It’s Just a Phone But Please Buy One

There are people waiting in line at the local Apple Store today desperate to get their hands on the latest gadget from Apple, the iPhone. Steve Jobs owns a house about eight blocks from that store. I’m sure he’s one happy guy.

Now I like cell phones, I really do. Mine has a screen, a microphone, a speaker and some buttons. I like the speaker-phone option for when I’m being put on hold. It’s a very compact, nifty little thing that works in Europe as well as the US.

And it cost me nothing. Actually, they paid me $150 for selecting that phone as long as I agreed to a one-year contract, a contract that expired two years ago.

So no I won’t be spending 500 bucks for a new iPhone. There are a number of reasons for my lack of interest besides the fact that I’m happy with what I have. Viewing the web on a 3.5” screen holds no appeal. Cingular is a lousy cellular provider in the Bay Area. The plan is 20 dollars more a month than I’m spending now. And then there is the feeding frenzy associated with the item. I’m a contrarian by nature. When I see a line, I run the other way.

The last time I waited in line to buy something was a long time ago. Led Zeppelin IV was coming out, the album that has Stairway to Heaven. It was OK, but by then I had more or less grown out of rock and roll. It wasn’t worth the wait in line for me. I could have easily done without Led Zeppelin IV.

I do note that Led Zeppelin has many, many fans still and had I kept the first day of issue of that album along with the original receipt I might have something of value to sell on Ebay. The country-singer/American-Idol-phenom/recent-breast-job-recipient Kellie Pickler has stated that Led Zeppelin IV is her favorite album for love-making background music (this is the kind of strange information I get as a result of writing country music and making frequent trips to Nashville). Sorry Kellie. I got rid of that album long ago.

OK, enough snobbery for one blog on my part. Steve Jobs is a genius at marketing. My hat is off to him. He has the public waiting in line to spend 500 bucks for a phone. I don’t know how he does it.

It’s not just phones. He managed to create a computer that people are willing to spend a couple hundred bucks more for simply because the design is a little more elegant than that found on PCs (I’m typing this on a Mac by the way). He was slow to get into the music business, but when he did, he created both computer software and a hand held music box that were so easy to use that Apple quickly dominated the market.

Now I understand that it wasn’t all Jobs work that did this. There are many very smart people at Apple who are designing and creating these products. But the company floundered when he left. And now that he’s back, the company is flourishing.

I’m not much of a consumer. If the country depended on my sweetie and I to buy things, we would be in a severe depression. We hold onto things until they break. We own one 20 inch color TV that’s 20 years old. My last purchase (today) was for a bicycle pump to replace my 15 year old one that has a broken handle and a leak. My presence in the economy is a drag on capitalism.

So I’m kind of happy that people are waiting in line to buy a phone. We need people like this to keep our economy humming. Buy something today. If you don’t want a phone, buy something else. It doesn’t have to be a gadget. Go to a mall. Pick out a new shirt. A pair of jeans. A set of plates. Anything. Please. Our country needs you to be a good consumer.