The iPhone SE won’t get off my mind. Partly it’s because I’m in pain thanks to some long-needed nasal surgery and gooned on opiates, and in need of distraction, but partly because the reviews are starting to trickle in and they’re uniformly just what I’ve hoped for: a premium phone at a better price point that makes no meaningful concessions and gives you a quart in a pint pot, with significantly better battery life. And after fiddling with an old 5S for a couple of days because of the reduced dexterity the drugs gave me, I’ve come to realize that the beginnings of joint pain in the first knuckle of my middle finger on both hands is probably down to gripping an iPhone 6 for a year and change.
But my iPhone 6 got unlocked and I got my 703 number, two of the biggest things that made me want a new phone in the first place, so the traditional urge to need the things I want isn’t there, and it’s a tough one to justify. There are a lot of things like that floating around lately. The new solid-color Rickshaw Sutro backpacks are only $99, half what they usually cost – but I have two messenger bags more suited for carry-on and don’t carry my laptop back and forth at work enough to need a bigger backpack than the tiny Timbuk2 I’m currently using. I really like the retro-60s-NASA-engineer-in-short-sleeves look of the Warby Parker Ames frames, but I have a pair of prescription glasses I spent way too much on three years ago and don’t wear enough as is. I really REALLY like the look of the new Coast, the classic single-speed beach cruiser by Priority Bicycles which is belt-drive and basically salt-and-weather-proof, but I don’t ride my Public M8 enough as it is. The Apple Smart Battery Case would easily double the life of my iPhone 6…which I’m trying to talk myself out of using, and which has one battery case and half a dozen battery packs in the drawer already.
This led me to think of my Zippo collection. I haven’t carried a lighter regularly in a decade or more, but the Zippo is one of our greatest technological achievements: simple and elegant, made in Bradford PA since 1932, a wind-resistant source of fire with only a flint and almost any flammable liquid. It’s as perfect a device fit to purpose as exists. And in so many ways, so is the Coast. So is the Sutro. So is the iPhone SE. The draw of that ideally suited perfect fit is compelling even when what I already have and use is 85% of the way there. Unlike the phone, though, it’s safe to assume my Timbuk2 and Rickshaw messengers will last a lifetime unless deliberately damaged, as will my new California cap or my Navy surplus peacoat or my Alden boots.
But if anything happens to my work phone, at all, a rose gold iPhone SE in the midnight blue leather case is going in my pocket in a heartbeat, believe that.