iPhone 5 is Here - Did You Miss It?

So the iPhone 5 is out… Let’s see, the iPhone 5 takes the tape at 4.9-in., about 7% taller than all previous models. Its thinner -- just 0.3-in., or 7.6 millimeters -- by 18% and lighter by approximately 20% compared to the iPhone 4S. 

Its 4-in. screen boasts an 1136-x-640-pixel resolution. The case is a combination of aluminum and glass, with the chassis composed of the former.  In addition, iOS 6 will run all of the previous apps, but now has noise suppression and directional microphone aimed right at Siri, which is way more popular than the current media suspects.

Ok… so we stop here and pause for a moment.  Are we so impressed with incremental notches in functionality that we are ignoring the bigger question?  Basically, why do we care? 

What has led us to this Pavlovian response to reconstituted tech?  Or better yet, why are we paying for a phone – that basically should be free.  Considering the massive bills we commit to every day for these wireless plans to do the same thing our PC already did.  Oh yes, don’t even start sending emails to tell us that the majority of us use the device to talk on, that is totally untrue.  It has become a convenient text, email, and video mechanism.

Why do consumers choose to accept the repackaging of free stuff, and decidedly pay for what effectively we could get for nearly nothing or free.  We pay for TV service, air for our car tires and checked airline luggage. We even pay extra for drinking water. Pizza delivery charges, street parking and fees for access to news websites are more common. We used to walk or run outdoors; now many pay a fitness center to be a pedestrian on their treadmills.  Is business ingenuity exhausted all of their new ideas to the point where repackaging is their only option?

We have a theory here at Wasabi; perhaps it’s the personalization of what would be the ubiquitously available vanilla flavored item that attracts us.  Perhaps it’s a public cry for individuality that strikes a chord with us.  That is, we like the phone again, because it’s our personal communication device, easy to use, customizable, and now talks to us in the tone we command it to.  Maybe we are on to something…

Here are other examples where free become a fee if it’s personalized…

Our own personalized Bottled water. Drinking water is perhaps the perfect example of spending on something that used to be free. This is a beverage that falls from the sky for free and is available for free at public water fountains. The cost of tap water at home is so low, averaging one-fifth of a penny per gallon, it's nearly free. Yet, Americans are spending record amounts of money ($11.1 billion) drinking a record amount of bottled water (9.1 million gallons), according to the Beverage Marketing Corp. In addition, we endure the hassle of shopping for it and lugging home heavy cases of it. Worse, some people will spend several dollars on individual bottles of water, making it far more expensive per gallon than gasoline. Even filtered water at home is far cheaper than bottled, and keep in mind that some of the top brands of bottled water, Aquafina and Dasani, are filtered municipal tap water. Nonfinancial considerations include the energy and material used to make plastic bottles and the problem of disposing of them. The question is not whether it’s worth it to you to buy bottled water, when there is often a free, or nearly free, alternative.  Rather it’s what is motivating us to do it anyway.  Having your own personal reservoir is why.  It’s clean, it’s convenient, and it’s yours.

Our own personalized cup of Coffee.  Coffee, for the most part was a dime a cup, until Seattle introduced a new mindset.  Company officials also managed to get customers comfortable, paying up to six times as much for Starbucks coffee as they could pay elsewhere. Their idea was that, “Not everyone can shop at Tiffany's, but everyone can afford a cup of coffee -- even if it's $2, $3 or $4," author Karen Blumenthal, who chronicled Starbucks for a year in "Grande Expectations." said. "  People are ordering so many of these beverages. The average Starbucks sells $1 million of coffee a year and more than half of the coffee is sold before noon.  So why do we do it?  Is it because we like the homey atmosphere?  No, because the majority of us spend less than 5 minutes there waiting for our order so we can head out the door.  What is it then?  It’s the Double cup, single pump, half-calf, macchiato, that’s why.  There is almost a separate language for ordering these recipes of coffee, and for some that’s an identifier.  Basically, we are allowed to express ourselves by our tastes in our preferred beverage.

Personalized Television service. Adults of a certain age remember when you paid for a television, but the programs were free, beamed to a metal antenna on the roof or atop the TV set. Receiving free broadcasts over the air is relatively rare now, although you can get excellent high-definition signals that way with the same antennas as a generation ago. Use AntennaWeb (antennaweb.org) to help choose an antenna for your address. But instead of receiving free broadcast signals, the average subscription TV bill is $86 per month, according to a recent study by research firm NPD Group. If nothing changes, NPD expects the average pay-TV bill to reach $123 by 2015 and $200 by 2020. The more channel argument no longer holds for they are available free on the internet, but free broadcast networks — ABC, CBS, NBC, et al. — are still among the most watched. Although if you follow Wasabi Roll, you already have seen our solution for that (see previous articles).  However, why does this exist?  SUBSCRIBER television that is we choose our stations we prefer.  Personalized entertainment.

Oxygen.  Now this admittedly is not going so well, not to mention that oxygen bars that dispense oxygen without a prescription violate FDA regulations; however, the agency applies regulatory discretion to permit the individual state boards of licensing to enforce the requirements pertaining to the dispensing of oxygen. For those of you lucky enough to witness the Oxygen bar. Peppermint, bayberry, cranberry, wintergreen. Breath mints are the "flavors" of oxygen offered at your local oxygen bar. Since oxygen bars were introduced in the United States in the late 1990s, customers have been bellying up to bars around the country to sniff oxygen through a plastic hose (cannula) inserted into their nostrils. And many patrons opt for the "flavored" oxygen produced by pumping oxygen through an aroma en route to the nose.  Now understandably, this sounds absolutely ridiculous, because it is… Enough already.  But it exists and there you are… Personalized Oxygen… really guys?

Source(s):

• http://abcnews.go.com/WN/Consumer/story?id=3162590&page=1
• http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-08-03/site/sc-cons-0802-karpspend-20120803_1_bottled-water-aquafina-and-dasani-plastic-bottles
• http://www.itnews.com/smartphones/49259/apple-struts-lighter-faster-bigger-iphone-5?page=0,1

So “Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;”

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About Rick Ricker

An IT professional with over 20 years experience in Information Security, wireless broadband, network and Infrastructure design, development, and support.

For more information, contact Rick at (800) 333-8394 x 689