The Line

19 February 2012

The Line

I guess I still have themes from Steve Jobs' biography running through my head this week. That and the fact that I finally got given an iPhone to use for work.

Having used it for about a fortnight now, I can understand how people fall in love with that device. It's so simple, soft and sleek, and relates to you like a close friend. It's hard not to get addicted to the device because of the world of information that opens up so quickly and easily.

The above cartoon is not the first time I've mocked the Apple fanboys for their passion. But now it seems I've become one of them. It hit me when I realsed that for the past two weeks on my morning and afternoon train rides I'd been fiddling with my iPhone instead of reading the book in my bag.

That Jobs created things that so many people would line up for hours, sometimes days, to possess is not what really resonates with me. It's more the fact that the people themselves believed in something so strongly that it compelled them to line up for days to possess it.

For myself, I think I'm going to try and be more careful about how much I use that phone. While I do love the accesibility of that world of information out there in the ether, I don't want to lose touch with the tangilibility of ink on paper. Or the feeling of directing that ink onto it through a pen.

I guess I just realised what I would stand in line for.