Perhaps you have already become used to Verizon's Droid tossing names at the iPhone like an 8-year-old boy behind his teacher's back.
However, the latest ill feelings directed at Apple's little cutey seem beyond even anything heard in an elementary school.
In a new TV spot, Droid asks an important question: "Should a phone be pretty?" To which many sane people would say "yes," and many emotionally challenged beings made of metal would say, "Huh? What?"
Its answer--the latest in its presentation of the Droid as a robotphone--is to hurl metallic-tasting custard pies as if the Apple store was a state fair.
"Should it be a tiara-wearing digitally clueless beauty pageant queen?" belches the ad's rhetoric, clearly referencing the iPhone, while wrapping the pie in a question.
I know many Socratically-inclined Apple fanpersons will object to the notion that beauty is only skin deep. But they will surely rail against the mere suggestion that the iPhone is digitally clueless.
Of course, this ad implicitly suggests that the Droid is, well, one of Cinderella's sisters, which might well affect its abilities to entice certain sectors of the populace.
Actually, the suggestion is more than implicit, for the deeply hirsute voice declares: "Is it a precious porcelain figurine of a phone? In truth, no."
So do you wait for a design that is pretty and is, as this ad so elegantly puts it, "racehorse duct-taped to a Scud missile fast" or do you have to compromise?
I know they say you can't have everything in life, but surely there must be some very attractive engineer out there who can give us everything in a few square inches of cell phone.
(Credit:
Phandroid)
Oh, you knew someone was going to do this. So let's just get it over with. And though some might think of this as a battle between the Droid and the iPhone for the nation's morality, let's be open-source about it: someone's trying to make a lot of money from cell phone porn.
A company with the obtusely childlike name MiKandi has launched a mobile app store that will exclusively cater to adults whose brain food consists of content that reflects their age. Yes, the sort of stuff some prefer to refer to as porn.
MiKandi's publicity material naturally avoids this term, referring to the more PC phrase "adult only." However, there is a little kink in its offering. According to Android fanperson site, Phandroid, the MiKandi Market apps only work with Android phones and not with Apple's more morally minded handsets.
Cupertino steadfastly sticks to its policy of refusing to allow apps filled purely with adult content, though some might dispute whether its definition of "adult" isn't occasionally a little idiosyncratic.
Not for a moment would one suggest that Verizon or Motorola or the deities at Google are necessarily in favor of porn apps. However, MiKandi is attempting to take advantage of the fact that the Android system is more open than the iPhone's.
So while the Android Market itself doesn't offer porn, nothing on your Droid phone prevents you from using MiKandi's services. The wise people at Phandroid do, however, offer stern warnings about MiKandi's workings.
Despite attempting to use MiKandi's services, purely for scientific purposes, Phandroid failed to actually secure access to any mature content. Remember, children, this sort of thing will always be a somewhat risky business.
Ever wander into one of those Verizon or AT&T stores, attempt to have a conversation with one of the smartly dressed salespeople, and whisper to yourself, "What kind of emotionally awkward humans end up working in a place like this?"
Well, I have good news for you.
Ricky Gervais, who made David Brent perhaps the most painfully sympathetic character in modern television in the original BBC version of "The Office," has been asking himself the very same question. "Phone Shop" a new British sitcom, enjoys Gervais as its script editor (he reportedly took one look at the idea and volunteered his involvement). The pilot airs Friday evening on Channel 4.
"Phone Shop" will explore the life of salespeople in a soul-sucking mall cell phone shop.
(Credit: Channel 4)Unlike "The Office," which gained existential pleasure from the old-world business of paper manufacture, "Phone Shop" is set in a mall cell phone store.
The pilot episode follows the troubles experienced by trainee salesman Christopher, who has to sell a cell phone by 6 p.m. as part of his one-day trial.
Clearly this series will reside in the emotional halfway house that has just two difficult residents--comedy and tragedy. And one wonders just what impression will be left by the arduous task of pushing yet more portable technology on a populace that bristles with sensory overload.
I am deeply concerned that the cell phone business will not come out so beautifully in "Phone Shop."
