iPhone Mecca

If you would like to join the throngs of iPhone lovers, move to New York! The city supposedly has the highest concentration of users in the world. In fact I heard a story about someone who wanted to purchase one this month and the phone dealer informed her that she had to wait a month because of a problem with provider number availability due to city saturation. There are so many people using Sprint, iPhone's service provider, in the City that the service is often overloaded and not very good.

I have noticed some behavioral changes in Americans in this city. Everyone is ALWAYS looking or talking on their phone--mostly because it is a multi-purpose iPhone. If I ask a local where a street or café is, they quickly check on their phone. Anytime on the subway is filled with iPhone consultations or internet use. People are uploading their constant whereabouts via Facebook, using guess what--their iPhone. Yesterday I saw 3 girls walking down Broadway, not interacting with each other in laughter or conversation, but absorbed in their individual phones dressed in the colors white, hot pink and black. The same girls were wearing Ugg boots in beige, hot pink and black.

Italians used to have the Americans beat when it comes to cell phone use when it involved sheer talk-time but the New Yorkers have surpassed the Italians with the new wave of technology. The combinations of phone, texting, internet, Google maps, Facebook and other applications have made the idea of using a phone a seemingly 24/7 affair stateside.

Meanwhile I am using my mother's borrowed cell phone in the USA and can't even access the voice mail because we don't know the phone's password. I'm living old-style in hip iPhone heaven, NYC.

By the way, there are people using the free wi-fi on their iPhones from the bus service I am taking from New York to my home town, as I write this post from a classic laptop.