I was teaching up at Columbia last night. It’s a two and a half hour affair on journalism, technology, the Internet and how it all comes together.
When the class ended a woman came up to me and asked what I thought about using an iPhone as camera, just in case she needs to snap a shot here and there.
I didn’t answer her question. Instead, I blurted out something along the lines of, iPhone? Can I see it.
Truth be told, I wanted to touch it… Cause i’m pervy that way.
No, no. She didn’t have one but was thinking of getting one and being able to take pictures is the selling point, if and only if those pictures are usable, online.
In the right conditions, sure. The iPhone shoots at 2 megapixels. Not great, but not bad either for a phone. And if the lighting’s right, and you don’t have to zoom, and if your subject isn’t running around, you could, conceivably, get usable pictures. Maybe. Sometimes.
Two years ago, Samsung released a seven megapixel phone. That’s pretty crazy. I’ve never seen one except in pictures. It looks more like a camera with phone capabilities than a phone with a camera built in. That’s all well and good.
But we were thinking about this and went to the Apple site to see what the iPhone’s capabilities actually were. The home page had big copy about Best. iPod. Ever.
I didn’t look at what was there. Images left to right went from the iPod shuffle to the iPhone, and, yes, I remember Steve Jobs talking about how the iPhone was the Best. iPod. Ever. And a phone to boot, of course.
But then I looked closer, and what I saw wasn’t an iPhone but the newfangled iPod Touch.
Want one? All I can say is yes I do… Cause I’m pervy that way.
Not really sure why.
My desires for the iPhone are more along the lines of iPhone as design object and iPhone as design interface, and this is because — truth be told — I simply don’t like talking on the phone.
I have a Treo 650. And I hate it for no apparent reason aside from the fact that it sits like a weight in my pocket and it makes me cringe when I get a call.
I’d rather text, chat or email.
But now there’s this iPod Touch. And it’s lightweight and thin and brings about my fetish for design as object and design as interface; and when I got home I queued up Steve Job’s keynote address about it.
It’s also got WiFi which I think is really cool until I really think about it. And what I mean by that is this: if I’m in a space that has WiFi I have my laptop, whether at home, at work, at the airport or in a hotel.
True, I might be at a coffee shop and want to go online but in general, when I’m near access, or want access I have my computer.
It’s when I’m not near access that I have my phone. And crappy as my crappy phone is at rendering Web pages, I’m thankful that I can check my mail from it when I’m not in a WiFi area. I’m even more thankful that I have cellular access when I’m lost and need Google maps and I’m certainly not in a WiFi area. So, despite my dislike of phones, I have a strong like for the technology.
Which makes my lust a little bit irrational. But, then again, you could say lust is always irrational. And part of that irrationality is that getting an iPhone would solve that problem and I really don’t want one. What I want is the Touch even though it will leave me a bit out in the cold.
Last little bit: Part of this iPod release is a deal with Starbucks where users can download songs played in Starbucks with a click of the button. This is well and good. Kind of a why not.
But one thing that jostled my nerves is a comment made by Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz (he starts speaking at 59:30). And that’s that the phone will know what Starbucks you’re in when you enter it. That is, wherever and whenever you’re near a Starbucks, signal will be sent that says, Joker’s here, and we can track him.
Totally off subject for the time being, but I don’t think I need that right now. Big Brother in the form of a new lustful device.
UPDATE: Misheard and misquoted. Just listened again and the above is not what Schultz said. My blush.
Michael Cervieri is ScribeMedia.Org’s Executive Producer.
