Today, Apple's iPhone 3GS was released in Japan. I have gotten it. After touching this cool gadget for a few hours, I remembered a phrase "Invention is often the mother of necessity" in Jared Diamond's fascinating book "Guns, Germs and Steel"
"Invention is often the mother of necessity"? Is vice versa real, isn't it? I thought so. However, Diamond wrote about a good example for the phrase. It is the Thomas Edison's phonograph. When he built his first phonograph, he made ten of aims of it. His aim was to "preserve the last words of dying people", etc. but not the "reproduction of music". When other entrepreneurs created jukeboxes, Edison objected to this arrangement of his "serious" invention. He didn't invent the phonograph for his necessity of wanting to listen to J.S. Bach's English Suite.
Is there relationship between the above example and the iPhone? The reason why is: As I used my iPhone for the first time, I was convinced that this tool wasn't created by the necessity for recovering conventional cell phone's shortage. This gadget makes a user realize "A daily life will become less interesting without iPhone" by using it. Invention is often the mother of necessity, I also think.
Actually, I didn't think that I would buy it last month. I already have a cell phone and I was satisfied with it. In addition, I work for a telecommunication company and iPhone's carrier in Japan is the rival of my company. To have iPhone was out of the question for me.
Why did I change my mind? On 9th of June, Apple introduced iPhone 3GS, not iPod touch 64GB. I was longing for the iPod touch 64GB because my iPod was an old version (released five years ago, b/w screen and only 20GB storage which isn't enough for me), therefore I was disappointed at the news.
However, after knowing that iPhone 3GS series have a 32GB model, my disappointment gradually changed. At first, I thought that 32GB wasn't enough for my music, pictures and movies (50GB). So I had wanted iPod touch 64GB, not already-released 32GB. But did I need to carry all of my music, pictures and movies? Actually, is 32GB model enough for my selected library? As a trial, I made my selected library from 7000 tunes, 9000 pictures, 100 movies. The size of it is under 30GB.
Next, I begun to survey the communication charge system of iPhone in Japan. Judging from a conclusion, iPhone's communication charge isn't new burden for me. I can purchase iPhone 32GB cheaper than iPod touch 32GB. The difference can make up the added cell phone charge. So "my old cell phone charge + iPod touch price" is nearly equal to "my old cell phone charge + iPhone price + iPhone communication charge for two years". The communication function and available area of iPod touch is limited, but iPhone isn't. Same price, Higher function.
The last reason that I want iPhone is the attractive applications and functions. They make get my life, in paticular in a commuter train, better. Not only reading blogs by Google RSS reader, but also reading downloaded public domain novels with beautiful font for free (my cell phone isn't available for them.) Enjoying my family's and friends' pictures and my son's movies (my cell phone is available for them but not smoothly and smaller screen size than iPhone).
Today is Friday. However, I'm looking forward to Monday. I want to know how my commuting life is changed by iPhone?
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