Call it a 21st century freeze. The artic chill has arrived in Oklahoma, and like the white Christmas before it, Oklahomans have hunkered down with pot roast in the crockpot, extra blankets on the bed, and a slow drip in the faucets. It's a long winter's night here, made warm and wonderful by the glow of our crackling iPhones.
He likes StickWars, the Battlestar Galactica Cyclon Detector, ABC Animals, Hangman, and Esquire Magazine's Urinal Test, and he never once has been responsible for the multiple broken phones I've had to replace - three and counting.Perhaps the best exercise in friendship that the iPhone has afforded me is its beautiful texting interface. Ding! New message. My husband and I have some of our most productive conversations there, and I've had no shortage of personal and business relationships flourish from SMS into live time associations. Lunch at Prairie Thunder in half an hour? Sure! Drinks at the Skirvin? See you at five. My real social life has been improved, thanks to the maniacal genius of Steve Jobs."My favorite thing about the iPhone is that you get to have games," says Mac. "That's what I love."On Tuesday, the Wall Street Journal reported on the buzzing among technorati about the debut this month of Apple's new tablet, rumored to be 10 inches and, depending on which report you believe, ranging in price from $600 to $1,000. I'm going with $600. The paper went so far as to check the calendar of the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, where Apple has booked several dates at the end of the month. Could this be the site of Apple's heretofore-cloaked announcement? It's a perfectly marketed mystery.I can hardly wait to get my hands on this. As someone who has made a good life from traditional print media, who loves every ripped page from a magazine and breathes in the best periodicals like fresh ocean air, I won't - I can't - abandon the stacks of magazines on my desk and bedside. But I will find up-to-the-minute comfort on a bitter cold night in the digital domain of an Apple device.Kids sleeping? At last. TV? Maybe. What I really want to do all by my lonesome is wander the universe of my apps, a smattering of news and social media sites like CNN, the New York Times, Facebook, and Twitter. Where are you "most emailed stories" at the New York Times? What are my many "friends," some of whom I barely remember, doing right this second? And what did Alyssa Milano tweet about today? (More importantly, why do I care? This is the eternal question posed by Twitter. Frankly, I don't really care about Milano, but I did have a soft spot for Charmed, which I watched by happenstance every morning at 4 a.m. in the weeks after my first son was born, and now that I see her every digital thought, I sort of like her.) Following up on e-mails from earlier in the day and texting my brother until midnight, I can do all of these things while lying flat on my back in the waning hours of the night.The other 101 apps crossing six pages on my phone were loaded by my 5-year-old, the sharing of my phone with him one of life's small pleasures. We are digital transplants, he a native.Louisa McCune-Elmore is the editor in chief of Oklahoma Today magazine.The iPhone became our best friend. At least, it became mine."The tablet is expected to be a multimedia device that will let people watch movies and televisions, play games, surf the Internet, and read electronic books and newspapers," write Kane and Fowler in the WSJ. "People briefed by Apple say the company intends to carve out a new product category. With the new device, Apple wants to change the way consumers interact with a variety of content."
Louisa McCune-Elmore is the editor in chief of Oklahoma Today magazine.
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