A couple days ago, our own John Biggs got an iPhone and immediately started forwarding e-mails to the rest of us from the device. John’s not known for writing much in his e-mails in general, so when the forwarded mail started arriving with the signature “Sent from my iPhone” it was all the more noticeable. And for some reason I got angry at the sight of those four words.
The iPhone still has an exclusivity to it. In fact, John’s the only CG staffer that has one as well as our Audiofile writer Mike Kobrin, and they’re both loaner review units. Was it jealously then that I felt and not anger? Perhaps a little, but this was beyond simple gear envy. More over it was the pomposity of the statement. It’s like saying “I have $500 for an iPhone and you don’t, so suck it!” (It’s true, I don’t.)
Here’s the problem I’m having, though: For years I’ve received e-mails with the signature “Sent from my BlackBerry” and have never once gotten bunched up about it. I really can’t afford one of those either, but I never took owning one as a status symbol. More like something some poor bastard got saddled with because their job expects them to be constantly reachable. I also took it as an excuse for the brevity of e-mails, as if to say “I care so much about getting back to you that I’ll send you this brief e-mail now and get more in depth with you when I’m on something that requires less thumb dexterity.”
However the iPhone, at least for the time being, is a statement of status. (Something we, the tech writers of the world, no doubt added to with the constant and continued coverage of it.) And I didn’t take the “Sent from my iPhone” as an excuse for brevity, I took it as “Look at me! I got an iPhone!”
So what say you, readers? Am I just jealous of the iPhone haves ’cause I’m an iPhone have-not or is it truly obnoxious to receive an e-mail signed “Sent from my iPhone?”
UPDATE: In case you want to adjust that iPhone signature. (Courtesy of tuaw.com. Thanks Les!)