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iPhone and the Media

Give 'em an inch and they'll take out a full double page spread.


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Are the media currently obsessed with the iPhone because it's an Apple product? Partly.

Are they obsessed with it because Steve Jobs did such a good job of promoting it at Macworld in January? Partly again.

Are they obsessed with it because outsiders would love to come down on Apple after themselves suffering years of abuse with inferior Microsoft products? Most definitely.

But more than anything else they're obsessed with it because it's so brilliant.

Take the space age wonder of NeXTSTEP; add the painting brushes of Apple; add the hardware ingenuity of the NeXT and Apple engineers; sprinkle on a pinch of the Steve Jobs driving force; you got it all.

The iPhone is the subject of outsider envy because it's something no one else can attain and they know it. For over two years Apple kept such a tight lid on this gadget that no one but no one had a clue it could be anything like this.

The iPhone makes the PDA keyboard obsolescent. It changes the way people 'compute'. It makes the ordinary cellphone or smartphone obsolescent. And it most likely will change the way people live.

The iPhone is the kind of gadget that can only come from a company like NeXT or Apple. And that's what pisses the outsider media off.

There are always going to be bloopers. No matter the company, no matter the technology. They're not forgivable and they're not excusable but they're usual. And Apple have their share of draconic corporate practices that certainly can't add well to the mix.

But at the end of the day it's only a gadget - and the question is: do you like it?

From a technological standpoint it's immensely interesting. Just figuring out how all this fantastic stuff works - appreciating what they've done to get this thing to market - can be a fun preoccupation and thus the plethora of articles at this site.

But when Neanderthals come out of the woodwork and go 'yippee the sky is falling' and they've never once in their rancid lives considered leaving Microsoft behind - then it becomes a bit too much.

The iPhone is a relatively open system. And it's a Unix system. And there's a quality about Unix Microsoft can never hope to attain: it's 'securable'. And even if there be raised eyebrows at some of the details that so far have emerged; and even if there be from time to time a doubt whether Apple fully understand Unix and take security seriously: that's still a far cry from using a device run by the systems Microsoft offer.

Are you dependent on your mobile phone? Is it running a variant of Microsoft Windows? Are you on drugs?

Criticism and critical looks at the underlying technology of the iPhone is good and the iPhone deserves no less. But ignorant piques by the media at this point only serve to demonstrate how pitifully void their own technological lives really are.

See Also
AT&T
iPhone
Alpine Dottie
Effective UID: 0
iPhone OS X System Architecture
iPhone: A Bit of This, A Bit of That

Thanks to Devon at Pixel Groovy for the excellent artwork.

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