He whined, he groused, and finally he flat-out begged, but at last Stephen Colbert is an iPhone owner.
"Guess what folks," Colbert told the audience this week during the The Colbert Report. "I gots me one!"
"I've been using this nonstop," continued Colbert. "I've been making calls. I've been petting it. All the things you dream of doing with a phone."
In June, Colbert was steamed at Apple and CEO Steve Jobs. He noted that the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and USAToday had reviewed the handset. All he had to review was his imaginary iPhone.
"Apple, what part of 'Give me an iPhone' don't you understand?" Colbert demanded. "You give me a free iPhone. I convince people to buy it. This thing isn't going to sell itself."
Perhaps Apple's unwillingness to supply Colbert may have soured the comedian on technology as a whole. In a skit this week called "March to Enslavement," Colbert warned that machines might one day master the human race.
Colbert issued this caution about the iPhone: "I am already totally dependent on this thing, and it knows everything about me. It knows my e-mails, it knows my contacts, it knows my jock jams. A man's jams should be private."
Colbert also predicted the coming of the iEye, a contraption that might replace a person's eye.