I know a guy who has been absolutely pumped for the release of the iPhone in Australia today. Thing is, he already has one!

Back when they were released overseas, he managed to get one imported with all the various components, allowing the sim card to be altered & usable over here. Even though the warranty is well & truly screwed, it's worked perfectly, so I can't quite understand why he wants a new one which is exactly the same!?! He's tried to justify it, but I kind of glaze over & confirm my own knowledge of how nuts this guy really is.

I think it's an Apple thing. There seems to be very little middle ground between someone who is a devoted Apple fan & someone who doesn't give a rats. I'm yet to own anything with the fruit etched on it even though I know their stuff is pretty flawless.

This will more than likely offend, but to me, the iPhone is a fancy Palm Pilot which can call people. Yeah, it looks damn schmick & I love gadgets & gizmos, but I don't think the current version is so spectacular that all my other bits of tech become redundant.

I own a Palm Tungsten T which still works well & there are plenty of free applications which are very useful even though they've been around for years. Combine that with my Sony Ericsson W810i & I can't really see any benefit until the iPhone takes some decent photos (2 mega-pixel camera - so very yesterday!) or it fills a need I didn't realise I had.

What I'm getting to is, why is the iPhone being treated as so revolutionary that you would wait outside an outlet at the crack of dawn to be the first to own one? This guy did just that & at one point was thinking of flying to Sydney to pick one up from the new Apple store!?! Did I mention he's nuts?!

Apple has to have some subliminal marketing scheme which I'm just not tuned into!