t a l l a p e

This is not the Apple rant that’s all over the internet today.

That rant is from people who bought an iPhone when they first came out a couple of months ago, and who suddenly found themselves out $200 when Apple dropped the price on Wednesday. (Though those same iPhone early-adopters find themselves the proud possessors of $100 Apple Store credits. Which I guess is something. But not $200, whatever it is.)

No, that’s not my rant.

My rant is that I had managed to talk myself out of buying one of the damn things.

I’ve been an Apple evangelist for decades (saying something, considering how few decades I’ve actually been alive), and I love their products. I can’t think of a company, anywhere or in any industry, that’s better at design, or that gives a better overall user experience (though an argument can be made for, eg, BMW). But when the iPhone came out, I decided that I wasn’t going to do it. I wasn’t going to spend $600 for something that was, basically, a phone. It was almost worth that much, but not quite. Without 3G data, and an open interface for development, and the ability to move to non-AT&T providers, $600 was clearly too much money.

Even when my current phone (a RAZR that’s almost 2 years old) started acting up, well…still not worth it.

And then those punk-ass bi-atches went ahead and dropped the price to $400. And at $400, it’s suddenly really tempting. Like, almost overwhelmingly tempting. I could get e-mail anywhere! I could read The Sport’s Guy’s latest column anywhere I wanted! Oh, my, the possibilities!

Of course, the keypad thingy is still really clunky, I think, or at least would take some getting used to. And it’s still GPRS instead of 3G, which means much slower data speeds. And for me, the iPod element of the phone isn’t all that exciting.

But still. I do need a new phone, it’s only $400…

Damn you Apple Computer, you punk-ass bi-atches. Damn you.