I am still loving my iPhone and enjoying the way it divides people. The converts display a religious like zeal about it and yet others (the heretics) think it's all style over content and the plaything of wankers (who to be honest have an infinitely better plaything to play with, which is how they got that name). I have to admit that I was suspicious of the hype as well, but now if the iPhone told me to drink Kool-Aid with cyanide in it, I would do so without question.
It all reminds me of the attitude people had to mobile phones in the 1990s (including myself). To begin with people thought they were unnecessary status symbols, a way for City boys and Estate Agents to show off and then within the space of a few months everyone changed their minds and now no one can work out how they lived without them. I'm not saying that's going to happen exactly with the iPhone. But this generation of phones is a massive step forwards and to someone who has always wanted to get all his gadgets into one tiny box, it's a Godsend.
I know I may be sounding like I am in the pay of Apple, but I am really not. If I recommend something it's because I actually like it, whether it be a fledgling comedy magazine, a book, another comedian or a new gadget with millions of pounds of advertising revenue. Richard Herring can not be bought - apart from occasionally when someone might send him twenty quid for biscuits to get their name on his blog or podcast. Of course if Apple want to send me a load of free stuff in gratitude for this attention then they are more than welcome to do so, though I would imagine that this blog does not really figure on their radar.
But just to give them some kind of idea of the power of this blog, I met up with the people behind
Mustard Magazine for an interview this evening and they estimated that my mention the other day had led to them selling about 150 more magazines. That's right. Sit up and take notice, the corporate world. Richard Herring's seal of approval can change the world. If anyone at Apple has noticed a spike in sales over the last few days, then you know who to thank!
It's good to know though, that there are 150 idiots out there who hang on my every word and although I am aware that that doesn't make much odds to Steve Jobs, to some of the cottage industries that have sprung up thanks to the internet that is not a bad day's result. If someone would write a blog that would lead to me selling 150 DVDs in a day, I know I would be cock-a-hoop.
But that's what I love about the internet. Eventually something good should manage to get through to people through word of mouth.
But seriously people, don't send me free stuff. I will only write about things that I have come across by legitimate means and I really don't have time to read books or listen to CDs or whatever that I get on spec. It is the purity of the Richard Herring vision that means that a magazine can make sales of literally tens of pounds worth of merchandise.
And incidentally folks, whenever I refer to myself in the third person, you can be sure I am taking the piss. That's a Richard Herring guarantee.
And if the stuff you're sending is expensive electronic equipment or Hollywood movies on DVD or games for the Nintendo DS or Wii or stuff that's actually good and cool then I will relax my hard and fast rules. And the gear box on my car just seems to have gone. So if Volkswagen want to send me a brand new Golf (Automatic) then I will happily take it off your hands and write about how good it is.
Richard Herring is nothing if not a hypocrite.
And it should be noted that no one who reads his blog has disposable income of more than about fifteen pounds.
Anyway, I really only started writing about the iPhone because I've gone a bit crazy for Applications over the last couple of days. Someone on the guestbook recommended WunderRadio the other day and that is pretty amazing - turning your phone into a digital radio giving you access to seemingly every station on the planet and maybe a few in space. Loads of people had also mentioned Shazam, which is so magical that I can't believe it is actually true and it makes me think that Steve Jobs might be a wizard and that the iPhone is just part of a Dr Who style plot to turn us all into automatons.
Because once you have Shazam - which is free - if you hear some music playing in a shop, or pub or on the radio and you don't know what it is, you can hold your iPhone up to the source of the tunes and Shazam will listen to about 15 seconds of it.... and then tell you what it is. And give you links to iTunes so you can immediately buy it, but also to Youtube so you can watch the video and to information on the artist and their discography. It is just utterly unbelievable.
As I was waiting in the venue for my gig to begin last night (I was doing a story at
Andrew J Lederer's very enjoyable Anthology -
Click here for next week's line-up), I tried it out on the music that was playing (which I actually knew was "Yes Sir, I Can Boogie" by Baccara - but it was good to be able to test the device to check it wasn't just making up rubbish). Within a minute my iPhone had confirmed the fact and I had learned more than I wanted to know about the history of the band and the various incarnations it enjoyed once the ladies went their separate ways. I was never going to buy the record and will be surprised if I ever purchase anything as a result of owning this software. But fuck me, that is an incredible thing for a phone to be able to do. I don't understand it and I am not sure that I want to. I suspect, as one of the other comics suggested, that all that happens is when you turn it on that the phone connects through to a man in a call centre somewhere who listens to the music and hopefully recognises it and lets you know what it is. I hope it is that, because the alternatives are too scary. If my phone can recognise every song in the world then how long before it rises up and turns me into its slave? Ten years ago I would have thought we were centuries away from being the serfs of mobile phones, now I think that day may only be years, if not months away.
But for the moment I shall enjoy my magic box of tricks. If only I could travel back to 1989 with this thing then I would surely be crowned king of the world by the terrified and feckless people of the past.
Though I guess I might not get proper coverage back then and the internet facilities would be basic at best.
