Something I've noticed about the new iPhone commercials.

[JohnnyRingo]

As a disclaimer, let me point out that I don't have a smart phone, so I'm an outsider looking in to a culture built around a device. I don't tweet, stream, text, or friend, so I think I have an objective viewpoint on the concept.

I know people have become quit attached to 4G phones, and I have family members who keep them in their left hands at all times, but the new commercial campaign has changed the overall purpose in what I thought was a subtle way. Smart phones have always been marketed as a convenient -or even necessary- communication device. Having instant messaging, video phone, and the internet in the palm of one's hand is indeed an impressive feat.

The new commercials have a solitary user speaking to no one but the device. The actors ask the phone to remind them of mundane tasks and minor alerts. The generic (and I'm sure carefully chosen) woman's voice repeats the message and adds bits of pleasant conversation. In the one ad a young garage musician tells the phone: "from now on, call me rock God". The phone respectfully complies, ending with with an upbeat "ok?". In another, a woman in her apartment asks the device to remind her to clean...tommorrow. She then proceeds to dance the phone into the next room as it plays her selected tune for them.

So now it appears to me Apple has evolved the new iPhone into your friend. The future is here, and we no longer need anyone else in our lonely lives. We have the 21st century version of a robot in a portable form. It doesn't sweep the floor like Rosie the Maid from the Jetsons, and it can't shoot electricity from it's pincers like the robot on Lost In Space, but I'm sure there's an app to warn Will Robinson of extreme danger.

I'm not trying to be cranky here, but it seems over the years we've come to dread face to face interaction with friends by calling them on the phone. We've learned to sidestep that situation by playing phone tag and leaving voicemail (hope he doesn't answer). Apparently too personal, we've moved on from that level of contact to voiceless text messages typed out and delivered across the bar. Finally it seems we no longer have to relate to humans at all if we wish, we have all the companionship we need in a slim design, and it never argues your point or forgets your birthday. Of course it doesn't have sincere feelings or a heartbeat, but it does have endless porn if you ask.

It seems rather quaint to complain about the flying cars now, doesn't it?

[MrScorpio]

1. Eventually, we'll be building our own friends

[jberryhill]

2. Because Apple users have no friends

I mean, seriously, do you remember what people used to be like after doing EST (or that other nonsense it was re-packaged as)?

Apple users become so engrossed in that cult that, yes, they no longer notice that humans don't want to talk to them anyway.

[ClassWarrior]

3. No, it just has some cool voice recognition technology.

Lighten up, Francis.

NGU.

[dkf]

4. Siri doesn't work very well.

Maybe in her next incarnation...

[tridim]

5. Imagine the hardware and software we'll have 25 years in the future.

People will willingly buy iBrain implants and run them 24/7. Don't worry, there will only be a few ads.

[JohnnyRingo]

6. Why not implant it under the skin?

The device screen can come to life on our forearm and be controlled by a light up keyboard beside it. A lifetime of power can come from a spinning nano generator placed in an artery (watch those fries). The speaker is wirelessly connected to the ear canal itself.

It'll have to wait until the current tattoo generation retires to the rest homes though, With their antique Candy Bar Blackberry Razr iPhones still in hand, there will be few modest locations for the new devices. Talking out one's ass could mean something else entirely. Plus, a dropped call at that age could be cause for alarm.

("I wish my Grandma would quit sending so many texts, my arm is getting warm".)

[MADem]

7. In Futurama, they called it the EyePhone and "Mom" jammed it in your eye! nt

[Journeyman]

8. I suspected something was going awry back in the mid-'90s, when "internet cafes" were the rage. . .

and eight people would cluster about a table in the cafe, each in front of a computer screen, all busy typing messages to people they'd never met, striking up friendships across the many miles of the web, blithely unaware (or so it seemed) of the strangers immediately around them.

Interesting observation, JohnnyRingo. I will, however, continue to gripe about the lack of flying cars. They were promised, after all, and by the 21st Century!

[mattclearing]

9. Seriously?

People are talking about the impersonal nature of smartphones on a message board? Pot, meet kettle.

I can read DU on the bus, train, waiting in line, whenever, wherever, and there's nothing wrong with that.

If you want to complain about smartphones, complain about the relentless factory work that goes into them for pennies on the dollar.

People have opportunities to socialize in school, at work, and everywhere else in the world.

If people can't talk to people, it's not the phone's fault.