ME exec ed Tim Green on how Steve Jobs stole his wife.
Big week in mobile. Positive numbers from AdMob, new Samsung Android phone. But trumping that lot was this: Mrs Green got an iPhone.
Oh, she has enjoyed the last few days. Pushing her sleek touchscreen in my face and taunting: "C'mon, let's see you scroll through your photos without using your so-called numeric keypad. Oh, you can't do it on your N95? Okay, just download Urban Spoon then. Can't to that either? But I thought you were the mobile professional and I was just a clueless civilian. Not any more! Bow down before my motion-sensitive majesty!"
Needless to say, I did prostrate myself. I'm a married man. It's what we do. But not before I meekly retorted with "my camera is clearly superior to yours, and I can send an MMS – and I know how much you love to send one MMS a year." Truthfully, my heart wasn't really in it. And anyway she'd already left the room.
What you've got to remember is that my fragrant wife cares little about J2ME and WAP billing. I know for a fact she has never once used O2 Active or, indeed, ever visited a mobile internet site. She has always seen the mobile phone as having two uses: texting and receiving calls that she fails to answer because the phone is at the bottom of her handbag under an empty bottle of perfume and some lists she's made.
While she was initially drawn to the iPhone purely by its design and UI, in just a few days she's been wholly won over by apps and web browsing. Being married to a mobile content evangelist for 17 years made no difference to her mobile habits whatsoever. Then along comes Steve Jobs and it's all change in a matter of hours.
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There you have it. I've seen the iPhone revolution in my own home this week.
I called to tell her I was writing this piece. It went to voicemail.
