{Okay, I have a Treo, not an iPhone; but it still applies to me --
PaulB}
http://www.latimes.com/news/la-fi-iphone22mar22,0,1157586.story?track=notottext
From the Los Angeles Times
The risk for iPhone users: They know too much
The device makes it easy to search for data on the run. That can
quickly turn a casual conversation into the Pursuit of Truth.
By Michelle Quinn
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
March 22, 2008
When she whipped out her iPhone, Erica Sadum could feel her husband's
eyes roll. But she had a point to prove. And in less than a minute,
she was able to report to the skeptics around the dinner table that
Menno Simons, whose followers are known as Mennonites, was in fact
born in 1496.
Apple Inc.'s iPhone, which went on sale nine months ago, isn't the
only so-called smart phone that provides itinerant access to the Web.
But its wide screen and top-quality browser make it easy to use and
read, which means it can in seconds change a lighthearted conversation
into the Pursuit of Truth.
"It's turned me from a really annoying know-it-all into an incredibly
annoying know-it-all, with the Internet to back me up," said Sadum, a
technology writer in Denver. "It's not a social advantage."
New technology always brings new habits with it, some of them
unpopular. The mobile handset took phone calls into the streets and
the BlackBerry created a generation of thumb-typing e-mail addicts.
Some smart phones hook their owners up to facts and figures that
ordinary people pull off the Internet with a proper computer.
As USC student and iPhoner Cliff Smith put it, "I have the ability to
clear up any confusion."
Fewer than 1% of the 219 million cellphones in the U.S. are iPhones,
according to M:Metrics. (One possible reason: An iPhone costs about
$400.) That hasn't been enough to trigger a broader boom of Internet
browsing on hand-held gadgets. The percentage of U.S. mobile phone
users surfing the Internet over the last year has stayed flat at 13%,
M:Metrics found.
Internet companies, though, report that they have been getting more
traffic from mobile devices, much of it from outside the U.S. And the
companies have noticed that iPhoners use their handsets differently
from other owners of mobile phones. They search the Internet more,
particularly for movies, restaurants and news, according to market
researchers, and they watch more videos on YouTube and do more online
banking.
Google Inc., Yahoo Inc. and Microsoft Corp. are betting that mobile
services and advertising will be the next big business opportunity.
For example, the Yahoo Go service for Internet-connected cellphones
(not yet available for the iPhone) showcases a program called
PriceCheck. It allows people to check prices at a number of stores by
entering a product's bar code number.
"Maybe you will remember to do price comparisons for flat-screen TVs
online before you head out the door to a store like Best Buy, but
maybe not," said Steve Boom, a Yahoo senior vice president. "Your need
for that kind of information is immediate."
Wil Shipley, a Seattle software developer, uses his iPhone at the
Whole Foods fish counter to check websites for updates on which
seafood is the most environmentally correct to purchase. He quizzes
the staff on where and how a fish was caught. Because he carries the
Internet with him, "I can be super-picky," he said.
The clerks who work the fish counter don't mind. "He's confirming on
the Internet things that I am saying," said Whole Foods' Ken Shugarts.
That's nice, but as Sadum warned, you should pick your iPhone moments
carefully. "The second you go into the pocket for the iPhone, you have
disconnected yourself from the conversation," she said. "No one has
the patience."
Nora Wells certainly doesn't. When she's with iPhone-toting friends
and a question comes up, she braces herself, as she did recently when
it was suggested that they go out for beers "stat." Inevitably,
someone wanted the exact definition.
"The iPhone even gave us the Latin," said Wells, a radio traffic
reporter who learned that stat is an abbreviation of statim,
"immediately," often used in the medical field. "We probably could
have been having our beer in the amount of time it took to look it up."
The proud owner of a Motorola Razr cellphone (from which she can
forward text messages, which she happily noted was beyond the iPhone's
capabilities), Wells worries that iPhoneism might overtake even her.
"I feel so pressured to get one," the 27-year-old Venice resident
said. "People expect it from me. It's the hip, young, fun thing to do."
Or not. Backstage recently in a Little Rock, Ark., theater, actress
Natalie Canerday said the cast of a play was enjoying debating the
year Bruce Springsteen's album "Born to Run" was released. Then the
director took out his iPhone. All conversation stopped as he sought
the answer: 1975, according to Wikipedia.
"Everyone said, 'Oh,' " Canerday recalled. It was another awkward
iPhone moment.
Daniel Bernstein had one when he arranged to meet friends at a bowling
alley in Daly City, near San Francisco. The lanes were booked.
Bernstein used his iPhone to locate another bowling alley 10 miles
away, find out how long the wait for a lane was and get driving
directions.
Bernstein, director of business development at an Internet company,
said his friends seemed more irked than appreciative. "They said,
'Thank you, iPhone,' " and not very nicely.
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Copyright 2008 Los Angeles Times
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
