The Twelve Days of iPhone News in Review, 2009

Oh sure, this time of year everyone likes to rehash stories from the year in review that were crucially important at the time but that you have forgotten completely about. That kind of story takes research and time, something that is in short supply right now, I've been drunk off eggnog for the last week.

What, you want a quick rehash of the stories from last year? Okay. Steve Jobs returns to Apple after a transplant, iPhone 3GS, OS X is updated to Snow Leopard, iTunes goes DRM free and Tim Cook is a soulless automaton that can run Apple with ease in when Steve Jobs call it quits. There you have it, your Apple year in review.

That brief list seems less than satisfying, like a bowl of chicken noodle soup missing half the noodles and all of the chicken. Sadly, those are all the worthy stories. Well, there was one over-arching story throughout the year: The iPhone can't be stopped. Whether it is the supposed iPhone killers, jailbroken phones or Apps, Apple is all about the iPhone. That story works better, unless this 100 proof eggnog is lying to me, in verse.  So start singing to the tune of the 12 days of Christmas:

The 12 Days of iPhone News in Review, 2009

On the first day of Christmas my iPhone gave to me

1 Lame joke thanks to AT&T (no link, video taken down)

On the second day of Christmas my iPhone gave to me

2 Blackberry Storms (click)

On the third day of Christmas my iPhone gave to me

3 Palm Pres

On the fourth day of Christmas my iPhone gave to me

4 3GS iPhones

On the fifth day of Christmas my iPhone gave to me

5 Spec sheet battles

On the sixth day of Christmas my iPhone gave to me

6 Motorola Droids

On the seventh day of Christmas my iPhone gave to me

7 Jailbroken OSes

On the eighth day of Christmas my iPhone gave to me

8 MyTouch ads

On the ninth day of Christmas my iPhone gave to me

9 iPod touches

On the tenth day of Christmas my iPhone gave to me

10 Cracked screens

On the eleventh day of Christmas my iPhone gave to me

11 Pointless lawsuits

On the twelfth day of Christmas my iPhone gave to me

12 Marketing failures (and a cartridge in an Apple store).

Okay, it an overused joke but the song lends itself to (in this case) really bad reworkings. Still, the world of Apple and, seemingly, the larger world, revolves around the iPhone. It isn't what any other phone does or doesn't do it is all about being compared to the iPhone. You could come out with a landline phone with a rotary dial and people would say that the clicking sound when the dial spun is soothing but until you could play Let's Golf the dominant opinion would be that you're just using it because you don't want to pony up for an iPhone.