Letters to the Editor
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The iPhone is not Revolutionary
Farhad:
You keep writing as if the iPhone invented websurfing on the phone. Get a Treo--my 700P has web access, and an app called "On Demand," which is even more efficient than the web when you're on the go: it lets you look up addresses and get maps, directions, weather, news, or sports updates within seconds. Or get one of the dozens of other cheaper phones that have web access.
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Pulease...
proudfemme attempts to play the rational card, but only succeeds in being irrational. According to her (I'm assuming a she), people decide subjectively on a cell phone based on what we think that phone says about how we live. I suppose a few people, like Paris Hilton, might be this shallow, but seriously--who the hell does this? We buy things because they do what we want them to do, and/or they are fun to use. Projecting a bit much, are we?
And Apple "preys" on our emotions? If so, then every company that advertises also preys. She exposes her bias against Apple here. She also claims that because Apple failed to manipulate every last one of us into buying a iPhone, that it does not bode well for the iPhone. This is illogical at best.
Of course Farhad is entitled to make any decision he likes. That's not why he's being berated. He intended all along to return the iPhone, but the column appears misleading because it sounds like he "discovered" things he didn't like, and that's why he returned it. This is not righteous indignation, this is a call for honesty.
And speaking of giving it a rest, proudfemme has 95 letters in Salon? No life, huh?
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The iPhone isn't really that expensive
Consider when the Motorola Razr came out it was $500. with a service plan and $800. with out one.
Yet the iPhone is probably at least 10 times more useful than a Razr.
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iFAD
Dear Loser:
A cell phone did not change my life. It did, however, change the quality of my life because now every fucking place I go I have to listen to one sided conversations from idiots I don't give a shit about.
Remember how in the olden days a phone conversation was supposed to be private?
How sad the world is today when people like you spend a day waiting in line to be allowed to give some crappy corporation (who farms most of their manufacturing out of the country so they can dump their pollution with impunity and hire children for workers)over $2,000 for a piece of shit "phone." Wow, you can go on the Internet anytime/any place! Gosh, how life changing!!! Just think: the next time I go to a store and can't find dylithium crystals for cooking my pan-galactic gargle blaster, I can just on online and - woops, I got a porn site!! I guess it's not as perfect as I thought. Shit, I spent too much time on this for a crummy article that made me GAG! where's my mirror? I need to check my hair again!
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Salon Expense Accounts
Let me get this straight. Salon wants Farhad to write about tech, iphones in particular, but then they make him pay for it? Not only that, they don't actually pay him enough so he can afford it!
BTW I agree with him on the voice dialing. I don't care how slick the interface is, nothing beats just opening your phone and saying "Call Steve". Hello Steve, yeah, it's me. Listen about this voice dialing...
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Wow, not much to say, eh Bogie?
A "call for honesty?"
In what way has Farhad said anything deceptive? Indeed, he was very honest in his return column by saying that he had always intended to return it. He talked about the things he didn't like about the phone that he felt made it not worth the money. Value is ALWAYS a subjective calculation. What you think is worth $600 is different from what I think and different still from what Farhad Manjoo thinks. And that's just the way it is.
The fact that value is subjective renders EVERY purchase decision a subjective one. You decide which features you need, and how much you are willing to pay for them. That is inherently a statement about what you think your life is about. A retired senior citizen who doesn't need push email technology will not pay hundreds of dollars of his fixed income for a smartphone. A consultant who travels extensively for business will want that technology and will not be terribly price-sensitive.
But even that caluculus of "need" is subjective. Very often people will buy even more features than they truly need, because of what they aspire to. No one "needs" text messaging, yet many people will not buy a phone without it because without it they feel socially cut off. The iPhone is the perfect example of all this -- does anyone actually NEED to access YouTube on their cellphone? No. And yet people will go on about that capability in arguing the superiority of their iPhone. This is, in the end, an emotion-based calculation of need, not an objective one.
And yes, advertising by most companies is an attempt at "preying" on our emotions. How else do companies convince americans to buy billions of dollars of merchandise they don't really need? Or did you really think our airwaves featured nothing but public service announcements? Are you really that credulous, Bogie?
Sure, none of the the things he identified were "new, unidentified" issues. And yet Farhad bought the phone anyway. Why? Because if he hadn't, and tried to review it, well, then that would have been dishonest, now wouldn't it?
I suppose when you're a gullible AppleJackboot, nothing makes you happy but uncritical unquestionning worship of all things Apple. In which case, any more ink spilt on your behalf is wasted.