You see, The Independent quoted Angela Jain, head of the E4 Channel, which has bought the series. And beneath her words I sense a little cackling: "Everyone's got a mobile phone and has had some encounter in a phone shop. It's also about those difficult dead-end jobs that everyone has at least once in their lives."
So the Droid and the iPhone are being pushed by people in dead-end jobs? What has become of our brave new, smartphoned world?
It seems as if Verizon Droid's avowedly male positioning will now include finger-pointing, high-pitched taunts, and echoes of "na-na-nana-na".
After revealing that Verizon has placed the iPhone on the Island of Misfit Toys, Ad Age is reporting that in the next Droid ad, the iPhone will be the subject of another touching description.
Apparently, the ad says the Droid "swaps semi-functional, giggling-brat-vanity for a bare knuckle bucket of does."
One can never have enough buckets of does in this complex life. And it is refreshing to see someone spending $100 million in an attempt to take on the prom queen of cell phones.
However, these ads heap pressure on the Droid to perform as a phone and, indeed, as an item to be seen with.
Functionality can only take one so far. Somehow, I recall General Motors being the brand of supposed functionality. And that didn't quite, well, function for the company as things turned out.
If you walked into a store to buy a jacket and had to keep it for two years, you might wonder just how much you felt like paying. This is where companies such as H&M have shown a superior understanding of humanity by pricing well-designed clothes for a naturally short life.
Yet when you buy a new cell phone, even an allegedly well-designed cell phone like the iPhone-assaulting Droid, you have to commit to it for a couple of years, or at least to considerable penalties should you and it have a difficult relationship and decide on a divorce.
Blogging masterperson Jeff Jarvis believes that taking on a Droid would cost him $2,600. Which is why he was stricken with the idea of a Gadget of the Month Club.
In a blog post on his own Buzz Machine site, Jarvis laid out the idea.
He said: "It's worth it for the phone and device companies because they just might seduce me into buying. They'd get more press from the folks who matter - early adopters. They'd sell more gadgets and service plans. They could even use it to try out new gadgets (who wouldn't pay to be a beta tester for the coolest gadgets?)."
Jarvis would like Best Buy or some other enticingly sensitive entrepreneur to bankroll this interesting operation.
"Obviously, it won't work if we all expect to get the Droid as soon as it's out without paying full freight," he said. "So charge more for that privilege. Every month, the one-month fee for a particular device goes down. I'm willing to pay a premium to try the Droid the first month or a Chrome-powered netbook. But I'll wait three or four months for to get my hands on a Nokia N900."
Jarvis even suggested that the premium to get your hands around a Droid could be bid up by the market and everyone would pay a membership fee to be a part of this exclusive club.
But why limit the trial of cell phones to freaks? What if every manufacturer offered its products, as does every clothes retailer, on a 30-day trial? Just as with clothes, people tend to take extra care of anything new they buy.
Some might damage their phones before they give them back, but those people should then be made to pay for them. Many might be just respectful enough to keep their new babies in fine condition.
Many more might be so happy with the phones that they would keep them. At least that ought to be the expectation with a phone that is supposed to be as revolutionary as the Droid.
The phones that failed in this constant trial would, presumably, be the phones that would fail anyway. So this 30-day idea would accelerate the natural selection that is at the heart of our happy way of life.
We would have more choice and the best products would prove themselves in the best arena--that of the instant mass market. And it would also open a new source of inventory and income for the sweet-natured second-hand cell phone salesman.
New cell phones seem to be coming to market with ever-increasing speed and an ever-increasing array of advances that prove to be temporary, so why should manufacturers force people to stick with them for two years or pay increasing penalties?
Why not allow consumers to select in the most natural way possible? Isn't that what one should do with all fashion accessories?
Perhaps you are impressed with pilots who stealth-bomb unsuspecting parts of America. Like Texas.
You know, the pilots who frighten horses while delivering an explosive new device to American soil--the Motorola Droid. Well, perhaps, then, you are male.
Somehow, viewing Motorola's televisual covert activities leaves one with a troubling instinct that the Droid brand will be somewhat different from the iPhone. Somewhat more male, to be precise.
