What's a Phone For

Kevin Drum tries to make himself feel good about not owning an iPhone: "To summarize: the iPhone is expensive and fails miserably at its primary function of making telephone calls, but other than that it's really great. Sign me up!"

Seriously, though, it's true. At the same time, there strikes me as something quaint about this notion that a cell phone's primary function is "making telephone callls." Personally, I don't like talking on the phone very much. My old Razr's primary function was sending and receiving SMS messages. My new iPhone's primary function is probably as an MP3 player, with SMSing as the key secondary function. Beyond that, I use the Web browser and the Google Maps function a lot. The phone's actual "talking on the phone" functionality is unimpressive, but I don't really mind that. Indeed, I mind it a lot less than I mind the fact that it doesn't allow you to SMS to multiple people simultaneously, a flaw I fervently hope and pray will be corrected by some future software update.

At any rate, I realize that there's probably a lot of variation about this. Most people aren't nearly as phone-averse as I am. Meanwhile, thanks to the combination of the Google Calendar and Twitter, I count on a steady stream of text messages to figure out what I'm supposed to do with my life, but most people aren't living their lives like that.