Hello Rocky,

The new iPhone from Apple - yes or no?

Amanda Schupak
New Haven, CN


Rocky Responds:

It's fitting that Apple partnered up with AT&T for the new iPhone.  In the early 70's, AT&T sponsored the Circle-Vision 360 at Disneyland.  Guests would stand in a large, circular room and watch scenes from around the U.S. projected on nine screens.  In the same building, AT&T set up booths where guests could try out "The Phone of the Future."  TPOTF was a speakerphone - hot stuff back then.  You could drop in a dime and call somebody.  Since your only friends were probably in the booth with you, you ended up calling your mom and bragging about how you weren't holding the phone.  Moms are good about playing along with that kind of stuff even when they don't give a shit.  But you soon realized that it was, after all, just a phone.   And you were talking, after all, to your mom when you could be in line for Autopia.


Autopia - Still more fun than anything
to come out of Cupertino.

So after putting the iPhone through its paces, the HelloRocky Team concludes that it is, after all, just a phone.  Sure, it also has a camera, an iPod and the Internet.  So what?  If you put a saddle on a pig it doesn't make us want to ride it. 

No doubt the iPhone will be a success.  There are people out there who can't handle gaps in their day.  Stopped at a red light?  Push the Youtube link and watch the skateboarding dog.  Take a photo of the guy on the corner spinning a cardboard sandwich.  Listen to the latest crappy Paul McCartney song.  To a lot of people, anything is better than a moment of introspection where thoughts creep in like, "I'm a big phony at work and they're catching on," or "I think my wife wants to poison me,"  or "Has that lump on my testicle always been there?"  At HelloRocky we don't look for gadgets that keep us from ruminating on the dark porticoes of this world. 

That's what booze is for.