Outer Rim Territories

Apple - iPhone

January 10th, 2007 | by Christopher Gillespie |  Print This Post

Link: Apple - iPhone

If you haven’t heard, Apple introduced the much-rumored iPhone yesterday. The piece is every bit as amazing as expected. It features one physical “home” button. Everything else is virtual on a touchscreen. It has many usability features like turning off the screen when in proximity to your face, switching between portrait and landscape automatically when you physically reorient the phone, and adjusting the brightness automatically to light conditions. It has full text messaging, iPod functions, video playback, web browser, email, Google maps, widget support, and works like a Mac.

The thing defies Apple’s specific-tools-for-specific-apps mentality. So far in cell history, the merging of PDA, music player, video player, and phone has been unsuccessful. Apple has the means to change this. But what would it mean to have all this in a 11/16″ thick device in your pocket?

The real danger is ceasing to have real, interpersonal contact. When all your conversation, dialogue, new gathering, product research, and even asking for directions is done with a electronic interface, I wonder the real consequences. Picture this: the masses walking, listening to music, browsing Amazon, three way calling… all the while walking past hundreds of people…. never making eye contact and not even physically brushing past them. A society of automatic people, individuals, yet never interacting, creating… only molding themselves to their technological symbiote.

Perhaps that vision is a doom-and-gloom-Orwellian but tell me you haven’t already seen this effect with cell phones. Now imagine a full computer built in to the same phone and the fate described is not that far off. But if we recognize the continued need for real contact, perhaps such a device could be a facilitator and not a prohibitor.

Pastors especially need to recognize that their ministry is a real one, tactile, interpersonal, and eye-to-eye. E-mail counseling isn’t authentic. To faithfully communicate God’s Word, it’s preaching into the hearer’s ears in person. Christian interaction as a whole is not one of spurious text messages or email but its real fellowship. Its the kind of fellowship where you sit down and share a meal with someone. Holding your pizza slice up for the webcam doesn’t carry the same weight. These are the bonds that technology can break. These are the bonds that we must stress as Christians (especially in the face of the dissolving of the family.)

Regardless, I’m saving for June. :)