iNeed

Two months shy of two years ago I was out to lunch for work and I mistakenly left my cell phone on the table of chili's. I always had my phone out no matter where I was because I wanted to be able to see if Austin got online. I know that it was absolutely a mistake because I relied on that phone as my only way to communicate with him while he was in Iraq. I went back in Chili's about 2 minutes after we walked out of the door to see if they had found it, but the table had already been cleared and the busboy "never saw it". I find that very hard to believe because it was sitting right next to the ketchup bottle, which had been moved, and it was a sizable phone. I had been at lunch with coworkers so it took every ounce of energy I had to pretend I wasn't 2 seconds from falling apart as we went back to work and worked the rest of the afternoon. After work I stopped at the at&t store to get a new phone. I looked at all of the different smart phones and thought I'd give the iPhone a try. The newer model, the 3G, had just come out and was supposed to squash all of the complaints from the previous model - but I hadn't heard any reviews yet so I wasn't sure if it would be all that Apple cracked it up to be.

And it was. Phenomenal! I never knew I could feel that way about a PHONE. Or any piece of technology for that matter. It was cutting edge, it was fast, it was sleek - it was my new best friend.

Austin still jokes that I purposely forgot my Motorola "smart" (stupid) phone at Chili's because it sucked and I just wanted an excuse to get a new one. I promise that's not the case, but now I'm racking my brain for a way to turn my new fascination with the iPhone 4 into a need. I can't just leave my current phone on a table somewhere, that would be too obvious.

Last night we went to the apple store (as you learned last month, this is always a mistake) to see if they could help troubleshoot a problem Austin's phone was having. This time rather than 4 tables of iPads they had 2 of iPads and 2 of the new iPhone. I know that the new iPhone comes with its criticisms - well, really just one. The antenna apparently has an issue and can be blocked by your fingers if you hold it a certain way, which can then cause dropped calls. For now, the resolution is to put your phone in a case. Because I don't ever have my phone without a case it seems that the problem wouldn't be an issue for me, but its still hard to spend $200 on a product that you know has its shortcomings. Apple has set a date of September 30 when they will no longer offer free cases, so my hope is that they are working on resolving the problem in the actual product and just don't want to make this announcement because they don't want sales to slow down in anticipation of the fix. That issue ignored, I CAN NOT BELIEVE the incredible changes from 2 years ago to now! My phone seems like it could have come from the stone age compared to this one.

I don't know what the iPad can do that the new phone can't, other than it has a larger screen for viewing movies, playing games, reading books, etc. So maybe this negates my "need" for an iPad? Doubtful. But Maybe!

As I said with the iPad, I can't seem to justify a reason why I need either one. But if my phone were all of a sudden gone, I would wouldn't I? So now I just need to come up with a scheme to make that happen. Or just bat my eyelashes in Austin's directions a few times...