zahnster

It used to be that I would look at people waiting in line for a [toy|gadget|gizmo] and secretly make fun of them - what, don’t they have anything better to do with their time than sink into the cliche of commercialism?

That was, of course, until I found myself waking up at 5am to go wait in a 3 hour long iPhone line.

I’m not sure if people know how big of a deal that is for me. First, I love sleep. Second, I am so horrible at waking up early that you couldn’t pay me to usually. However, I was so excited about the thought of getting an iPhone that not only did I have no problem waking up, but I had problems falling asleep the night before (even though I was deathly tired).

So why is this? What is it about the iPhone that motivates people enough to stand in line for hours on end in the hot summer sun? Just what kind of magic has Steve Jobs and co released?

It’s a little something I like to call fluid integration. Apple has taken something that I, and I’m sure others, previously hated (the phone - oh how I’ve hated the phone) and turned it into an effective, beautiful thing - a device that helps you be more effective, without piling up process and other crap that hinders such things.

My favorite case in point is with the voicemail. With Sprint (or any other carrier I suspect) Voicemail is something you call into - listen to some annoying voice spew out stats on your message (”received from two-one-two five-five-five zero-one-two-six at three-thirty-three pm”) and then the message, going linerally with annoying breaks in between to press numeric keys representing save/delete/repeat options.

How fucking annoying is that.

Now, with the iPhone, it provides you with a beautiful interface, individualizing every voicemail into clickable standalone opions. You don’t have to listen to your voicemails in order. You don’t have to wait through minutes and minutes of computer generated voices telling you the stats on your message - it’s all there visually, instantly, beautifully.

This is just the tip of the iceberg with the iPhone, but an important part nonetheless. We’re at a point now in time where we’ve figured out a lot of the things in life - but now, now’s the time to make them kick ass. The phone is not a new concept, but the iPhone is nonetheless revolutionizing the industry.

And it’s just the start of it.