Caught Up In The Gadgetry

The gadgeteers finally got me.

As much as I like and admire the wonders of modern electronics, I'm not what you'd call an early adopter. I'm the type of person who hears about something neat and useful, then waits for all the early bugs to be worked out. Then, if I determine it's something I might want, I go out and buy the second version. Or third. Or fourth. Or maybe never.

This especially applies to mobile phones. iPhones? Don't have one. Don't want one. Nothing against Apple or others, but I have a standard line that I use when someone shows me their spiffy new smart phone. I take my phone, point to it, and say "you know what this one can do?" My audience waits in breathless anticipation of the answer, and then I finally say, after sufficient pause .. "It makes phone calls!!".

This attempt at comedy gets varied reactions, but I really have only used my phone for one purpose: to make calls.

Until this week.

Our family is on Verizon's "New Every Two" plan, whose main feature is that two of the words in the title rhyme, but also lets you have a new phone for free (or a discount) after two years. (Actually, they just changed it to 20 months, but that didn't rhyme, so they kept "new every two" as the slogan ..)

My wife and I both picked out very nice new (free) phones that work just fine. And so, I thought I was ready for another two years (or 20 months) of saying "Hey look! This phone makes calls!"

But then, I discovered a new mind-boggling feature: if a song is playing in the nearby vicinity and you press a certain button, the phone listens to the song and then tells you what song it is! Then, of course, it offers you the opportunity to buy the song and/or a matching ringtone. But you don't have to do that - the song ID feature is free.

They got me. I'm totally obsessed with this.

I've been identifying songs off my computer, off loudspeakers, off car radios, off anywhere that has a song since I got it. I don't know why this has hooked me, other than that I like music, and I love marketing ideas that are so damn clever you don't even mind that the purveyor is trying to sell you something.

So, the last few days, in the midst of the hoopla over the new iPhone, I've been taking my Motorola out and waving it around as usual. But no longer am I touting the virtues of a phone that makes phone calls. Now it's all about identifying songs!

Oh yeah, it DOES make calls. I think. I haven't made one yet. I've been too busy seeing if my phone really can tell "I Wanna Be Sedated" from "Chances Are".