The 5 Stages of iPhone Acceptance

The Five Stages of the Kübler-Ross model

The iPhone has become such a part of our collective consciousness that soon entire books are going to be written about the sociological impact of such a groundbreaking, Insanely Great device. Why, it's so dammed important, that it's probably pointless to write about any other pressing computing or technology issue.

In fact, this became the case on ZDNet last week, where virtually every other kind of computer and technology news (with the exception of MicroHoo, because God knows, we can't go two minutes without another Yahoo-Microsoft merger post -- EDITOR'S NOTE: Can't we treat MicroHoo like the major media outlets treat Paris Hilton?) became pointless. Heck, I might as well have not even bothered to blog last week had I not jumped in last minute on a Friday to see what all this iPhone 3G crap was all about.

In the early 70's, Swiss psychiatrist Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross became known for her five stage model on the process of how people deal with grief and tragedy. Well, given the fact that nobody gives a rat's posterior about anything else except for iPhone 3G, I'm going through my own personal grief cycle. Don't we care about ragging on Vista anymore? What about Linux? Virtualization? Global Warming? Service Oriented Architecture? The Energy Crisis? Web 2.0? The Recession? Anyone?

In any case, I decided it might be interesting to apply the five-stage Kübler-Ross model to iPhone fatigue.

Click on the "Read the rest of this entry" link below for more.

1. Denial

The initial response was, "Why do I need one of these things if there are so many other good choices out there?" What the flipping hell do I need to spend $400.00 on a goddamned cell phone for? Who the @#$% needs one?

My own personal denial was documented in Linux Magazine when the iPhone was first launched. My initial arguments were that iPod and iPhone were proprietary systems that were eventually going to get wiped off the earth by cheaper and more competitive Open Source-based solutions. Unfortunately, since I wrote the first version of that article on my own personal blog back in 2006, none of those things happened. Despite all the movement in Open Source, not a single contender has come forth with a compelling enough product to unseat Apple's dominance of the smartphone and digital music player market.

But hope still exists. Symbian recently was acquired by Nokia, and a multi-vendor effort is underway to Open Source the entirety of that system. Google's Linux and Java-based Android is under active development, this despite a delayed launch between Q4/08 and Q1/09.

2. Anger

The iPhone of course became extremely popular, and this incensed the hell out of me. So I looked for various outlets to become receptacles for my rage. First I wanted to do bodily harm to the iPhone. Then, when that didn't fill the void in my soul, I resorted to guilting others with their purchase and their obsession with the device. While I have gone through stages 3 and 4, and I am approaching stage 5, I'm still defaulting back to stage 2. So maybe I still need time to heal.

Storeperson: Not on your life, fat boy.

Me: Goddammit, the bastards bought all the iPhones. Why am I the only self-respecting geek without one now? I want to kill myself.

Me: Sure honey. Really, what the hell was I thinking? Only a complete dweeb with no life whatsoever would actually go out, skip work, and buy one on the first day.

Rachel: And frankly, I can just live with a regular iPod or some generic MP3 player and carry a regular cell phone. It's not that important.

Me:  So can we get an iPhone 3G next week?

Rachel: Okay.

What iPhone Kübler-Ross stage are you in? Talk Back and let me know.