Man With the Golden iPhone
If your Rolex is looking a bit dull, you might want to consider a 24 carat gold iPhone, soon to be available for consumers geeks with more distinguished taste. Apparently, a company called GoldStriker is responsible for this. And according to the article from Pocket-Lint, there is already a gold MacBook and iPod Shuffle. Oy.
This is actually an interesting commentary on Apple products as status symbols. For a while now, they’ve been carving out a niche as the ‘luxury’ computer brand, combining ultra-sleek design with a higher-than-yours price tag. Much like with cars or with a fine suit. Specifically, when the iPhone launched this summer, it became the wow object of geek lust for everyone, not just the usual computer set. Here in New York, for example, people would gawk at the phone over the shoulder of subway riders, for example. No one asks questions, of course, because it’s New York, and that’s how we roll. According to Kevin Rose of Digg, having an iPhone on your table at a bar/restaurant was an invitation for women to come up and flirt with you — kinda like having a baby in Central Park.
But is gold going overboard? I’d say so, especially considering the short half-life of consumer gadgets. Yes, you can probably reclaim the gold and use it for something else, but what a headache. Yet I have the feeling that anyone shopping for a gold phone isn’t thinking that far ahead. Still, it helps solidify Apple’s image as the maker of luxury electronics — a brave new category of consumption.
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