So while technically the iPhone is a computer, with a microprocessor that executes instructions, primary and secondary storage, and so on, the device has more in common with the traditional telephone and television, because it can be used for communicating and consuming content, but not general purpose computing.
I'm not an iPhone developer, but from what i understand you can write apps to do about anything and run them yourself - just not distribute them on the app store.
It's no fun dropping a $1000 phone in the toilet or down the stairs.
A lot of people forget this.
It did seem like a big purchase initially. I used it for 6 years of college. I mainly used it for word processing. It never skipped a beat.
Once every two years, I would need to re-ink the ribbon with ink myself. Just dipped the ribbon into the bottle, and rewind. I was too cheap to buy a new ribbon.
Besides the initial outlay, I spent $2.00 days on ink in six years.
If I had foresight, I never would have thrown away a great computer. I miss the word processor program. I definetly miss that dot matrix printer. (I never told anyone at school about my about my computer. I felt like I was cheating. Not one professor noticed the dot matrix print type.
What people miss about old hardware from the days was everything was built like tanks.
The thought of buying a new computer every two years was unthinkable. In my world, it's still unthinkable.
I really believe we have been duped by the industry--on all levels.
The way phones are financed makes them much more attainable, also. The way people will get that $1000 phone today is paying $2-400, and then $35 a month, folded into their phone bill, for 2 years. That's reasonable for anyone with decent enough credit to get standard wireless service. Not most of the US population, perhaps, but definitely the same demographic as the people already buying $800 Samsungs or previous iPhones, which is tens of millions of people.