edgelings on The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Phone:

Judging by the breathless anticipation and by-the-minute online coverage, it would seem that salvation was for sale, wrapped inside a beautiful box and gleaming with colorful, jewelesque tabs dancing across its face. It’s hard to miss the parallels with 1960s Haight-Ashbury, when many found a gateway to personal salvation in a package much smaller but no less colorful: the hand-colored blotter paper that was as good as currency during the Summer of Love.

But is this kind of spiritual zeal warranted?

In a way, yes. Under Jobs, Apple has put elegant, accessible technological power into the hands of millions who would have been terrified of it just a few years ago. If you believe that personal technology and the connectedness it enables is part of human evolution, then the more accessible that world becomes, the better. An elegant, welcoming interface can serve as a gateway to a world of unlimited power, presence and information. From a Zen point of view, there’s nothing oxymoronic about simplicity and power wearing the same face.


But I Always Liked a Good Storm, Pass the Kool-Aid on the Left Hand Side:

Many of my friends will probably be surprised at the content of this picture. When the iPhone was launched, I really could not have cared less. My main two reasons for the lack of giving a -edited- were it was outrageously overpriced, ridiculously oversized (as a handset) and most of all, so very very slow as it was only 2G. I was not in the least bit interested in it, and I stayed that way.

Until, that is, my current mobile service provider and handset began to suck both in earnest and in unison. One or the other, I could have tolerated, but both together just about drove me to distraction.

Valleywag, 10 iPhone Apps that will drive you into Steve Jobs’ clutches. Go read it.

El Jobso pic: