I know, I know… the iPhone 4 is old news. 
But you know what is new news? The fact that my parents now each have an iPhone 4.
Before you get too bored, you have to understand something: My parents are the biggest technophobes and techno-clueless you could imagine. My mom still pays for an AOL account. My dad refuses to think of paying his bills online, even through his bank. They still don’t really understand what an MP3 player is, and they refuse to do anything with their computers without my explicit approval. (I installed Team Viewer on their computer over the holiday weekend so I can just work on their computer without trying to talk them through it.) So you can imagine how baffled they are when I tell them about my profession (search engine and social media marketer) and my hobby of video games.
From all this, you can imagine how floored I was when they said they wanted to get iPhones. Granted, their current phones were dying and were at least six years old. They also had so much dust trapped in the window on the outside of their flip-phones that I have no idea how they could tell who was calling. My mom said that they would feel the most comfortable buying the phones while I was there, and since I just love buying new technology–whether it’s for myself or for others–it didn’t take much arm-twisting to get me to go with them.
But first, I had to convince my father that this was the way to go. All it took was showing him how large the keypad was for dialing and how large the font for the contacts is. He honestly didn’t care about much else at that point. So away we went.
As you can imagine, the Saturday after Thanksgiving presented a bit of a wait in the AT&T store. It was just enough time to help them find the cases and car chargers that they wanted. Of all things, I had no idea that my dad would be the pickiest about the color of his case. I wanted to punch him in the arm for a man check. By the time we got that all squared away, a rep was ready for them. Since they already knew what phones they wanted and they already had AT&T accounts, they went right to the register to get set up. I decided to step back a little bit and give them some breathing room to make their own choices (and I had check-in with Foursquare to announce where I was and what I was doing). After thirty seconds, my dad walked over to me and asked me to come please supervise their decisions. So yes, I ended up doing all the talking to the rep and translating to my parents. Much to my surprise, they both asked for text messaging plans! I’ve already texted my dad once about TCU heading to the Big East, but somehow I don’t think he knew how to check the message or write me back, because I have heard no response. After all, I know my dad has many thoughts about college football and the blurring of the conferences.
That was all quite entertaining, but none of it was as entertaining as listening to them gasp in surprise at every little nuance on the way home (I was driving). “I can track stocks!” “I can monitor the weather in Vail!” “Can I check out sports scores?” “Can I get my AOL mail on this?” “Oh wow it has voice memos!” “You mean I can take pictures and send them?” “Did you say I could monitor my bank accounts? How?” It was like listening to my son when he gets a new toy. Every little thing was just so exciting. I had to resist all urges to welcome them to 2006.
So, well done, Apple, you’ve converted yet another two technophobes into your fold. Is there really nothing the iPhone can’t do (other than change the tones for incoming emails)?
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