It has been a month since I got my iPhone 5. And after only those few short weeks, my hands have grown accustomed to the feel of it. Yesterday I held my old iPhone 4 in my hands and it felt fat and heavy. But my love for the iPhone is not all about looks. It’s also just so useful.
I’m not generating sales presentations or writing books on my iPhone (although, neither is strictly impossible), but I can quickly and easily do more things with this phone than any computer I’ve ever used. This phone that stays on all day long, continuously connected to the internet, and fits in my pocket.
The iPhone is the most useful computer in the world.
This utility is almost unbelievable when you consider that the first iPhone came out in 2007. That’s only FIVE years ago.
Now, many other smart phones easily fit these descriptions of utility. But the reason why I love my iPhone is not just because of its sleek smooth lines and its uncanny thinness and lightness. Or just for its usefulness.
It’s the combination of the two. It’s that I can do all those things on a light, thin machine that is gorgeously designed.
This blows my mind. Here I have this gorgeous object of industrial innovation, and yet its proximity to my life is not due to my above average affinity for fine gadgets. No, the iPhone has earned its place by virtue of usefulness. The curiously-thin slab of glass and aluminum that I carry around in my pocket is my camera, my jukebox, my map, my newspaper, my phone, my email, my photo album, my schedule, my to-do list, my notebook, my Internet, and so much more.
The key here is that I enjoy using my iPhone. I enjoy tapping and navigating through iOS. I love using Siri. I love taking and editing photos and being able to post them to multiple networks in less time than it takes to actually edit them in the first place. I love the apps—Instagram, Reminders, Whatsapp, Tweetbot, Foursquare, iMessage, Shazam, Facebook, Wikipanion, Mail, Snapseed, Flipboard, and so on and on and on. And I haven’t even mentioned the insane amount of high-quality games (no, I’m not talking about Angry Birds). I use it all the time, and it’s almost always with me. When it isn’t with me, I keep it at home because it’s too crucial to leave unattended and risk being stolen (I would never leave it in my bag on the beach while I’m in the water, for example).
The iPhone itself isn’t my life, nor does it take the place of friends and family or prevent me from enjoying real life things like the sunshine on a sandy beach (I’m in Hawaii, after all). But this little machine has become a major part of my life, an extension of my routine and my habits, my connection to my friends and the wider world, both online and in real life.
And I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Y U NO HADOKEN?! 