iPhony

Editor’s note: Hailing from Campobello, S.C., Russell Kooistra is a student at Polk County High School who fears Apple Corporation, Steve Jobs and hair metal.
He can be complained to or complimented via email at player9@gmail.com.
The iPhone, another product of Steve Jobs, is the most-generally-wanted-by-18-year-olds thing since the right to vote. For those of you who aren’t familiar with this epic failure, the iPhone is a communication device where the communication part takes a back seat.
It combines the ability to browse the World Wide Web, storage for pictures and other media, an intermittent ability to communicate, and perhaps a salt shaker. Unlike real phones, the iPhone doesn’t have a pad of buttons that you can press angrily when you get no signal on it; instead, Apple decided to add man’s worst enemy, the touch screen.
Although nothing is good or bad until you think it so, I definitely think touch screens are annoyingly dysfunctional and inconsistent.
Furthermore, Apple has signed some sort of contract with AT&T in which if you purchase an iPhone, AT&T must be your network/provider. AT&T, unlike touch screens, is consistent — consistently the worst service provider in the nation every year with fewer bars in more places. Jeff Byrd and I were sitting in the Tryon Daily Bulletin office contemplating the meaning of life when we began to wonder, “Does AT&T even have a tower in the Tryon area to give residents the AT&T service?” However, the iPhone remains to be on every teenager’s wish list…
This really makes me speculate why someone would even want a phone that costs so much because it is a phone yet does not receive the phone service. Furthermore, what drives teenagers to care so much about their phones?
Most of the time, teenagers are replying back and forth during class via Text Messaging “Wutz ^?”, “Nuthin u?” “Nuthin wut class r u in?” “idk I’m 2 busy txting” and other meaningless conversations.
I can see the desire to quickly contact a friend on the road, during an emergency, or to see whether or not they want to get food before the game—I can see a need for the cell phone, but how do teenagers differentiate between good phones and bad phones?
Perhaps it’s the marketing and advertising companies designing sleek phones that make teenagers feel the need to buy a pink RAZR despite its lack of utility. Watching a vague cell phone commercial, I heard a daughter remark in utmost admiration for her new cell, “Oooo, it’s so small.” So? Doesn’t that mean it has less RAM to store ringtones and some of those other necessities that go with cell phones?
I don’t have any sweet ringtones, so when my phone went off in class once, my classmates derided me when they heard the naïve Joy to the World polyphonic ring.
My point is that we’re definitely a branded nation, and this applies to cell phones as well, especially when teenagers are driven to purchase phones that include cool features and a hot design instead of actual function.
We should take a step back and realize, as is the case of the iPhone, that there are many cool features, but perhaps the actual purpose of the phone becomes unreliable. For once, we could become unbranded.
However, right now, I’m a bit hungry, and I think it’s time for a trip to Taco Bell to grab some Fourthmeal.