One of Apple's most brilliant and constant talents is to make its brand and the design of its products appeal equally to both sexes.
Apple's music is often sung by women. Apple's humor, in, for example, the "Get a Mac" spots, is the sort of subtle digging that makes men feel clever and women feel relieved that they don't have to spend even 30 seconds with a belching oaf.
In many ways, the Apple brand is the perfect toy boy. Looks young and lovely, lots of wit and versatility, and has just the right amount of muscle for other men to admire.
The Droid, on the other hand, seems to be setting itself up to be the peculiar love child of a union between Chuck Liddell and The Rock. It's strapping on its parachute and it's ready to thrust a fist in your face and a bomb into your back garden.
Is it any wonder that the cowboy in this new Droid spot stammers: "What in the world is that?"--as if he has just set eyes on an alien monstrosity whose GPS is on the blink?
The Droid, so far, is so male that the horses have bolted and the natives are in shock. It's a pillager that has already gouged vast craters out of American soil.
Will women gravitate to its charms? Or is Motorola carving an image for the Droid that consists entirely of chewing tobacco and gunning to the top?
Can a boy's toy take on the toy boy? Can one possibly wait until Friday?
Humans are essentially post-rationalizers.
We go off into the world and do things and then work out reasons why we've done them in order to create some sense of, well, order in the mess that we continually create. We claim that the reasons we have for doing as we do are good. But how good are they really?
Which is why I wonder what will happen when people come face to face with Verizon's new Motorola Droid.
I have been staring at CNET's pictures of the smartphone. I have scoured the Web for pieces of footage. To the point at which I have even watched the only tech reporter in Indiana, yes, Indiana, to have successfully wrapped his fingers around it describe in some detail what advantages it might have over the iPhone. (I have embedded this lovely piece of film.)
The gentleman talks about power and megapixels. He talks about memory and search and operating systems. But there is one thing he fails to mention, something I fear may be vitally important. He doesn't say that it's pretty.
Perhaps it's my sense that we humans are, in the depths of our being, not merely post-rationalizers but terribly superficial. However, I'm concerned that the Droid isn't cute.
I know you'll tell me phones aren't supposed to be cute. They're supposed to be fabulously functional devices that liberate you from your daily grind.
And I will tell you that if the iPhone wasn't such a fabulously pretty little thing, they wouldn't even sell a tenth of the number they have.
I will also whisper that the Droid talked revolution in its initial ad--the one in which it tossed a little snake juice at the iPhone.
Yet it doesn't look revolutionary. Just as Che and Fidel had to have beards in order to lead revolts, shouldn't a revolutionary phone look a little less like, well, other phones?
These are merely fears. Images often lie. Perhaps, when one espies this new device and takes it into one's palms, they will sweat uncontrollably as it radiates a charm that has not yet been exposed by lenses.
Yet right now the Droid feels utilitarian rather than breakthrough. It seems to have all the sex appeal of a middle manager.
It's not necessarily right that the world should be this way. But humans are who we are--ridiculously susceptible to the surface pleasure.
And satisfying that pleasure can, ironically, often be the hardest trick of all.
There I was watching the Yankees suck yet another victory from the very duodenum of defeat, when along came a rather sweet Apple TV spot.
You know, music that makes you glad your lungs function even after a night on the tequila, and a white background with a soothing typeface telling you some simple things that Apple will do to make you even happier.
Then I put down my cup of green tea (Decaf, naturally. Only way to watch the Yankees) and realized that this was a rather vicious list of the iPhone's alleged shortcomings: the inability to run simultaneous apps, for example. And the lack of 5-megapixel imagery.
I still wasn't quite convinced that this wasn't Apple with a cheery punchline. But no, this was somebody throwing a nasty right cross at Cupertino's double chin.
For there was the line "iDon't allow open development." Closely followed by "iDon't have interchangeable batteries."
Well, goodness, this was somebody who had sauntered into the temple and tossed curse words toward the altar.
I realized this just as the ad ground to a slightly freaky halt and the words told me "Everything iDon't...Droid Does."
Please forgive me if I didn't immediately realize that Droid was a phone rather than yet another awful horror/zombie/paranormal movie/video game/TV series.
