The iPhone 4 is out. Should you buy one? If you don’t already have a smartphone and you’re not morally opposed to AT&T service, this is the best iPhone yet. It maintains the current $199/$299 price point with a two-year contract for voice and data and adds a higher-resolution display, a more capable camera (as well as a second camera for making video phone calls with other iPhone 4 owners), HD video recording and some other cool tech (an integrated processor for better battery life, dual microphones for noise suppression, and a gyroscope for God-knows-what). And if you don’t like being an early adopter, the current top-of-the-line 3GS is now just $99. Oh, and the new release of the iPhone operating system (now formally named iOS) includes multitasking, the prior lack of which has been a marketing win for Google Android and Palm webOS-based phones. Both the new 4 and older 3GS will multitask. What’s not to like?
For me, with my three-year-old original iPhone from 2007, a new phone is pretty much a certainty (after all, I need to keep up with tech). I think it’s hard to justify moving up from a 3GS, which started shipping barely a year ago, but if you really need the better camera (still or HD), then go for it. My daughters both have the slightly older 3G, and I’m sure they’ll be asking for an upgrade from Dad. I must be strong.
Whether you spend $299, $199 or $99 to scratch your gadget itch, remember, the phone itself is the free razor of our era. The real expense, of course, is the two-year contract. Coincident with the release of the new iPhone, AT&T has changed the way it charges for data, eliminating the idea of “unlimited data” altogether. The good news for me is that I can keep my existing $30-a-month unlimited plan. New iPhone buyers, however, must choose between the “DataPlus” plan, offering 200 megabytes for $15 a month, or the “DataPro” plan with 2 gigabytes (GB) for $25. AT&T claims 98 percent of iPhone users consume less than 2GB a month, so most people will save money, but heavy users may get a surprise. Fortunately, AT&T will provide automated alerts as you approach your limit (I was unable to determine if you have to sign up for these alerts. If that’s the case, it strikes me as a bit sneaky.)
Apple has been smart (and lucky): It’s chosen (and been able) to maintain its desired price point while adding features to encourage new adoption and upgrades. There are no “cheap” iPhones, nor will there ever be.
Of course, thinking about the evolution of the iPhone over the past three years got me thinking about where technology is headed, and where that will take businesses like yours.
The biggest changes I see ahead are: Applications that used to run on our desktop computers will now run “in the cloud,” and we’ll access them via our browser; network access will continue its path toward ubiquity (in both time and geography), allowing us to be online anywhere at any time; and we’ll do more and more on our more and more capable mobile devices (like the iPhone 4).
We’re already seeing the transition. Google Docs competes effectively with Microsoft Office (so much so that the latest release of Office 2010 offers Web-based versions of its various components). I can access the Internet from almost anywhere that there’s cell reception (true, there are still a lot of rural places where I’m cut off from the network, but I never imagined I could surf the Web from a car driving down Interstate 5). And it’s possible (although still uncomfortable) to work with just a smartphone in your pocket, making calls, handling email, viewing documents and working on the Web (I did it last year on a family vacation to the U.S. Virgin Islands).
In the midst of this technogasm, it’s easy to forget there’s no economy without people. The trading of goods and services has a purpose that sometimes seems overlooked as we envision our brave new world. Quite simply, we need to feed, house and clothe ourselves and, to do that, we perform work in exchange for money.
But labor is a huge cost component for most businesses. And technology has brought us manufacturing robots, ATMs, automated checkout at the supermarket and self-service via the Web (eliminating assembly line workers, bank tellers, grocery checkers and retail clerks). Not to mention a network that allows a McDonald’s drive-through to be staffed by an operator in a foreign country to save on labor costs. Even jobs that require human input, like categorizing photographs or reading a doctor’s handwriting, can be automated cheaply with services like Amazon’s Mechnical Turk.
What worries me most about the future (besides the dark reality of the Gulf oil spill, the likelihood of a major quake in California, the possibility of a collision between the Earth and a wandering bit of asteroid and the impossibility of fixing our state budget) is that work is disappearing. Waitresses? A friend was telling me of a newly built McDonald’s in France with self-service kiosks in place of counter staff. On the other hand, plumbers seem to be safe for the moment, as do mail carriers and automobile repair people. But there are only so many jobs to go around for people without advanced training and stellar talent (even in the government, which doesn’t have nearly the same financial impetus as business to reduce its headcount).
The tendency is for both the cost of automation and network connectivity to drop over time. To the extent that jobs can be automated or relocated via the network, they will be. Jobs that can’t be automated or relocated will have more applicants seeking them. Which means, most likely, that those jobs won’t pay as well. And that brings me back to the question of how average Joes (or Josephines) will support themselves in this brave new world.
When I think deeply about it, the future scares me. Fundamentally, there must be balance in an incredibly complex web of social and economic interactions. Right now, locating that balance seems beyond our oh-so-human abilities. Perhaps, new technologies will help us find it. As Donald Fagen wrote in a song, “A just machine to make big decisions, programmed by fellas with compassion and vision.”
I sure as hell hope so. Our future depends on it.
