Quixotic Bravado by Josh Babetski

I came across this article today on Gizmodo (via Friendfeed): “Surprise: New iPhone Comes Loaded with Photos of the Girl Who Made It.”

I wonder how much thought people actually put into where all the things they use in daily life come from and the history of things in general? This article was great in that someone in the UK actually got to see who helped build the iPhone they’ll be using. I would have loved to seen a message too in the Notes Application with her name, some things about her life and work, but a picture is great. I wish I knew more about my iPhone prior to the AT&T guy pawing it up with fingerprints when I bought it.

I think in a global economy, there’s a lot to learn about the people who bring us our possessions and consumables. That perspective would help shine a light on labor practices abroad and more insight and understanding into how things come to be.

Do you ever wonder about the history of the things in your life?

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Prior to my iPhone, I had a 5G Video iPod. At that time iPods came with a white sleeve/pouch thing to help protect the iPod from getting all banged up. When I got my original iPhone, I repurposed that pouch to hold it while in my pocket. As scratch resistant as the iPhone is, it doesn’t hurt to take care of it.

After a year of wear-and-tear, that pouch was looking a little rough and the stitching was holding onto dear life. So to go with my new 3G iPhone, my girlfriend Traci also made me a brand new, custom-designed pouch for it.

New Custom iPhone Pouch by Traci.

It’s got a soft, black exterior with little holes in it which show a gold-colored liner, made of a similar material to the polishing cloth that comes with the iPhone (the good one from the original, not the cheap, thin 3G one). This allows the sound to carry through it better than the iPod pouch. It also has a flap I can flip over to completely enclose the phone.

If you ask nicely, maybe she’ll make one for you too. She made a cute pink pouch for her iPhone already and is looking for her next customer.

Short rant about the iPhone experience, not the phone and features. With everyone under the spell of the Apple reality-distortion-field, there are some not-so-great things about the greatest phone on the planet.

I picked up my iPhone 3G last night and had the old iPhone switched over to Traci. Here’s a quick comparison of this year’s experience versus last year’s:

iPhone Edge

Walked in, ordered phone at AT&T store. iPhone was delivered to house a week later. I unpacked, activated via iTunes easily and had the phone up and running in 15 minutes.

iPhone 3G

Walked in, ordered phone at AT&T store. iPhone was delivered to AT&T store a week later. I went in to pick it up at 8pm. Activation has to be done in-store with the salesperson fingering up my new phone. Phone is up and running in 45 minutes.

iPhone Edge

Came with nice dock connector

iPhone 3G

No dock connector; doesn’t fit old one.

iPhone Edge

Came with nice polishing cloth

iPhone 3G

Comes with paper-thin cheap polishing cloth

iPhone Edge

Came with power adaptor that used same outlet piece as laptops, but had to be replaced a week later.

iPhone 3G

Came with small adaptor, but outlet prongs don’t retract.

The process for migrating my old iPhone to a new number was pretty painless. Be warned, it takes about an hour to completely wipe the phone.

One issue I did have, and this might save you an hour with tech support: When trying to set-up visual voicemail again on the old phone, the voicemail icon may not do anything when pressed. Here’s how to fix visual voicemail on the iPhone:

• Press and hold “1″ on the keypad. This will dial-in for voicemail the old-fashioned way.
• Set-up a new voicemail password
• Hang-up
• Wait a minute or so
• Try the visual voicemail icon again
• It should now work.

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