OyChicago blog

Eighteen months ago, there was nothing my husband wouldn’t do to get himself an iPhone.  Knowing that the phone was quite pricy, his wife was quite pregnant and his mortgage was, shall we say, significant, he realized it wasn’t the best economic investment.  The man spent a considerable amount of time strategizing ways to make the phone financially accessible.  In the end, he requested gift cards to the Apple store for every single gift-giving event that year, saved them all up, and by December, he was happily downloading apps and checking fantasy football scores.

Fast forward to today.  The husband has announced he is getting rid of his iPhone.  The reason?  He wants the newer iPhone.

As someone who could care less about cell phones, and typically forgets to bring her phone along as she leaves the house, this revelation was quite staggering.

After the months of longing, the year of saving gift cards, how is it possible that he can simply toss it?

He says the new iPhone is faster.  He can multi-task with it.  He likes that it’s more powerful.

He wants the new phone because it’s cooler.  It seems that most people agree with him.  In just one day, 600,000 people pre-ordered the new iPhone.  And that number is likely lower than what Apple could’ve sold, since an unexplained web malfunction caused AT&T, the iPhone’s exclusive wireless provider, to halt online pre-orders.

Six hundred thousand people who have not seen, held or used this phone have scrambled to get on a pre-order list. This despite the fact that a January Consumer Reports survey of 54,000 consumers ranked AT&T last among wireless providers in 19 of the 26 major cities included in the study.

I marvel at Apple’s complete and utter power over us.  And I wonder what those 600,000 people are going to do with their “old” iPhones.

I posited that question to my husband, who told me he’d give it back to AT&T.  When I casually suggested that instead, he should give it to me, he looked at me like I was crazy.

“You don’t need an iPhone!”

But Apple told me that I do.