Phone love: When an iPhone meets a Hero
He was wildly successful. She was from the wrong side of the tracks. But their passion would not be held back by firmware updates, nor Bluetooth incompatibility. This was true phone love
They say the course of true love never runs smooth. But imagine if you were from two different worlds. One from a protective family who only let you out with certain people it had pre-approved. The other from a hippy commune who let their offspring see whoever they want, and enjoy a full range of life's experiences.
Imagine if these two youngsters met in a coffee shop one damp winter morning and fell instantly in love. Imagine their story, told on a technology Web site in full colour, with ravishing and graphic detail of their romance.
Now imagine they're phones. That's right. This is phone love.
It's a coffee house: a handsome, manly iPhone, dressed in flattering black, was glugging down his double mocca frappaccino with extra cream, when he caught a whiff of an intoxicating group of radio waves. He looked over, and there by the door, a vision of beauty, resplendent in pink, shaking the rain from her sumptuous touchscreen.
"Oh my," thought iPhone, "could it really be, is that HTC Hero?" His CPU overclocked itself and he felt the surge of electrons through his circuits and terminals. "Will she speak to me? Will we be able to share our business cards, or will my OS make her feel inferior?"
iPhone needn't have worried -- despite his slight arrogance, he was a very dashing chap. Even before they exchanged words, HTC Hero was already planning their wedding, purchasing a virtual cat and deciding what colour their first house should be.
iPhone was nervous, his brow sweaty as he approached the bar where he and pink HTC Hero would meet for their first glass of wine together. Would she like his hair? Would they have enough to talk about? Would the incompatibility between their Bluetooth stacks be a sticking point?
At least, if nothing else, they were both GSM phones. iPhone wasn't a bigot, but he didn't really want to date a CDMA handset. After all, they would struggle to understand each other, and CDMA phones are so crass and loud-mouthed.
But as soon as Hero arrived, he knew he'd picked a corker. The way the light shone off her capacitive touchscreen, the smoothness of her trackball and that divine pixel count. Hurrah! It was all off to a great start.
Sat on her own one night, Hero felt the airwaves jump with an RF pulse. Oh my, she murmured, he's texting me. Then, with a vibration that built up from deep inside her and worked its way out, she emitted a chirping noise and a shiver of kinetic energy.
"Oh my God!" she exclaimed, as she realised what she'd been sent. A diamond ring, with dear love from her beau. "It's huge," she thought, "he really must be doing well." Little did she know that iPhone was incredibly wealthy indeed. Even MMS messages wouldn't tax his multi-billion dollar bank balance in a hurry.
The pair wasted no time in tying the knot. Before long, they had booked their church, decided where to go on honeymoon and put down a large deposit on their first home together: a charming place with all the USB ports and screen-cleaning cloths they would ever need.
Their contacts had all been emailed, texted and called with the correct date and, in the case of iPhone, provided with an iCal entry to remind them of the big day.
Bursting with happiness, they walked together down the aisle, handshaking RF protocol in handshaking RF protocol, ready to ride off into the sunset together.
The ceremony was conducted by their old friend the BT Converse 120, a deeply religious device. He might be a little old-fashioned, with some out-dated ideas about who should sync with whom and so on, but he was a good egg, and capable of dialling numbers with the best of them.
In his gentlest dial-tone, he declared them smart phone and smart phone and that was it: they were one, paired forever, inseparable until the day they're recycled.
The first time you sync with another phone is always a tense moment. Will your data rate be too much for her to handle? Will there be an unexpected force close?
As much as iPhone loved Hero, he couldn't ignore the fact that she was less stable than him. It was only recently that he'd tried to access her voice search, and she'd just crashed. Fell over, without any warning. She wasn't the same afterwards either -- she needed a full reboot before she was back to the phone he fell in love with.
Once again, his worries were groundless -- she accepted his input gratefully, even greedily, and together they made sweet noise late into the night.
With their nuptials declared and their relationship consummated, the pair headed off to their tropical honeymoon. iPhone slept for most of the flight out, drained from a night's activity, but Hero stayed awake, unable to sleep in her state of marital bliss.
And all too soon they were there. The sandy beach filling their charging and data ports and a gentle splash of the waves against their protective holiday housings. This was a love story that would endure the ages -- or at least the next 18 months...