Geek Soap Box

Newsflash, for those not paying attention: I own and adore desperately my iPhone.  Without it, I feel uncertain and anxious, as if a very part of me has been unplugged from life and I struggle to maintain focus and balance.  It’s utterly ridiculous, but I guess I’m one of the people Strand Consulting is referring to when it declares that iPhone users are delusional.

The Strand thinkers released an opinion entitled “How will psychologists describe the iPhone syndrome in the future?.” It focuses on the sorts of people who buy into Apple’s great success.

Here’s a flavor of the somewhat-skeptical nature of Strand’s feelings: “Apple has launched a beautiful phone with a fantastic user interface that has had a number of technological shortcomings that many iPhone users have accepted and defended, despite those shortcomings resulting in limitations in iPhone users’ daily lives.”

The consultants’ likening of iPhone buyers to kidnapped hostages may raise more than the eyebrows of many an Apple fanboy (fanperson?). Indeed, it already has the Mac world aflutter.

“When we examine the iPhone users’ arguments defending the iPhone, it reminds us of the famous Stockholm Syndrome–a term invented by psychologists after a hostage drama in Stockholm. Here, hostages reacted to the psychological pressure they were experiencing by defending the people that had held them hostage for six days,” Strand declared.

Hah.  An amusing — and deliberately controversial — opinion, but it’s not one without a kernel of truth.  Verizon has been spot-on with its latest batch of advertising geared towards knocking the iPhone off of its mighty pedestal.  The “Island of Misfit Toys” commercial, in particular, is so on-point that I cannot help but hang my head in shame and simultaneously chuckle in agreement.

I’ve spoken in the past about my issues with the way Apple and AT&T conduct their business, including how poor the processing power of the device is and how devastatingly awful the broadband network has proven itself to be.  That all being said, when my phone broke down — twice in the span of 2.5 years — there was little question that I was heading to the Genius Bar to make damn certain the thing was repaired or replaced.  A new brand/model of device was simply out of the question.

Maybe it’s a coastal/Northeastern elitest thing, but I’m too accustomed now to using and depending on the phone to handle my every Internet, e-mail, SMS, MMS, and music-playing need, and I don’t think it will ever be possible to go back.