So I was with my wife last night at my daughter's 30-minute-long junior high school band concert. I took a couple of pictures of the scene with my Iphone 4s, including an obligatory panoramic shot using iOS 6's new panorama feature. A  few minutes later, I watched the approximately 12-year old girl in front of me recording video of the proceedings with an iPad. In the back of my mind, I had been aware of how my "sweep of the arm" panorama capture could have possibly been perceived by those present (trying to show off my tech-savvy, my "iOS6-edness", etc.). But watching a "tween" hold up a full-color, 11-inch display, only one row in front of me like it was a very large, very shaky flip-phone, the absurdity of the visual overcame me, and I was a little bit embarrassed for her. Not that she wanted or needed me to be, but I was, nonetheless. She couldn't care less. Her parents didn't care. Had she been able to see it from my perspective, I still doubt she would care. Such is the blessing of being young and carefree (not that I would remember).
My mind, being the dry-humored mind that it is, decided that it needed to satirize the moment by figuring out how to take it to the next level. Here is what I came up with:
"Honey, I have decided that from now on, I am going to only take panoramic pictures with my iPhone. After all, it is the logical next step in the evolution of photography."
I can't remember exactly how I got across to her that I was only kidding (maybe being married to me for 16 years did the trick). I told her to imagine that we were taking group pictures at some event, and I said "Say cheese!" Then I did the slow panorama arm-sweep with my phone, "capturing" much more than what would have been necessary to get the imaginary group posing in front of me. We laughed.

The really funny thing about this is that the latest new fads are indistinguishable from a jokes like this (where something sort of cool is taken to the absolute extreme).
Example: "From now on, I am going to do all my blog posts from my phone, each of 140 characters or less. After all, it is the logical next step in the convergence between blogging and mobile technology."
or
"Virtualization is good; let's virtualize servers.  And telephones (Skype, etc). No, on second thought, let's virtualize a whole laptop (chromebook). No, on third thought, let's virtualize everything (the Cloud)."
or
"Multi-player is good; let's make everything multiplayer. Even appointment reminders (flash mobs), and blogs (Web 2.0) and handheld games (literal).
or
"Streaming video is good. We finally got network latency that is so low that someone could virtualize an entire massively multiplayer game on the server, and just send the streaming video of the results back to the player (Onlive). On my tablet. Or phone.
or
Tablets are good. From now on, we will develop an OS only suitable for tablet computers, even for desktop and laptop computers. We will allow people to open a desktop UI if they want to, but every time they try do anything at all, we will yank the desktop UI away and shove the tablet UI back into their face. After all, it's just the next logical step in the evolution and convergance of evolution and convergance.

Wait...

Installing iOS 6

I admit, I have historically been a bit behind when it comes to wireless technology. I didn't get my first cellphone until 2004, and even then, it was one of the previous year's models (Sony Ericcson candy bar phone) that only cost a penny with a 2-year subscription. My next upgrade was a Windows Mobile (it came with Windows Mobile 5, but I quickly upgraded it to Windows Mobile 6) Samsung Blackjack (1)-This was probably a week before the Blackjack 2 phones came out, and I got my Blackjack 2 for a penny. A few years later, I graduated to a genuine Smartphone, one of the smallest android phones ever made, which also had 2 or 3 names, depending on who you ask. It was an HTC Intruder/Aria/Liberty. I got it for a penny (don't act surprised). It ran Android Froyo, which I quickly upgraded to Gingerbread. Then, I graduated to a real smartphone with a real screen and battery, the HTC Inspire (got it for a penny on Black Friday or Cyber Monday, I forget which). It was a single-core processor phone as dual-core processor phones were coming out. It came with Gingerbread. I rooted it and put a custom ROM on it, but I don't think I got ICS on it in the process. Before I had that phone for very long, my new job (at the time - March 2012) got me a phone, and my choices were basically either Blackberry or iPhone 4S. I went with Apple, gave the Inspire to my wife (as hers had been dropped resulting in her camera only taking X-rays instead of photographs), and I made my backup phone my small HTC Aria.
So, although I didn't get it until it had been out for nearly 6 months, I had the latest Apple phone. I am moving up in the world.
Only having my iPhone 4S for 6 months, I know I won't be one of the first to get an iPhone 5. But I am one of the first to get the associated iOS6!
As of yesterday, iOS 6 launched. I checked during the day, and no software update was available on my phone. Last night, it was available, but kept timing out.
This morning, I started downloading it. I had to leave for work, and I knew it would likely not continue to download without wi-fi, so I had to turn on the wireless hotspot feature on my HTC Aria to keep the download going while I drove to work.
It unpacked for a long time, then installed, then rebooted.

It finally finished the reboot. Can't wait to take it for a spin!