The guy next to me on an early morning flight from Hartford to Atlanta probably thought I was staring at his junk. It just so happened that was where he was resting his iPhone, watching a movie, while glancing up every so often to the in-flight movie, creating his own little picture-in-picture show while also checking me out checking out his crotch, which I wasn’t, which may or may not disappoint him, but probably not because how could you be disappointed ever again if you have an iPhone? I don’t have one, so each day should be packed with disappointment. Maybe that’s the solution, the golden ticket, the magic bean, the little pill mother gives you to make it all okay or maybe just bigger. Maybe -- or maybe not or -- maybe not just yet.
A few days earlier my family and I walked into the glowing womb of the magical fruit – The Apple Store – where the shiny, cool people work who used to work at Starbucks. I want to hate it. I struggle with technology, all of its promise of enablement and glory wrapped in a web of indecipherable recipes and dog piles of rules that suffocate my very being. It’s a good thing my husband is a computer scientist because I am a heavy, heavy, super hostile user of technology that could lay waste the entire Geek Squad with my wrath about once a week. Technology eats my lunch almost every day – leaving me hungry and grumpy, like the skinny girls who never eat, only I’m not skinny. Apple should be my savior, but it scares me even more than the crippling co-dependence of my self-destructive technology partner – the PC, that I want to beat with a small club.
With an Apple, I’m afraid I’ll create a document that no one will understand, speak a language no one will know, reach out to others only to clutch at thin air and leave the party ashamed – ashamed to have thought about changing from a PC, shirking this very basis of my infrastructure. And yet, in The Apple Store everything is pulsing with life. Like Starbucks, only better. A wave of lust washes over me. It’s achy and dirty and feels so, so good.
We are ostensibly here to buy my son an iPod Touch for his birthday. We are already a 3 iPod family – this our only foray into the orchard thus far. My son is turning 13 and is my iPod manager, which is apt given his advanced relationship with technology in comparison to mine. I buy the iTunes cards and we split the funds 50/50 as payout for services rendered.
He dives head first into the Touch and minutes later is making it his bitch. I tentatively turn to a table littered with iPhone 3Gs. They murmur a soft come-on. “Try it. Just a taste. It won’t hurt you. You’ll love it. One bump. Go on . . .” All this pulses from the glowing little temple of promises. I pick it up. Lighter than I expect and smooth to the touch, it fits in my hand as if my hand were meant to grip this thing its entire life. My fingers mimic the television commercial, sliding and activating things like a calendar and clocks showing the time in places I’ve never been. My clumsy, grown-up thumbs finger out misspelled appointments I do not have. Icons flash and bloom on-screen fantasies I didn’t know I had. My nipples could cut glass. I do not blink until my husband walks up behind me.
“Buy me one of these for Christmas.” I slur, barely able to work the word center of my brain -- its capacity is so crippled by the overload.
“Why? Will you use it? It’s a great idea if it makes you more efficient.”
“Well . . . I . . .” I can feel the crush aching in my chest.
“You hate AT&T cell service. I think you threatened to loosen the teeth of the last service tech you called.”
“Yeah . . . but . . . look . . .” I poke and poke and poke the special spots and it shimmies all over. It sighs and rests in the afterglow.
“And, people will send emails when you’re out running around somewhere or using the can. That’s why you don’t have a Crackberry now.”
“Oh . . . I . . .but . . .” I feel a cold breeze blowing up my skirt. My poking slows.
“And, can you type on that?” He points to the microscopic key pad.
“Well . . . not yet . . . hmmm. . .” I let it slip from my hand. Like a pebble that was shiny in the river but just a rock when dry, it clatters to the table. People nearby suck in a breath and turn to stare. Steve gently tugs at my elbow.
“Come on. Let’s go. Easy now. There’s a Starbucks around the corner. You’ll feel better. It’s cool enough.”
I stagger, mute, into the mall traffic gripping this arm that’s given me strength to resist temptation a thousand times. My tether to the earth, manifest in a man of towering strength. I glance over my shoulder at my children, laughing, backlit by the soft glow of the future – one furtive glimpse before they are eclipsed by the Apple Genius going in for the kill. Let’s face it, they never had a chance.
