. If that makes anybody feel better about using Apple tech over Microsoft.
But people are going to buy those iPhones up. And the poeple who designed it will win many awards. I have never seen a piece of technology like the iPhone. I stood at the encasement and watched the tool rotate on a stick. Then, at the demonstrations, I saw poetic motions of the fingers sliding on the glass surface of the user interface. Apple is also framing the iPod part of the device as “touching your music.” One would think a nice haiku would form from that phrase.
So I’m hooked, but the iPhone’s a big jones. That’s a 5 bill monkey, brother, so you better buy insurance for the protection of that thing. I may sell plasma to hit that $500 mark. Or maybe bake cookies and sell them on the street. I sold a pair of headphones today for $15. Ah, Craigslist. You do me so right.
Random Techy Epilogue
As I type this, AT&T has promised the Feds to uphold net neutrality. But Google and EarthLink are still about to develop a wireless service for San Francisco. Don’t they track every Google search already? Apple wouldn’t let Greenpeace table inside the convention. I’m not writing on this blog much because I’ve been sucked in to texting (and I don’t have a reliable wireless connection). A woman died while competing to win a wii game device. I tried to watch TV last night and just flipped channels of crap. The SFPD Mission branch down on 17th Street added about 4 more cameras outside it’s facility while I was away last year. They want to install a camera at 16th and Mission. You can stop wearing glasses if you choose to get zapped by a laser.
touching your music
sooth windblown caress
soft crushed rose petal