Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Infinite Jest and the iPhone

Apple’s new iPhone offers FaceTime. Says Apple,

People have been dreaming about video calling for decades. iPhone 4 makes it a reality. With the tap of a button, you can wave hello to your kids, share a smile from across the globe, or watch your best friend laugh at your stories — iPhone 4 to iPhone 4 over Wi-Fi. No other phone makes staying in touch this much fun.
This FaceTime video tugs at eleventyteen human heartstrings in under two minutes. It would appear that no one at Apple is daunted by what David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest has to say about “video telephony” and “good old voice-only telephoning.”

comments: 2

stefan said...

I just got to this part of Infinite Jest and had the same thought as you about efforts to market the new iPhone. I have only four words (or two hyphenated words) to add: full-body videophone-masks!

Michael Leddy said...

See? You should be blogging. :)