If you haven’t already heard, Gizmodo seems to have stumbled across a prototype of the upcoming new version of the iPhone.
I guess I’m less interested in the new different features of the phone (front facing camera with flash, volume buttons, higher resolution screen, flat and not rounded) than I am about the explosion of interest that this has caused. It’s one of the top trending items on Twitter, it’s being buzzed about in every blog, it’s huge.
I don’t want to dismiss anyone’s enthusiasm or mock them, not at all. Smartphones are interesting and important both as contemporary tools and as indicators to the future of society and the way it communicates. And the way this thing came into the hands of Gizmodo is straight up Jason Bourne.
But it still seems strange to me to geek out so hard on a new version of something that already exists. I mean, it’s a little Navin Johnson “the new phone book’s here!”, right?
Then again, isn’t that most tech stories? Something changes incrementally, new features are added or reworked, the camera has a flash, the iPad has 3G, the cordless phone has no cord, the computer doesn’t need vacuum tubes. I guess the new iPhone is huge news and the front facing camera is great news for Chatroulette fans but I’m not sure my mind is completely blown.
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