When I got to the writers’ group last night I put my mobile on the table. (The bar where we meet is usually noisy and no way would I hear it ringing from inside my bag.) The phone is a chunky old flip-open model, reminiscent of the communicaters in Star Trek, and wouldn’t impress anyone. It joined a couple of other phones on the table, of varying ages, but all fairly standard.
Then José arrived. His phone is much slimmer, with a complete querty keyboard, and I swear I felt a tremor of envy run through the group. Looking around the table at all these phones of differing shapes and sizes, I was reminded of the business card scene from American Psycho.
The difference is, perhaps, that there, the weightier and more impressively embossed the card is, the higher prestige it bestows. With phones, though, it’s the slimmer ones with the least relief that impress.
Incidentally, did Apple really model the iPhone on the Disaster Area ship?
“[…]classic, simple design, […] very clean, very sleek. There was just one remarkable thing about it.
“It’s so … black!” said Ford Prefect, “you can hardly make out its shape … light just seems to fall into it!”
And, of course, the ship was “totally frictionless” with no visible buttons or controls. Pretty much like the the iPhone.
don't confuse the narrator 