With the launch of the iPhone 3G, we’ve learned that the average Apple fan loves shiny new toys, trusts Apple to deliver them, and has absolutely no sense of pattern recognition. People queued up for days to get their hands on the new product, just like they did last year. For the one that’s already obsolete. What better time to review the lunatic lengths some people went to with the first white box, just in time to watch them do it all over again!
1. Made One Even More Expensive
Somebody, somewhere looked at an iPhone and thought “That just isn’t pointlessly expensive enough”. Worse, this person isn’t safely restrained somewhere with stern orderlies; they have access to precious metals and a machining lab which they used to coat an iPhone in 24 karat gold. Still, with facilities like that we should count ourselves lucky they didn’t become a Batman villain. No, their evil scheme was much more profitable and went completely un-foiled when the gold-plated gadget sold for six thousand dollars. Presumably to someone who doesn’t even remember what notes smaller than a hundred even look like.
2. Sacrificed Their Political Career
Philadelphian John Street waited through the rain and shine to be the third person to buy an iPhone at his local location. While maniacs hunkering down like the Apple store was about to unveil the cure for cancer is nothing new, the fact that Mr Street is the mayor of Philadelphia changes things a little.
Call us crazy, but when you’re in a major public office, perhaps blatantly advertising the fact that you can just take off for days whenever you feel like it with no ill effects isn’t such great PR. He made a big deal about getting as much work done in line as he would have in the office, to which we can only say “Dig up, you fool!” Working in line was made easier by staff running back and forth from city hall – but a man who can’t even work out the cunning plan “Have one of the staffers wait in line for me” isn’t really someone who should be in charge of local government.
3. Blended phone sells $900!
Two techno-nerd loves were combine to create a revolutionary new level of hybrid insanity with the blended iPhone. “Will it Blend?” is a hit video clip series, with the perpetually cheerful Tom Dickson asking and answering this question in the most direct manner possible. Back when the original iPhone, decrepit antique as it is, was still in its youthful rush of vigour Tom asked the key question. The answer was yes, it blends to tiny little bits, and you could practically hear the squeals of frustrated denial around the net as Tam pictured the shredded remains with his backup phone.
So far so fun – where the story takes a turn off “humour highway” and into “things that are wrong with capitalism” country is the eBay auction for the blended remains – which sold for nine hundred dollars. Nine hundred dollars for a pile of toxic ash! Clearly we in the “selling phones that still work” game are in the wrong business.
4. Idiotic financial plan
In proof that every idiot in the world thinks everybody else is dumber than them, a Dallas woman didn’t exactly think her cunning financial plan all the way through. Arriving at the Apple store fifteen minutes before launch, she paid $800 to be the first in the queue, slapped $16,000 on the counter, asked for every iPhone in the store, and presumably then made one of the most hilarious facial expressions in the history of the universe when told that wouldn’t be possible. We only regret that no-one had a camera, we could all be marveling at a Mona Lisa of Stupidity right now.
It turns out that Apple have actually heard of eBay, you see, and only allowed one iPhone per customer. Yes, that was obvious. No, not to her. The burning question is “How did this woman gain access to $16,000?” We don’t know, but suspect that this case has either contributed to the American mortgage crisis in a small but particularly stupid way, or ended up buying a credit card representative a new car.
5. Coolness Cargo Cult
A Japanese man was driven to distraction by the lack of iPhones in his country, and instead of complaining or going insane on eBay he simply built his own. The hand-crafted copy is so beautiful it’s a pity that it doesn’t have any “insides” or “actually work”. Though some would say that by building a beautiful shell with nothing inside it, Aoshima has built an incredibly realistic representation of the iPhone – possibly even truer to the branding concept than the actual device.
Of course ,the launch of the 3G has made all this obsolete – along with oh-so-very many other overpriced Apple features. But in this brave new world of upgraded connectivity, one burning question remains: Will the 3G Blend?
