Pi-Consulting

When is a cellphone not just a cellphone? When it’s an iPhone, said all those fanatics back in mid-Summer, as they waited in line to be among the first to pay $599 for one. Apple seemed to have another “gotta-have-it” product on its hands.

So, if the newly-launched iPhone was not just a cellphone, what exactly was it? And why would consumers walk past the free or subsidized phones offered by many wireless telephony companies in order to pay out nearly six hundred bucks? The technical spec described a sleek little techno-miracle that was at the same time a super-phone, a web-browser, a music player, e-mail center and image sharing platform. But none of that was really the point, somehow. “It was a lifestyle choice”, explains a report in the Washington Post, “an advertisement for oneself, …a shiny little slice of the future, a thin slab of cool”. (more…)