It has a direct link to You Tube.

A time function that works as an alarm, a world clock, stopwatch and a timer.

You can play games on it or set it to check what the weather is in multiple cities all at one time.

It fits in your pocket AND has GPS.

You can check your stocks, figure out what that song is that’s playing in the mall, learn to speak Italian.

Text your friends, take photos of them, send them a glass of beer.

Amazing, huh?  You may be astonished … wondering, “What doesn’t it do?” I’ll tell you.

It doesn’t work as a phone.  

I have been having a love affair with Mac for years. They’re so pretty, they’ve finally worked out the Word issues, you look way cooler pulling out a Mac laptop than you do with any PC on the market.  

A conversation that is probably being held right now all over South Georgia:

Hi.  I’d like to order a Coke.

What kind do you want?

Sprite.

And in the way that Coke=soda, iPod=MP3 player.

What kind of iPod do you have?  

Oh, it’s a SanDisk.

Mac is taking over the world and I say, as long as they keep it pretty, bring it on.  If there is a Mac cult out there, sign me up. Naturally, when I found out I was getting one of the first iPhones, I was thrilled.  

It was the Monday after the Friday debut of the iPhone.  K, my boss at the time, paid some kid $250 to stand in line the first day at the Mac store on Fifth Avenue to get his iPhone.  The kid got in line at 9 in the morning and bought the iPhone at 4:30 that afternoon.  Crazy.  Anyway, he got it that Friday, had been playing with it all weekend, and came into work Monday morning pretty excited. 

K: This fucking iPhone is incredible!  You guys have to have it. Go down to the AT&T store and put them on your AMEX cards.

Me & A: Oh my god!  That’s amazing!  Thank you so much, K! Is it really that great?

K: Why are you still standing here?

We ran up to the 86th Street store and found out that all branches of the AT&T store had sold out over the weekend - as had both Mac stores in the city.  The next morning I showed up at the Fifth Avenue store at 9 and purchased the last one they had to sell for that day. You know how in New York City you can walk around with a live chicken on your head while wearing hot pants and tap shoes, and no one will notice? Carrying the iPhone bag anywhere in the five boroughs during that first month would get you noticed. You could be on a corner, surrounded by break-dancers, a magician, a litter of puppies and an open bar, and still, as long as you had that bag, people would approach you first. 

Oh my god! Is that really an iPhone?

Are you excited?

Did you get it today? 

It was like toting around Brangelina with a nice ribbon handle.  

And I have loved my iPhone.  It’s sleek, it’s cool, it’s easy to use.  Did you know that there is a feature called “Visual Voicemail”? Your voicemail is shown in a list where you can select which message to listen to. Do you know how convenient that is for someone who has issues with listening to their messages?

Plus, having the iPhone the first week was pretty sweet.  We made jokes about recording our own rings: I have an iPhone! I have an iPhone! I am superior! You wish you were me! I have an iPhone! I have an iPhone! For the past year and a half I have loved my iPhone.  I’ve shown it off, I’ve recommended it to others, I’ve sung songs about it.  I refer to it exclusively as the iPhone.  Like, “Would you please hand me my iPhone?” And it is with a heavy heart that I now announce the eminent demise of our relationship.

It pains me to think that I’ll no longer be able to pull out air hockey when there’s an awkward pause in conversation.  I won’t be able to choose a place to eat by shaking the slot-machine styled application that uses the GPS to find restaurants in your vicinity. But, people, I need a phone. And it just doesn’t do that part. In order to make a call from my home I have to be seated in my upstairs window sill, with my back to the glass and the phone in my right hand.  It is also necessary to stay still and look forward.  Otherwise … dropped call.

Cingular née AT&T (the only wireless service compatible with the iPhone) proclaimed, in five-foot-tall letters on billboards in Manhattan that their company “has the fewest dropped calls”. I live approximately five miles from where this billboard was posted.  Cingular, in five foot letters on a Manhattan billboard, lied. (The campaign was pulled soon after it was launched.)

I thought I had progressed beyond destructive love affairs once I found Erica, but apparently, no.  In textbook predictability, iPhone and I have a turbulent, exciting relationship.  When we’re working well together, it’s the best feeling in the world.  iPhone, a source of social interaction and mindless distractions, is great at a party.  It’s never failed to charm all of my friends.

But, iPhone doesn’t bring me into its circle.  iPhone disappears on me or fails to show up for a date.  More often, iPhone is breaking a promise with a flimsy lie and I don’t call it out.  Because every once in a while, iPhone is amazing.  So, I know it’s in there.  I’ve seen it … you know … in flashes.  Brilliant flashes, but they’re inconsistent and increasingly rare.  

I’m being charmed and manipulated by attractively designed kitsch. I love iPhone’s potential, not its actuality. Fantasy functionality is no basis for a lasting relationship.  I’ve got to make a clean break.

Now, don’t you worry about iPhone.  I have a feeling iPhone will be just fine without me.