However, I am told that this little tease (as one calls it in the persuasion trade) is the precursor for the imminent launch of Verizon's Droid antiphone, a sort of sane lover after you've been through a few rather colorful ones.
I have no idea what this Droid thing will look like. Although perhaps it would be a positive step if it had a pointy head, nasty little eyes and spoke to you in extra-terrestrial tones.
However, I am pleased that someone has taken the trouble to produce an ad that seems to offer a little hope for anyone whose delicate self-image would urge them to be seen with something other than an iPhone.
There are more of them out there than you would ever believe.
A man has been accused of hacking at hotel peepholes and replacing them with tiny cameras in order to shoot voyeur videos of ESPN presenter Erin Andrews in the nude.
According to the New York Post, the videos, which in July caused many males of uncertain character to risk computer virus invasion in order to view them, were allegedly shot by Michael Barrett, 48, of Westmont, Ill.
Barrett has been arrested and charged with interstate stalking. The criminal complaint states that Barrett allegedly acted "with the intent to harass, to place under surveillance with intent to harass and intimidate, and to cause substantial emotional distress to a person in another state."
In announcing the arrest, FBI agents went into some detail as to the technical means by which the videos were shot. Each of the eight videos is alleged to have been shot through the peepholes of two hotel rooms in which Andrews was staying. Barrett is accused of making efforts to secure the room next to hers.
The criminal complaint contains this quote from an FBI agent: "The inner eyepiece of the peephole screws into the sleeve for the peephole. The eyepiece had been tampered with and was shortened, and it appeared to have been hack-sawed."
The FBI believes that having hacked the peepholes, Barrett allegedly used a cell phone camera or other miniature device to shoot his infamous videos, which were originally thought to have been posted on the French DailyMotion.fr site.
Someone then tried to sell the videos to the nice folks over at TMZ.com. However, being wise to the nuances of invasion of privacy, TMZ contacted the ESPN presenter's lawyers. The feds say that the e-mail address used to make the offer of sale led them to Barrett.
For her part, Andrews, who was understandably outraged by the videos, is now considering legal action against both the person who shot them and any site that published them, according to the Associated Press.
She told Oprah last month that when she learned of their appearance on the Web: "I kept screaming: 'I'm done. My career is over. I'm done. Get it off. Get it off the Internet.'"
However, she has returned to what is, for so many, her rightful role on ESPN's college football coverage.
Parents have to fight hard to find new ways to get through to their offspring.
Naturally, there are those who might think it pointless to bother communicating with them at all. Yet somehow parents keep trying like the spurned lovers of Cleopatra.
According to The Washington Post, the latest trend in parenting patter is to nag your kids by text.
The article points out some touching nuances. Kids don't like picking up the phone when a parent calls. A text that says, for example, "u little dolt. Where the hell are u?" can be read rather more discreetly.
Some parents apparently send their kids one-worders such as "Update." To which I know that my own inclination as a 12-year-old would have been to reply "Up Yours."
I suppose it depends on how good the parent/child relationship is.
I cannot help but wonder, though, whether all this technological access is giving parents a little too much opportunity to nag and set a bad example at the same time.
You see, one can imagine a bored wife spending an afternoon with her part-time fitness trainer and lover while still sending a text demanding that little Steven does his homework.
One can conceive of a dreadful businessman in some sleazy lapdancing club imploring sweet Sophie-Anne by text to clean her room.
Parents can now go online to check their kids' grades with just one flick at their iPhones. They can more effectively stalk and haunt their children's lives like ghouls of godliness while living up to none of their own principles.
Sending a text can surely deliver the same level of whininess as a moan over the breakfast table or a call, but the mere technology behind texting gives parents far too much ease with which to nag without end or consequence.
Some parents even send texts demanding that their kids send them pictures to prove their room is clean. Why don't they send pictures of their own rooms?
The kids are striking back. In an ingenious move, those who receive texts in class are often using manically texting parents as their excuse.
Shouldn't there be limits placed on parental texting mania? Two texts a day, oldies. One in the morning, one in the evening. Any more and you're grounded.
