Sharpe's Opinion

Blue Eyes wants an iPhone:

You see I have no particular need for one. My current deal doesn’t expire yet, my current phone sends messages and makes phone calls. I have email at home and work. I have a little iPod already. I am not important enough to need email on the move. I don’t need web access in the street. I don’t need to be able to put my phone up against a speaker to find out the name of the song which is playing. I don’t need to be able to blog on my way into work. I already have an A-Z and reasonable map-reading skills.

Maybe it’s because we’re both INTJ’s, but I read this with a pang of recognition: this is almost exactly the same as my own internal debate on the merits of getting an iPhone in August – in fact, I already had an iPod Touch (which is an iPhone minus the phone) and therefore had even less reason to plump for one. Plump for one I did, though¹, and I can’t be effusive enough in my praise for the thing. And Mrs Sharpe very much likes her new iPod Touch, even if it has got ‘Stuart Sharpe’ engraved on the back (at least she’ll always remember who she’s married to…)

The benefits of this little device, in fact, are not obvious from any of the features listed above. You can’t even see them by playing with one in a shop or using a friend’s for ten minutes. There is no ‘killer feature’ of the iPhone, no specific thing that it does which can’t be achieved with other phones or with a computer. In fact, it’s not even particularly good at making phone calls.

Put all of its features together, though – the web browser, the fantastic iPod built into it, the on-the-go maps, the excellent contacts and calendars management, the incredible variety of available applications, games and other assorted distractions, the (life-saving) alarm clocks(!) – and you end up with a device which changes the way you live your life in a way that no other electronic device has ever done in the past. It’s the PDA of PDAs, the internet device of internet devices, your plastic pal who’s fun to be with. And I say that with absolute seriousness and no hyperbole. There is nothing else, certainly no other smartphone, which compares. The iPhone is our first glimpse of the future of communication, and there simply isn’t any other phone.

If you still don’t think there’s enough justification there to run to the shops and buy one immediately, think about it this way: People who buy iPhones have been statistically proven to be better looking, more intelligent, trendier and far more likely to attract lovers than their iPhoneless peers. What’s more, iPhone usage has been linked to climate stability, the reduction of third world debt, widespread disarmament and the growth in populations of the lesser-spotted newt. By buying an iPhone you also greatly increase the chances of Earth being contacted by benevolent alien life-forms, as they notice how awesome Earth must be to have produced a piece of technology so inherently marvellous. On top of all that, they are extremely cool.

As you can see, there’s really no rational argument against it. Besides, in the words of my boss, there is never a need to justify a gadget purchase.

1. In my defence, my parents were kind enough to offer a contribution towards it thanks to my having just graduated with a 2:1, no less.. [↩]