She "Lost" Her Phone, Ha-Ha!

Megan McArdle says that she has to buy a new-model iPhone today because she "lost" her cell phone:

Megan McArdle: What do you do with your old iPhone?: Well, today's the day that Jobs is supposed to unleash his new creation on the world--and not a moment too soon, as I seem to have lost my old cell phone...

I would snark without mercy, except that I really did lose my cell phone last week. Honest. Swear. I can provide affidavits...

For those who have not lost their iPhones, she has advice:

For those who are still in full possession, however, this presents a problem, at least if they are iPhone owners. The new phone will have better data speeds, probably better call quality, and several new features like GPS. This suddenly renders the price of their old phones--well, probably you can still trade it in that currency composed entirely of gigantic stones. The word on the street from my shadowy hipster associates is that the thing to do is jailbreak the phone and then ebay it internationally to some country where the iPhone is not yet sold through a carrier. In those fabled lands, a jailbroken iPhone 1.0 is probably worth almost as much as you paid for it.

Comments

[SvN]

You won't have to look far; iPhones are still not sold by any carrier in Canada (still "Coming Soon" we're told.)

[rea]

Nothing that valuable should be small enough to fit in you pocket and send through the laundry by mistake. :(

[Ken Houghton]

GPS is something NEW to the iPhone 2.0?

Are Apple people really so simple that they are willing to consider old tech with a new interface an "innovation"?

(Side hint: ebay quickly. A lot of that work is being done by people in the States shipping overseas, who know a bit about S/D curves. And the C$ is, per my new Bank of Montreal account, more valuable than the US$ these days.)

[jerry]

FYI: On PalmOs and I believe on Windows Mobile devices, you can buy a variety of third party programs that will help you a) encrypt your phone b) delete valuable information on your phone, and I think c) find your phone again.

You may wish to look into that for your iPhone.

For instance, I think that if you remove the sd card from my treo, I can set my treo to wipe out the rest of my phone. I know I can send sms messages to my treo telling it to lock itself up or even wipe out everything. I think there are other schemes as well to cover removal of battery, and perhaps even, newly removed sd card wiping itself out. I can also make the Treo display only one screen, with that screen containing my owner information and any reward I'm offering.

I would think an iPhone should be able to support TrueCrypt and all of these other schemes as well. Craziness, huh?

[jerry]

That new $199 iPhone is looking pretty sexy!

/I'm staying true to the gPhone. Sniff.

[Leila Abu-Saba]

Wow. Since I own a fourteen dollar phone bought when I got my Virgin Mobile account, I don't anticipate losing any money at all because of this new i-Phone! Imagine that!

If I want to check my email, I can do this on my fourteen dollar phone. I can send text (good for contacting the babysitter, who only responds to text, never voice). I guess I can't take pictures and send them, but I don't *want* to.

Some of us are hard-wired to love and pursue new gadgets. Some of us are hard-wired to not give a s*** about them. It takes all kinds, and I commend you gadgeteers on your PDAs, i-Phones, Prii, and other whiz-bang gizmos. I still don't want any of it! So I never lose money when the latest version arrives.

PS -the pattern continues in the kitchen - my patron saint of cookware is Laurie Colwin, she of the "Frugal Persons Batterie De Cuisine" essay. While I do own good quality food processor, stand mixer and pots & pans, I don't believe in buying a lot of kitchen gizmos even though I'm a good cook. No Sub-Zero for me, either; our energy-efficient Sears model works fine. The size, expense and features of my kitchen equipment do not predict the quality of meals I produce.

[Robert the Red]

I almost did lose my iPhone last Saturday, at the movie theater. Found it under my seat when I went back. For a moment, I thought I had the perfect excuse to be FORCED to buy the new one.