A few days earlier my family and I walked into the glowing womb of the magical fruit – The Apple Store – where the shiny, cool people work who used to work at Starbucks. I want to hate it. I struggle with technology, all of its promise of enablement and glory wrapped in a web of indecipherable recipes and dog piles of rules that suffocate my very being. It’s a good thing my husband is a computer scientist because I am a heavy, heavy, super hostile user of technology that could lay waste the entire Geek Squad with my wrath about once a week. Technology eats my lunch almost every day – leaving me hungry and grumpy, like the skinny girls who never eat, only I’m not skinny. Apple should be my savior, but it scares me even more than the crippling co-dependence of my self-destructive technology partner – the PC, that I want to beat with a small club.
With an Apple, I’m afraid I’ll create a document that no one will understand, speak a language no one will know, reach out to others only to clutch at thin air and leave the party ashamed – ashamed to have thought about changing from a PC, shirking this very basis of my infrastructure. And yet, in The Apple Store everything is pulsing with life. Like Starbucks, only better. A wave of lust washes over me. It’s achy and dirty and feels so, so good.
We are ostensibly here to buy my son an iPod Touch for his birthday. We are already a 3 iPod family – this our only foray into the orchard thus far. My son is turning 13 and is my iPod manager, which is apt given his advanced relationship with technology in comparison to mine. I buy the iTunes cards and we split the funds 50/50 as payout for services rendered.
He dives head first into the Touch and minutes later is making it his bitch. I tentatively turn to a table littered with iPhone 3Gs. They murmur a soft come-on. “Try it. Just a taste. It won’t hurt you. You’ll love it. One bump. Go on . . .” All this pulses from the glowing little temple of promises. I pick it up. Lighter than I expect and smooth to the touch, it fits in my hand as if my hand were meant to grip this thing its entire life. My fingers mimic the television commercial, sliding and activating things like a calendar and clocks showing the time in places I’ve never been. My clumsy, grown-up thumbs finger out misspelled appointments I do not have. Icons flash and bloom on-screen fantasies I didn’t know I had. My nipples could cut glass. I do not blink until my husband walks up behind me.
“Buy me one of these for Christmas.” I slur, barely able to work the word center of my brain -- its capacity is so crippled by the overload.
“Why? Will you use it? It’s a great idea if it makes you more efficient.”
“Well . . . I . . .” I can feel the crush aching in my chest.
“You hate AT&T cell service. I think you threatened to loosen the teeth of the last service tech you called.”
“Yeah . . . but . . . look . . .” I poke and poke and poke the special spots and it shimmies all over. It sighs and rests in the afterglow.
“And, people will send emails when you’re out running around somewhere or using the can. That’s why you don’t have a Crackberry now.”
“Oh . . . I . . .but . . .” I feel a cold breeze blowing up my skirt. My poking slows.
“And, can you type on that?” He points to the microscopic key pad.
“Well . . . not yet . . . hmmm. . .” I let it slip from my hand. Like a pebble that was shiny in the river but just a rock when dry, it clatters to the table. People nearby suck in a breath and turn to stare. Steve gently tugs at my elbow.
“Come on. Let’s go. Easy now. There’s a Starbucks around the corner. You’ll feel better. It’s cool enough.”
I stagger, mute, into the mall traffic gripping this arm that’s given me strength to resist temptation a thousand times. My tether to the earth, manifest in a man of towering strength. I glance over my shoulder at my children, laughing, backlit by the soft glow of the future – one furtive glimpse before they are eclipsed by the Apple Genius going in for the kill. Let’s face it, they never had a chance.
The data:
The iPhone was one of the strongest items to enter the hothouse in terms of awareness, scoring 90% in its first period of measurement. The conversion score is also high with conversion potential near one third of the total. While the overall domino scores are average, the produce score is driven by highly practical things you do with the device and very high life enjoyment drivers. Let's face it, the thing's a grown up toy that has a useful.
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