As 6 p.m. rolls around and the new iPhone goes on sale, I can only sit back and thank my lucky stars Emmeline is not a teenager -- because she would be acting very much like I have been in the past few days.
"I waaaaah-nt wuuuuuu-ne!"
And then my wife would have to say "No, god damnit, NO!" to two of us. All day.
We've written before about why every parent needs an iPhone, but I'm beginning to have second thoughts. It's not just that at $600 -- plus monthly charges that could reach $80 or more -- I would have to sell a kidney on the black market to buy it. (And I can only imagine having more than one teen in the house who simply has. to. have. one. TODAY! or risk throwing a tantrum along the lines of this.) It's that I'm already too addicted to the Internet as it is, and I know my daughter would suffer even more if I had a bundle of Intertubes in my pocket.
Sadly, I think that's going to be the case for a lot of children. How many moms and dads do you see at the playground or sports field with a cell phone or Blackberry firmly attached to ears and thumbs? Now just imagine if those same parents had access to the Internet. At least with a cell phone you can see your child while talking. I'm wondering how many kids will take headers off slides and swings as mom or dad surfs around? (I'm predicting we'll see that news story eventually -- because after a cool product comes out, there's always the "downside story." Remember Blackberry Orphans?) But beyond crazy safety concerns, just how much of their kids lives will parents miss because they have to check their emails constantly or read the latest news story?
I'm not trying to throw a wet blanket over what I think is going to be a fantastic, life-altering gizmo for many people -- and I know that, eventually, I'll probably own one when the price comes down and inevitable bugs are worked out. I just hope that, at the playground at least, we'll all be able to keep it out of sight. My daughter probably thinks a laptop is no different from any other body part -- it's just who mommy and daddy are. Will the iPhone make that true?
With just six hours before the iPhone went on sale, the line at the Apple Store in San Francisco stretched around the block.
