Girlie phones

Many moons a geek at the BBC used to try to wind me up by calling Macs Fisher Price computing. I used to wind him up by saying that I took that as a compliment as it meant well designed, easy to use and fun.

Several times now women who I barely know have seen me using my iPhone and come up to me saying they have one and how much they love it. Not just like it - LOVE it.

In the same inversion of it's possible sexist use I reckon the normally disparaging epithet "girlie" is high praise indeed for a bit of kit.

Comments

[Colin Amaral]

WOW, not only have I heard the iPhone is a good piece of kit, but now I have a pickup line.

[Jon Husband]

I've always found it interesting, and inspiring in an odd way, that it seems that if a man gets a new car or talks about the possibility of buying one, the first question from many women seems to be "oh, well, what colour is it, then ?".

I've often wished I could experience the world, in depth, from inside a female head and heart. I'm reasonably sure the world looks quite different from there.

[Jackie Danicki]

I think part of this is due to the fact that the vast majority of mobiles are clearly designed by men, for men - anyone with fingernails of any length will have a problem. I have found this to be annoyingly true of my Nokia N95, for which I have had to reduce my nails of very modest length to downright shortness. Grrr.

That said, no machine has angered and wound me up like my Mac Mini. For true Fisher Price computing, I reckon one needs to look to the Eee PC. :)

[meeware]

Geek, moi?

M'okay, so I they're gorgous, but don't you feel it's a little stiffling to have such a close, monolithic vertically integrated corporation looking after your music, computing and communications? I'm not saying the results are poor- they're patently excellent- but there's a massize disjoint between the structure of the mac proposition and the rest of the tech world.

Having said all that, I'm teetering right on the edge of getting a mac laptop- probably not an air though.

[Earl Mardle]

Face it, you're just loving the idea that its a CHICK MAGNET, AND so much cheaper then a Ferrari

[Gemma]

But what, in all fairness, is a girlie phone? Aren't girls just looking for a phone that does its job well and keeps them up to date, like any man would want too?!
I don't know many women who go phone shopping and ask "I want the pinkest, sparliest one you've got!"

You might say mine looks pretty macho (the HTC Touch Diamond) but it's got all the tools that the modern, working woman needs. GPS, internet access, camera, etc... here's a full review if anyone's interested!

http://www.mypocketpcmobile.com/FullReviewHTCTouchDiamond/tabid/247/Default.aspx

Gemma

[Euan Semple]

That was the whole point of my ironic title for the post Gemma!