Monday, July 16, 2007

An iPhone? For ME?

Baroy is TechnoBoy. I am Amish girl. Not only do I generally not understand technology, I oftentimes actively dislike it. I certainly actively distrust it.

When I turned 40, my beloved girlfriends gave me a then-just-recently-introduced iPod mini. If I had only been able to listen to music on it, it might never have done all that much for me. But I discovered audiobooks. And I discovered just how many audiobooks you can cram onto a 4 MB iPod mini. So when the original mini died an untimely death after just 18 months, I grumbled about how it was all a scam, that this was planned obsolescence, that Apple could bite me if they thought I was going to plunk down another $200 for a portable mp3 player with a battery that *you can't replace" when it goes bad.

Apparently, Apple did not need to bite me. I'm not sure 48 hours had passed before I realized how badly I needed that pain-in-the-ass piece of crap...and how much I loved it.

It's been another 18 months, and today, my recently sputtering iPod mini (same sleekly, unobstrusive silver color as the original) gave up the ghost rather spectacularly. I threw a full-fledged temper tantrum, complete with tears and a remarkable number of curse words, none of which were unobtrusive in color.

I came back a little while ago from a very long post-tantrum walk--listening to an audiobook on Baroy's video iPod as I went, of course--with some perspective, and allowed in conversation with Baroy as to how maybe, just maybe, the fact that my iPod goes EVERYWHERE with me, gets knocked around in my purse and even sometimes knocked around on the floor of my car, and how, yes, once or twice it's fallen from a height onto the pavement...how MAYBE that might account for its no longer working. But hell, we don't have the money for a new iPod right now, and my 50th birthday isn't for another seven years, so I can't really look longingly in my friends' direction. So, what am I going to doooooooooooooo, Baroy? Oh me. Oh my.

Which is when Baroy looked at me and suggested that rather then sink money into a Nano that might go the way of my minis, I instead buy myself an iPhone.

No, we can't really afford it. But, he pointed out, it would save us about $30 a month in phone charges, since I currently carry a Blackberry. And so in one year, it would more than make up the difference between itself and a Nano. Plus, we could sell my Blackberry on ebay and recoup some costs. And then I wouldn't have to carry both an iPod and a Blackberry hooked onto my pants everywhere I go.

It sorta kinda a tiny little bit makes sense. But ME? A first-generation iPhone? BEFORE Baroy gets one? It just seems...obscene somehow. Wrong. Very, very wrong. I don't even WANT one, really. But I have to admit it makes some amount of sense, if you throw out completely the idea that I not get a new iPod and get a cheap mp3 player instead and only load one or two CDs of each audiobook onto it at a time. Which...nah. No way.

I just don't know. Help!

5 comments:

herself said...

Just before I read your post, I read this, and therefore I pass it on.

Hilary said...

Thank you so much for finally getting rid of the last vestiges of iPhone lust I had Jenne. Good luck with that purchase choice TC. ;-)

TC said...

Hmmm, Herself. That person certainly has, um, a point of view. There are a number of reasons why that Nokia wouldn't work for me--if I don't get an iPhone, I'd just keep my Blackberry, which cost a lot less than the Nokia but still carries that extra montly service charge--but that was certainly, um, eye-opening. And, um, spicily said. ;-)

Rich | Championable said...

The iPhone is beautiful, intuitive, and useful. And expensive.

Regardless of whether you like the iPhone, that link from "herself" was pretty much asinine.

Sorry, duderoo.

Ambre said...

Herself needs to come to CA and pick my ass up off of the floor, where I'm currently rolling around laughing.

What that article said is basically true. You can get a phone with every feature the i-phone has for much, much less. Problem is, TC is a total apple fanboi, so there you go.

But before you get all excited, check the contract on your blackberry. I seem to remember Baroy getting into some trouble with cell phone contracts in the past ;)